The Embassy of Hungary was
home Saturday evening to an unorthodox musical event: Instead of the
classical fare Embassy concertgoers are used to, the Ambassador of Hungary,
Andras Simonyi, and friends served up a set of rock classics from the '60s
and '70s. Ambassador Simonyi was joined on stage by U.S. Ambassador to the
Russian Federation, Alexander Vershbow on drums, Assistant Secretary of
State Lincoln Bloomfield on bass, and Dan Poneman of the Scowcroft Group on
guitar. The band also featured legendary guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, formerly with Steely Dan and the Doobie
Brothers.
The five-piece was named C.J.T.F.: The Coalition of
the Willing after the NATO acronym for "Combined Joint Task Force".
Ambassador Simonyi and Ambassador Vershbow are both former Permanent
Representatives of their respective countries to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization in Brussels.
The set list included classic songs from the
sixties and seventies, some of them sung in Hungarian. Jeff Baxter led the
band through a blistering rendition of Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That
Number", a track whose 1974 original he had played on. Jimi Hendrix's "The
Wind Cries Mary" was prefaced and put into proper historical context by
Eddie Kramer, the renowned sound engineer who had worked with Hendrix on
all his studio albums.
The event was the second in a series of rock-related
events involving the Embassy and was intended as a follow-up to Ambassador
Simonyi's November 8, 2003 speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
Cleveland, OH, entitled "Rocking for the Free World: How Rock Music Helped
Bring Down the Iron Curtain." The Ambassador's intention in giving that
speech, and organizing Saturday's concert, was to highlight the influence
American and British rock music had on his generation and, ultimately, on
Hungarian and Eastern European history.
The concert was sponsored by Emmis Communications, owner
of Sláger Rádió in Hungary, and Guardian Glass.
