Bega Blues Band is the longest blues jazz band in Romania. The band’s activity began in 1983 when Bela Kamocsa “Kamo” and Johnny Bota decided to evolve together at the Brass-Kronstadt Jazz Festival.
Bega Blues Band has participated at numerous festivals: Satu Mare – Jazz Festival in May 2010, Jimbo Blues – all 13 editions, Timisoara mica Viena – all editions, Blues for Timisoara – all 10 editions, Kamo Blues Jazz Gala all 25 editions. They also had tours in Transylvania, jazz clubs in Bucharest, ICR Austria, Portugal, Hungary and the Czech Republic as well as jazz clubs in Germany – Munich, Augsburg, Schwäbisch Hall.
The group launched in November 2015, at the Blues Jazz Kamo Gala, the CD called “Brassica Soup”, well received by critics and by the public. With the release of the album at Rich Mix Shoreditch, the sound of the band was described in the Central and Eastern European Review as “admiringly bathed in the roots of the genre”, “a generous fusion of Romanian ethos and transatlantic jazz in a mix with the right amount of funk, spiced singularly through Maria Chioran’s voice in the artistic expression of the Romanian musical heritage”.