GAUME JAZZ FESTIVAL 2026 : Maxime Blesin [Chorazz] ft. Greg Houben

[SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2026]

Initiated by Steve Houben, an original mix of choro, Brazilian music, and jazz standards that's sure to surprise.

Maxime Blesin, 5-string cavaquinho / Greg Houben, trumpet / Pierre Gillet, 7-string guitar / Renato Martins, percussion

Chorazz is a contraction of Choro and Jazz.

It all began in the late 2000s during a sweltering summer. Four friends got together in the studio for the sheer joy of playing. The music would be Brazilian. Without sheet music, without planning, they played jazz standards. The sound was immediate; Chorazz was born.

Then, time flew by. The recordings lay dormant on hard drives as life took its course. In late 2022, after the passing of Osman Martins and Steve Houben's retirement, Maxime Blesin rediscovered these forgotten sessions. The emotion remains undiminished: this music must live on. Today, Chorazz is reborn under the banner of lineage. Maxime takes up the cavaquinho, Pierre Gillet picks up the 7-string guitar, Renato Martins still provides the rhythm, and Greg Houben makes the trumpet sing.

More than a tribute, it's a passing of the torch. Pure, radiant, and soulful music that proves that the bonds of the heart are the most beautiful themes in jazz.

Choro (meaning "to weep" under the spell of so much emotion and beauty) follows the same path as Ragtime and other movements that gave birth to Jazz in the United States, namely a reappropriation of a European classical repertoire within a popular music with African and Native American influences. What was initially played on the piano has been adapted to other instruments: the pandeiro (a typically Brazilian percussion instrument of North African origin), the 7-string guitar (with an additional bass string for playing bass), the cavaquinho (a small guitar from Madeira), and so on. Today, it has its own repertoire and is at the origin of all so-called urban music in Brazil (samba, pagode, etc.). It is a common vocabulary for all Brazilian musicians.