I heard the Hungarian jazz and folk saxophonist — Mihaly Dresch — in Budapest one Christmas and I fell in love completely. I put the CD on and straight away his tone, control and dexterity was enough to make me get up out of my seat and turn the volume way up. I wanted to just be immersed in this music. But aside from his playing, his compositions are breathtaking.

The album, Quiet As It Is, from 2001, is my favourite. Along with his band, they capture something timeless, and for me, otherworldy – the melodies are based on Hungarian folk tunes, but the playing swings and is influenced by jazzers, like Archie Shepp (with whom Dresch collaborated) and John Coltrane. This stuff is really something else.

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I have to say I have always been a sucker for a band with an accordion, so when I meet the Minneapolis based Dark Dark Dark in Venice this summer and they not only had an accordion but an upright bass and a cello, I fell in love with their sound. This music is magnanimous, touching and intuitively narrative. It is some sort of mix between Eastern European folk music, jazz and a soulful piano singer, but it doesn’t get lost to any one category that could be used to describe it.

With talent beyond their years and humility to grasp their weight of their predecessors, Madrid’s Talk! have earned their salt as being the only active Hammond trio of young musicians in the city. While replacing the bass with an organ is nothing new, what sets Talk! apart is not innovation, but the unharnessed ferocity with which they pay ode to the beastly Hammond organ.

Talk! surges with the rhythm, precision, and pathos that gave life to 60’s jazz, stoking the coals that ignited organ giants like Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGrift, Jack McDuff, and Richard “Groove” Holmes. Their sound is dark and smoky, punctuated by fevered solos that send the crowd reeling. Talk! is Jon Sande on organ, Lucas Vázquez on guitar, and Beny Grooves on drums. In late April the boys will release their lauded first single-a 45 recorded completely on analogue by Spanish producer Carlo Coupé on the label Lontano Records.

People have drawn comparisons between Virus and Talking Heads. The Norwegian trio surely incorporates a lot of jazz, experimental, and metal (the band is a supergroup of sorts with ties to bands like Satyricon, Aura Noir, and Inferno) elements, but their distinct gothic rock sound has very little connection to David Byrne and company. That’s not to say that it doesn’t rule.

Primarily known as a jazz musician, John Lurie also is a prolific painter. His drippy style has something mysterious and even a bit creepy about it.

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The coolest band in Indonesia? I think so. White Shoes & The Couples Company describe themselves as a small band that is ‘influenced by Indonesian movie soundtracks from the 70s and inspired by the acoustic spirit of 1930′s classic jazz musicians’. But I like to think of them as carrying the torch for artists like Benny Goodman, Tahiti 80, and The Cardigans, all at the same time.

Listen to their track, Super Reuni.