Payazen! has been on a seemingly endless tour since 2009. They’ve wooed Tuscan beauties, and in dark Irish bars men have see their wives beautiful again as they turned and hitched their skirts to enchanting Yiddish melodies. In European concert halls, enraptured audiences listened with bated breath to the exquisite agony of every joyously melancholic note, and in Budapest gin joints the throng was driven into a frenzy of delight fuelled by ferocious and virtuosic rhythm and melody. A distinct new style has emerged, based in the tradition of Eastern European klezmer, gypsy, and Balkan music, but with their own contemporary edge.
Violinist/trumpeter Dolan Jones and (bass) clarinetist Jason Alder bring beautiful arrangements and harmonies together with interweaving lines and improvisations, while Stephan Raidl's bass lines groove in ways that disturb the chaste. And when Andys Skordis kicks in with the percussion, the tide swells with the sea of bodies on the dance floor.
Bringing together their classical and jazz training, their tunes take traditional melodies and transform them into a new-wave blend with elements of folk-rock, free jazz, Indian Karnatic music, and the pure trance-like state of 1960's psychedelia.
QUOTES: "Don't worry you have your place in Paradise!! You can do what ever you want. How can G-d turn away those who play such beautiful music." -The Rabbi at the Purim Party
"Y'alright now boys, I brought ye my dinner and a pineapple... ...You'll have another pint now boys and we'll have a few more tunes. Yis are the best thing to happen to New Ross since Kennedy visited in 1963. We should build a fucking statue to yis on the quay!" -Richie Roach
Payazen! previous highlights include:
Aug '09 Tour of Italy
Dec '09-Jan '10 Tour of England & Ireland
Jun-Sep '10 Tour of England and Wales, including Glastonbury Festival
Dec '10 mainstage Paradiso, Amsterdam
Apr '11 Tour of Austria and Hungary, including playing on Radio Tilos 90.3fm
Aug '11 Tour of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, and Switzerland, including Bankito Festival, Radio Tilos 90.3fm, and invited guests to Ferrara Buskers Festival
Oct '11 Tour of Israel
May '12 Tour of Switzerland, Hungary, Czech & Slovak Republics