In Bruges at the weekend the first Belgian Jazz Meeting was held, an initiative the organisers declared aimed “to unite the jazz scenes of both parts of the country in one common objective: to firmly put Belgian jazz on the map of Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels and Europe, thus promoting mutual knowledge.”

Belgium over the last 15 months has faced the embarrassing problem of not having a government, something the politicians could learn about in terms of the process of bringing people together from the Meeting organisers, the De Werf Arts Centre, Flanders Music Centre, Wallonie Bruxelles Musiques and Jazz Lab Series. Next year the Meeting will be in French-speaking Wallonia “even Brussels”, the MC said cryptically, to mumbled comments from the audience. Held over three days the Friday night programme included five bands, followed by an early Saturday morning Carillon concert that acted as a prelude to the five Saturday-night bands. All the bands over the three days were selected by a 60-strong jury of Belgians.

The first two Saturday night bands at De Werf were piano trios – the Pascal Mohy Trio followed by De Beren Gieren. Mohy was described as raffiné (“refined”) in the introduction and played a basic if very educated warm up set, with a version of Coltrane’s ‘Crescent’ a highlight, leaving Fulco Ottervanger of De Beren Gieren to show a bit more attitude with some flashy high dive tinkling and avant licks. Reeds player Joachim Badenhorst was next and gave impressive technical circular breathing solo displays on the clarinet, tenor saxophone and bass clarinet which had its moments, but at times just seemed like practice routines. The evening came to a conclusion with two bands that had more to say. The first of these was Collapse, a quartet that used the template of Atlantic period Ornette Coleman to effect. Cédric Favresse’s wagging and wailing saxophone style was sufficiently different from the model of Ornette to carve a little bit of new ground for the group and trumpeter Jean-Paul Estiévenart showed lots of promise loading up his lines channelled through Don Cherry as if interpreted by Tomasz Stanko on a day off. Collapse, like so many young bands across Europe, are taking to Ornette’s music like never before, but perhaps their approach is a little too easy to read.

Hamster Axis Of The One-Click Panther were a different kettle of fish entirely. Dominated by the bar room swagger of Frederik Meulyzer who knew how to wig out and brutalise his drums, the One Clickers (or “the beasties” as the MC memorably described them) released Small Zoo earlier this year on the De Werf in-house label and they know what they’re doing but need hard gigging to get the rough edges roughened up.

Sunday’s two bands were radically different which just goes to show what a spread of styles was on offer. Rêve d’Eléphant Orchestra were deeply impressive in a thoroughly arranged way harnessing the moods of Debussy, the raucousness of Ellington’s jungle period, and the surreal wit of the nation. “If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream,” to quote that most famous of Belgians, René Magritte. Great rhythm section of two drummers and a percussionist plus bass guitar, with, alongside the presence of trumpet, superb instrumental prowess on tuba and trombone from Michel Massot. Tuur Florizoone and Mixtuur were the final band to perform, characterised by the earthy woodiness of Aly Keita’s balafon, African singing and Florizoone’s infectious accordion playing which received some of the best audience reaction of the Saturday and Sunday shows. Everyone came together.

– Stephen Graham