Fifty Years of Belgian Jazz, Still Moving

Les Lundis d’Hortense turns 50 this autumn with five days of concerts, encounters, jam sessions and musical left turns across Brussels. From 30 September to 4 October, the long-running musicians’ association celebrates the people who have built Belgian jazz — not as a museum piece, but as a living, shifting and collective scene. From Jazz Station to Flagey, Le Senghor, Le Marni, Toots Jazz Club and even a church organ, this anniversary programme invites listeners to hear the city’s jazz history in the present tense.

A collective story, not a nostalgia trip

Les Lundis d’Hortense began with a simple frustration: Belgian jazz musicians wanted their work to be heard and recognised.

In the mid-1970s, artists including Charles Loos, Michel Herr, Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and Paolo Radoni helped launch a self-organised initiative in and around a villa in Hoeilaart. Different musical languages initially overlapped, but jazz quickly became the shared focus. Over time, the project grew into a durable collective force for the Belgian scene.

Fifty years later, Les Lundis d’Hortense is celebrating more than an anniversary. It is marking a way of making culture that remains essential: artists joining forces, organising their own platforms and creating the conditions for a scene to exist.

That matters in Brussels today. With cultural budgets under pressure and independent spaces often forced to fight for survival, the association’s history is a reminder that music ecosystems do not appear by magic. They are built through care, work, rehearsal rooms, venues, volunteers, audiences and people who keep showing up for one another.

Five days, six places, many directions

The heart of the anniversary takes place in Brussels from Wednesday 30 September to Sunday 4 October. Rather than gathering everything in one venue, Les Lundis d’Hortense spreads its programme across key places that have helped nurture Belgian jazz: Jazz Station, Flagey, Toots Jazz Club, Le Senghor and Le Marni.

There will also be a concert with organ at Église Notre-Dame aux Riches-Claires, giving the celebration a welcome detour away from the usual concert-room format.

The programme is built around original one-off encounters: special commissions, musical carte blanches, reunions between long-time collaborators, cross-generational combinations, jam sessions and a film screening. It is a strong response to the idea that jazz is only for specialists or people who already know the repertoire.

Jazz, at its best, is about listening in real time: taking a risk, responding to what someone else plays, getting lost for a moment and finding a new route together. That spirit runs through the anniversary’s emphasis on unusual combinations and live encounters.

Honouring the elders, leaving room for surprise

The celebrations will naturally bring back artists who have shaped the association’s history. But this is not a simple greatest-hits parade.

One opening-night event at Jazz Station sees guitarist Alain Pierre pay tribute to the recently departed artists Ralph Towner and Marilyn Mazur. The concert will combine compositions by Towner, Mazur and Pierre himself, followed by bassist Manolo Cabras’ carte blanche, La danza del suono.

The broader programme follows the same principle: acknowledge the musicians, spaces and relationships that made Belgian jazz what it is, while allowing newer voices, fresh partnerships and unexpected formats to disrupt the anniversary mood.

This mixing of ages, styles and practices is what makes the celebration more than a reunion for insiders. Whether you arrive with a well-worn record collection or simply want to discover how wide the word “jazz” can stretch, the festival offers several doors in.

Why this matters to queer Brussels

Jazz has always had room for improvisation, self-invention and people who do not fit neatly into fixed categories. That does not mean jazz spaces have automatically been inclusive or free of exclusion. Like every music world, they can reproduce hierarchies around gender, race, class, age and access.

But the collective approach of Les Lundis d’Hortense offers a meaningful model. It centres artists’ agency, collaboration and circulation instead of a single star system. For queer audiences and artists, that can resonate: community does not need everyone to sound alike or follow the same path. It needs structures where people can be heard, take creative risks and find collaborators.

The anniversary programme is not presented as a queer-specific event, but its commitment to exchange across generations and styles makes space for a broader audience than the usual jazz bubble. It is a chance to encounter a Belgian scene that is still evolving — and to experience music in venues that are part of Brussels’ cultural fabric.

A book for the next chapter

The birthday is also becoming a book. Coordinated by pianist and administrator Eve Beuvens, and written with contributions from journalists Jean-Pol Schroeder, Jean-Pierre Goffin and Jacques Prouvost, the publication looks back on five decades of concerts, collaborations, struggles and shared ambitions.

It brings together testimonies from people connected to Les Lundis d’Hortense, alongside their thoughts on the future. That future matters as much as the archive. A 50-year history is only useful if it helps make the next experiment possible.

After the Brussels celebrations, the anniversary will continue through autumn and winter with double bills in Lasne, Namur and Hamme-Mille, plus a new collaboration with the Forum de la Création Musicale during the Belgian Music Days.

Practical information

What? Les Lundis d’Hortense 50, a five-day celebration of 50 years of Belgian jazz
When? Wednesday 30 September to Sunday 4 October 2026
Where? Jazz Station, Flagey, Toots Jazz Club, Le Senghor, Le Marni and Église Notre-Dame aux Riches-Claires, Brussels
Programme: Original concerts, artist carte blanches, musical reunions, jam sessions, a film screening and cross-generational collaborations
Opening highlight: Alain Pierre’s tribute to Ralph Towner and Marilyn Mazur, followed by Manolo Cabras’ La danza del suono, Wednesday 30 September at 8pm at Jazz Station.jazzinbelgium
Beyond Brussels: Anniversary double bills continue in Lasne, Namur and Hamme-Mille during autumn and winter, alongside a collaboration with the Forum de la Création Musicale.welovebrussels
More information and tickets: Les Lundis d’Hortense’s anniversary programme

Fifty years on, the message remains beautifully direct: listen closely, make room for one another, and let the music keep changing shape.

KET Magazine is a community‑driven, non‑profit magazine run by volunteers and based in Brussels. You can find our other music and nightlife stories on ket.brussels, and you can always write to us to share your projects or pitch a story: info@ket.brussels