Local jazz festival underway. Wandered down to the mainstage, knowing very little about Bulgarian jazz. Interesting band, interesting singers. Perhaps just the act that I caught, but it seemed to be more about standards than the sort of experimental vibe that seems to be part of the tradition in Poland/Serbia (I happened to look through a recent history of Balkan jazz at the Lincoln Center library before I left, and I've found a few Balkan state jazz groups/esembles on Youtube, but that's about it. Basically clueless.) Very few solos, and the solos kept close to the melody. Capapble sidemen.
The old-school standards/songbook vibe was interesting. Balkan jazz works for the same reason that the Macbeth in Belgrade was so effective -- when the actual shadows in the culture are this intense, the art form expresses something almost primal. The gentlemen of the syndicate. And the music.
There's a Turkish-inflected jam going on at a restaurant within earshot as I write this -- that proximity has a lot to do with the culture here, I think. Green over red. Alongside the loyalty to the Orthodox to the east who helped them get free of the Sublime Porte and governance by distant purchased firman, there's also a certain sympathy of cultures, a certain cunning. (cf. "What do you suppose he meant by that?")
Southern Europe. Borderlands.