Whether in '99 at the Hippie Festival in Burg Herzberg or in '76 at the Nancy Jazz Pulsations, whether at the Leverkusener Jazztage '98 or at the renowned Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival in New York '99 - the impression that the French musical formation Magma, led by the exceptional drummer Christian Vander, leaves on fans of the genre as well as on the curious uninitiated is overwhelming: sitting between all musical stools for 45 years and therefore uncategorizable in a few words, it showers its captivated audience with a tonal mixture inspired by both classical occidental modernism (Orff, Stravinsky) and the jazz trends of the 60s and 70s.