GONDA SEXTET "Samanenek" LP 1976 (Hungary)

This is not your usual jazz record. Janos Gonda is a leading figure since 1962 on the Hungarian jazz scene. His musical activity embraces a wide field; ranging from composing, through performing and from teaching to musical research. The GONDA SEXTET formed in 1972 and this influential album sidesteps from the special elements of european jazz to a more modern composed music, although the basic intonation of jazz remains present throughout the whole recording. "Shamanenek" (Shaman Song) is an exercise in style. Musical phrases influenced conceptually by ancient cultures flow everywhere; from ethnic elements to traditional jazz, modern composition, the blues, swing, free improvisation… all are inherent in the depths of the playing. The album's story is about the dramatic conflict of sensuality and spirituality in an ancient, cultic world. This is better symbolized in the opening track, where the choir of the Tibetan lamas dives into an oriental vocal solo, swept away by the entrance of a dialogue between fender electric piano and saxophone, slowly departing the archaic world and approaching 70ies European jazz stylings. Then come afro-cuban primeval rhythms, tribal percussive patterns from the islands of West Indies until the group reaches motives swinging upwards to suddenly fall like an avalanche and end the album in a rock influenced pulsation. In the closing section the playing ends in an upward arching eruption with sweeping dynamic. And this is the summation of the emotional and intellectual masterpiece of a record that "Samanenek" is: one of the most important east European jazz releases.

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