Àbáse perfectly understood the assignment for the 11 pm slot at XJAZZ! festival’s Berlin Focus Day, gearing the crowd up for moving to the club after. With varied musical influences and reference points from Afrobeat, Yoruba rhythms, hip-hop, to dance music—take a sip for every dub siren for a superb drinking game—the high energy at Festsaal Kreuzberg was undeniable. Meditative saxophone and flute melodies floated over thick, percussive grooves, locking the room into a hypnotic sway. The set was a masterclass in tension and release: moments of deep introspection giving way to collective euphoria.
But who, or what, is Àbáse?
The name appears on festival posters, club nights, and vinyl sleeves, sometimes as a full band, sometimes as a solo performance, sometimes as a DJ set. It’s the brainchild of Hungarian-born, Berlin-based musician and producer Szabolcs Bognár, but it was never just about him. “Initially, the idea was to keep it a bit mysterious and without a front face,” he tells me over coffee at Pastiche, a café/record store hybrid where he’s crate-digging for his next DJ gig. “In my formative years, I listened to artists like Quantic or DJ Shadow. Artists where you didn’t really know who was behind the project. Take Yesterday’s New Quintet, for example. When Madlib did that project, there was no Internet, so you had no reference. All you really had were the credits on the vinyl or CD cover.”
Photo by Stanislife
In the age of social media, the idea of the incognito artist doesn’t really work anymore — or at least it’s not advised by your average music PR strategist. Still, a sense of mystique lingers: Àbáse is an artistic frame as much as a project — a space for Szabolcs to develop his vision on his terms, but always with an open door. “I wanted to be free of constraints and able to collaborate with whomever.” The word ‘àbáse’ itself comes from Yoruba and means ‘collaboration’ — a fitting moniker for a project defined by fluid line-ups and cross-continental influences.
In Berlin, he has immersed himself in a community of artists and frequent collaborators who are currently shaping the sound of the city’s new improvised live music scene. Headlining the XJAZZ! Festival on its Berlin Focus Day is just one of many testaments to that. Szabolcs has nothing but kind words for his many collaborators, including drummer extraordinaire Ziggy Zeigeist and Wayne Snow with his strong, soulful vocals — both crucial companions when he moved his career and life to Berlin and still sharing the stage with him on the regular, including the show at XJAZZ!.
Fresh Takes
Finding his own style was a journey in itself. Before a transformative trip to Brazil, where he recorded his debut album, Laroyê, Szabolcs admits his artistic practice was closer to imitating other artists. “It was really in Brazil that I came up with the concept. I encountered Brazilian music, and I started to incorporate it into my work. That’s when I realised that I now had something special enough.”
Given that the project’s name is Yoruba and his debut album Laroyê is steeped in Brazilian and West African influences, the question of cultural appropriation naturally arises. When I bring this up in our conversation, Szabolcs is thoughtful and candid. “Falling in love with African and Brazilian music was part of my growing up,” he reflects. He describes his connection to these styles as deeply personal and rooted in years of genuine admiration and study, which is why he allowed himself this exploration, not as an act of taking, but of learning and sharing. Throughout his career, he has experienced support from the very communities he draws from, crediting collaboration and mutual respect as the foundation for his work.
While Szabolcs’s admiration for different musical styles remained steady, his approach to recording has shifted radically between projects, reflecting both his restless creativity and a desire to capture different energies. Àbáse’s first album was a sprawling, meticulously layered affair, the result of many impromptu recording sessions and years of work and endless production. “‘Layorê’ took four years and I grew very tired of Ableton and digital editing,” he admits.
In contrast, the follow-up, Awakening, was recorded in just a few days — live, raw, and with minimal overdubs. Working with Berlin’s Analogue Foundation, Szabolcs embraced the limitations of tape and the magic of first takes, rediscovering the joy of simply playing together in a room. The result is a record that crackles with immediacy, where small imperfections are celebrated as part of the story. Still, it took two years to bring the record to perfection: “By the time I finished ‘Awakening’, I started to miss making beats. So my next project is going to be a mix of both,” he adds. With a new shift on the horizon, Szabolcs hints at his next chapter: Both in conversation and on stage, he teases a forthcoming project inspired by Hungarian folk music — a deepening connection to his roots that seems to intensify the longer he’s away from home:
“I found myself being Hungarian from a new perspective, and a lot of inspiration in our local folk and cultural heritage. I want to explore that further and find a way to blend everything.“
Feeling First
Throughout all these changes, one constant remains: his love for instrumental music and the emotional storytelling it enables. This was on full display at XJAZZ!, not only in the powerful, wordless exchanges between musicians, but also when he invited Wayne Snow on stage, seamlessly weaving vocals into the set without ever overshadowing the ensemble’s collective energy. Whether instrumental or vocal, nothing felt missing or out of place.
Photo by Stanislife
“For me, it was always natural to connect to the feeling first, then the lyrics. I feel like instrumental music can convey just as much, if not more. When there’s so much room for interpretation, you can fill it however you want. That’s the beauty of it.”
Being born in 1991, Szabolcs was part of the first generation to come of age with the internet at their fingertips. “It only makes sense that we’re seeing this diffusion of genres,” he says. He absorbed the music of Fela Kuti and Herbie Hancock alongside American hip-hop and pirate radio mixtapes, before studying jazz piano at the conservatory in Budapest. But even as he immersed himself in tradition, he never saw himself as a purist. “I think the beauty of the genre lies in its diversity and its ability to adapt. At its core, jazz is improvisation, which also means that it’s up to people to interpret it.” For Szabolcs, jazz isn’t a static tradition but a living, breathing process: a way of being open, collaborative, and always in motion.
Alive and Evolving
When Àbáse moved to Berlin in 2018 and started organising shows together with Ziggy Zeitgeist, it was about creating spaces for the kind of groove-based improvisational music that he wanted to make. He remembers that Berlin had been missing this kind of infrastructure, and several different groups and crews evolved at the same time. The open, transient energy of Berlin provided fertile ground for these parallel communities to take root, each drawing from their personal backgrounds and influences. Szabolcs sees Berlin’s jazz scene as a first wave: “People came here just a few years ago from all different corners of the world, and they all bring their heritage. I play with people who were born in Brazil, Ghana, Australia, Croatia — you name it.”
Alongside growing community-led events, venues, and studios, festivals like XJAZZ! play a key role in uplifting this community. The festival’s ethos — openness, accessibility, and a commitment to breaking down genre barriers — mirrors Àbáse’s own approach. XJAZZ! has made a point of keeping events affordable and presenting jazz in settings that feel welcoming to younger and more diverse audiences. For Szabolcs, this is crucial: jazz should be alive and evolving, not locked away as a technical exercise for purists. He adds: “They do so much for the local community too, because they always give us a platform. We get to present our music on big stages in front of diverse, international audiences.”
Both for XJAZZ! and Àbáse, jazz is less a genre than a process. It’s a way of focusing on openness, collaboration, and always being in motion. This is why, ultimately, Szabolcs is comfortable with the label — not because it signals adherence to tradition, but because it represents a spirit of interpretation and inclusivity.
You can find Àbáse’s music on Bandcamp. Keep up to date with the artist via Instagram.