Janos Gonda Sextet: Shaman Song

Pepita SLPX 17484

Personnel: Janos Gonda, piano, electrical piano; Gabor Balazs, bass; Tamas Berki vocal, guitar, percussion; Istvan Dely, conga, percussion; Peter Kantor, soprano and alto saxes; Gyula Kovacs, drums, percussion. Also: Laszlo Dely, conga, percussion; Karoly Friedrich, trombone; Endre Sipos, Trumpet.

Janos Gonda, leading Hungarian jazz theorist, teacher, composer and musician has had to wait ten years for the release of his second LP. "Shaman Song" is a summary of his artistic development: a kind of individual synthesis of the idioms of jazz, the traditions of Hungarian music and the tonal realm of Far Eastern cultures. The stylized cultic and religious elements are combined here with the various motives of blues, swing, free, and rock. The pieces reveal the conscious and devoted efforts of Gonda to create his own language with a fine result. A rich world of thought and emotion.

(Jazz Forum, 1976/6)