Man Doki - People In Room №8 (1997)

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Man Doki - People In Room №8 (1997)

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Born in Budapest, the drummer and bandleader of German descent László (Leslie) Mandoki belonged to the 1970s' student opposition in communist Hungary. Far beyond the system-conform mainstream, his Jazz-Rock formation "JAM" symbolized the longing for a free world. In 1975, he was forced to leave the country because of governmental repression. Accompanied by his two closest friends, László Bencker and Gábor Csupó, their flight was followed by a long odyssey. On his quest for freedom, he found more than that: a new home - in Germany.
In the "Golden West", after having been taught the hard way by the free market music industry, Leslie became established as a musician. After working as a singing drummer in various theatres, cafés with dancing and jazz festivals, he soon made a name for himself as a studio musician. As front man and lead singer of the band "Dschingis Khan", he then, almost unintentionally, won public recognition with no.1 hits in many countries and innumerable awards, gold - and platinum records. While being far away from his own artistic and musical visions, his years with Dschingis Khan have served Leslie as a kind of apprenticeship. His studio work and his first successes as a songwriter as well as dealings with various useful divisions of the commercial music industry finally enabled him to gain artistic freedom. In this time he made the acquaintance of many influential "men of action" of the music scene, who became friends over the years, such as Monty Lüftner, the founder of the BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group).

With his old school friend and so-called "muse twin", top arranger László Bencker, he founded the Park Studios in Munich, where he began to put his musical visions into practice with a small team under the name "Red-Rock Production". It was their perfectionism and hard work which brought Leslie and Laszlo their first gold and platinum records as well as various other awards as producers; at the time they worked on productions of such different artists as Engelbert, Placido Domingo, M.S.S.O. or Leslie's companion at the time, Ami Stewart, an American disco-singer with two international no.1 hits.

At the opening festivities of the Olympic Games in Seoul, Leslie sang alongside a number of world stars; the Mandoki/ Bencker- song became a no.1 hit in Asia.

Many years of common experience have turned Leslie Mandoki and Laszlo Bencker into a well-attuned team; as graduate musicians they are open for different styles and genres, true to their motto: "Music is a matter of taste; recording is a matter of dedication and professionalism." In the course of the years, many artists coming from the most diverse musical backgrounds have put their trust into Leslie and Laszlo, for example Milva, Karel Gott, Howard Carpendale, but also Kenny Loggins, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Jermaine Jackson, Pia Zadora, and many others.

In their studio work and the resulting music production, Leslie and Laszlo finally found a way to realize their original artistic vision. Leslie never let go of his passion for his artistic roots, the jazz-rock of the 1970s and intellectual pop music. Consequently, alongside his various productions, he created the Man Doki project featuring Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Jack Bruce (Cream), David Clayton-Thomas (Blood, Sweat & Tears), Bobby Kimball (Toto), multiple Grammy-winners Michael and Randy Brecker, Pino Palladino (Elton John, Billy Joel, Phil Collins), Nik Kershaw, Steve Khan, Al Di Meola, Bill Evans (Miles Davis Band), Larry Coryell, Anthony Jackson (Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Bee Gees, Chick Corea) and Victor Bailey (Madonna, Weather Report, Mary J. Blige). These old and close friends of Leslie's were joined by Chaka Khan, Steve Lukather (Toto), Guru (Jazzmataz) and Joshua Kadison to work on the album "People In Room N° 8" which was introduced to the public in Thomas Gottschalk's "Wetten, dass…" , Germany's most popular TV- show, and reached high positions in the charts, thus creating the first peak of this series later to be summarized in the retrospective album "SO FAR…". The Man Doki project represents the realization of a musical vision, which has always been oriented towards high quality rather than zeitgeisty mainstream values, aiming to define - also from an idealistic point of view - the balance between form and content.

In the year 2002, Leslie Mandoki once again gathered his artistic "community of values", this time accompanied by Manfred Mann's Earth Band singer Chris Thompson, to continue the Man Doki project. For the album trilogy "Soulmates", which includes a studio album as well as a remarkable adaptation for a string quartet and the "Jazz Cuts" record with many director's cuts and live recordings, Leslie Mandoki once again won great interest of the media and high praise by his critics. The "Soulmates" album didn't fail to succeed in the charts either; right after its release it hit the Top 40 album charts in Germany and remained there for over 2 months. The release of the following 2 albums of the trilogy ensured another chart entry of the concept album "Soulmates" months later.

In the following period, the Man Doki Soulmates played a number of widely noticed and successful concerts with different line-ups. Thereby some unique film and video footage was created, which would soon form the basis for the Man Doki Soulmates DVD "Absolutely Life", which reached seventh place of the DVD Charts as soon as it was released in 2003.

In April 2004 Mandoki once again proved himself to be a real show-stopper, when he served as musical director of the ZDF (Second German Television) broadcast TV show "50 Jahre Rock" (50 Years Of Rock), presented by Thomas Gottschalk.

Parallel to the TV broadcast the CD "50 Jahre Rock" was released and immediately reached the top of the charts, where it remained for several weeks.

In the year 2005, the "50 Years Of Rock" line up participated in the Bambi-awarded ZDF (Second German Television) fundraising gala for the victims of the Tsunami. Leslie Mandoki was also in charge of one of the telephone lines for donations during the charity show, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the TV show with the highest amount of received donations ever. The final song of the Charity Gala was also performed by the Man Doki Soulmates featuring Jon Lord, Greg Lake, Paul Carrack, Ian Anderson, Bobby Kimball and greatly successful young shooting-star Katie Melua.