Jazz musicians going places

Date: 17/07/1997

What's this? Eurocrats playing gigs in foreign places? Indeed, for the Euro-Jazz Quintet, a musical ensemble, has surprised itself by being selected to take part in the third Euro-Arab jazz caravan organised by the Damascus delegation of the European Commission in Lebanon and Syria.

Next month, the six-strong 'quintet' (five European Parliament officials and a translator from the Council of Ministers on vocals) will be joining the half a dozen other musical acts picked for concerts being arranged by the Commission as part of a campaign to promote the EU through cultural events in various parts of the world, including the Middle East.

Nobody is more surprised than Quintet guitarist Roger Brawn, an official in the European Parliament's College of Quaestors. “We are the only group from within the institutions. We just applied and were chosen. It's not really an inside job because none of us are in the Commission,” he said.

The Euro-Jazz Quintet regularly plays in Brussels and Strasbourg during Parliament sessions. It will be on stage in Beirut, Damascus and elsewhere during the tour in the first week of September.