Gabor Bolla - Find Your Way (2012)

Hungarian saxophonist Gábor Bolla, who was born in 1988, has an extraordinary musical background. As a child he was a virtuoso clarinetist, but didn t fall into any common categories. We gypsies play a bit of everything. Just like in jazz, we improvise a lot, but in a slightly different way, Bolla says. A career as a child prodigy followed: at only 15 he reached the semi-finals of the prestigious saxophone competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2003. Thereafter, all doors stood wide open for him. He was invited to the world-famous Vienna Art Orchestra as a guest soloist and played with US stars such as Johnny Griffin, David Murray, Kirk Lightsey and Gregory Hutchinson. In 2004 Bolla was honoured as Talent of the Year at the Hans Koller awards, a kind of Austrian Grammy which is very seldom given to non-Austrians. A year later his quartet received both the jury and the audience prize at the Avignon Festival. Gábor Bolla has had some impressive and defining stages in his life that are brought to bear on his ACT debut Find Your Way . Joining him on the piano is Robert Lakatos, his alter ego and musical soul mate. Bolla got to know the pianist at a jam session when he was 14. The quartet is completed by the Swiss jazz stylist Heiri Känzig on bass and by the world class drummer Jojo Mayer. In addition, the violinist Lajos Sarközi appears as a guest.


Tracklist:

1. Violin Concerto No. 2, 1. Movement
2. Hot Shrimps
3. Django
4. East Broadway Rundown
5. Visions
6. Passing Months
7. Evidence
8. Lail's Lament
9. Mornings of Budapest
10. Bemsha Swing
11. Sicktobre
12. Romanian Folk Dances No. 4
13. Find Your Way

Personnel:

Gábor Bolla - tenor & soprano sax
Robert Lakatos - piano, keyboards
Lajos Sārközi - violin
Heiri Känzig - bass
Jojo Mayer - drums