Bacchanal Szabo

Gabor Szabo: The Divided City; Three King Fishers; Bacchanal
From Bacchanal (1968)
Gabor Szabo - guitar
Jim Stewart - guitar
Hal Gordon - percussion
Jimmy Keltner - drums
Louis Kabok - bass

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“One of the most original, sweepingly lyrical guitarists… a singular phenomenon.”
~ Nat Hentoff

“More exotic and kinetic than any other flury in the past decade… he blends the sound of jazz guitar with echoes of Liverpool and images of India.”
~ Leonard Feathers

Gabor Szabo began his jazz career in 1961 by playing alongside Charles Lloyd in what was arguably Chico Hamilton's finest quintet. It was Chico who urged the young Szabo to incorporate more of his Hungarian heritage into his playing and helped him to begin crafting a distinctive sound that would eventually contain a potpourri of jazz, rhythm & blues, Gypsy and other Eastern influences.

In 1965 he left Hamilton’s group to play in Charles Lloyd's seriously underrated quartet, which, in addition to Gabor, featured Ron Carter and Tony Williams. A year later, Mr. Szabo began his own solo career with the album Gypsy Queen. The title track became something of a hit for him, after Santana appended it to his version of Fleetwood Mac’s blues-rocker “Black Magic Woman” four years later.

Gabor’s new band included the classically trained guitarist Jimmy Stewart who proved to be his perfect foil. Stewart’s guitar provided a sort of Middle Eastern drone, not unlike what John Cale did for the Velvet Underground or even more like Art Davis’ bowed bass on Coltrane’s “Ole”, but with a much more pronounced groove and a distinct psych flavor. At times Stewart uses feedback to create an almost theremin-sounding ambience on which Gabor can lay out his hypnotic, trance-inducing spell. And with the addition of a conga player, the band positively percolates funk.

Gabor Szabo was fully capable of the kind of cross-over fusion schmaltz that was endemic to this era. But, as these tracks will attest, he was equally capable of uncorking some of the most inventive and beguiling music of any era.

Read more about Gabor Szabo:
Gabor Szabo Biography