Mátyás Szandai Quartet - Sādhana (2019)

Fortunately, Matthias Szandai, a high-quality Hungarian bass player, is a frequent guest on the Opus stage, despite having been living and working in Paris for a long time. The artist, who has been featured on numerous BMC Records releases, including the Dresch Quartet, Tóth Viktor Trio, or Balázs Elemér Group, has not become unfaithful to the publisher, most recently with Bartók Impressions with Mathias Lévy violinist and Miklós Lukács cimbalmos. impressed the domestic and international audiences.

Even so, Sandai's recent performance will still be a special jazz treat for Opus visitors as it brings him closer to the realization of his long cherished dream. It is well-known that the Hungarian bass player is a sought after musician of the bustling jazz life of Paris, who constantly plays with the most prominent figures of the French and international jazz societies, to name just Christoph Monni, Mathias Lévy or Archie Shepp. This is how he got in touch with Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras, a couple of years ago, the ancient talent he discovered at the age of 14 in 1994, Pat Metheny, and who since 2004 has led his own quartet, has played alongside Lee Konitz, Aldo Romano, Dominique di Piazza, Michel Petrucciani, Gary Peacock, Mark Turner or Steve Coleman. Then fate brought him two other great musicians. One of them is Ricardo Isquierdo, a Cuban tenor saxophonist who has been living in Paris since 2001 and is known, among others, for his persistent stubborn pursuit of improvisation techniques with Franck Lacy, Michel Zenino, Hamid Drake, Manu Codjia, Jason Palmer, Jeff Ballard or Bojan Z. renewal. The other is the sensational French autodidact drummer Fabrice Moreau, who became known as a talented and reputable painter, and then slowly in a number of famous French bands - Jean Philippe Viret Trio, Guillaume de Chassy Trio, Edward Ferlet Quartet - and John Taylor, living in France, he appeared on the side of a recently deceased English pianist behind the drums.

In collaboration with these three prominent personalities from different musical cultures, Szandai has created a quartet to realize his own musical ideas that he has been planning for a long time. Composed discipline, virtuosity, Latin American temperament, lightness and elegance all play a role in this music. The team has been working hard over the past few months and as a result, the days after the Opus concert, they will be recording their debut album at BMC studio, which will be released at BMC Records.