Album Review: Gabor Sabo’s Jazz Raga
By Lindsey Darden
Some things never lose their charm, and quite thankfully, art enthusiasts have made sure of that. Thanks to revivals, covers, and remakes, life has remained within or has been breathed into the classic and original, but there’s nothing quite like resuscitating the original itself. Such is the case with Hungarian jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo’s Jazz Raga, which, remastered and fresh as ever, sounds like it was released just yesterday. We should probably mention that “just yesterday” was 44 years ago.
Szabo was so influenced by the music of his homeland that he regularly incorporated folk and world music with West Coast jazz, which can be heard on Jazz Raga, his third studio album. On it, he harmonizes two different but equally complex components of music – the off-the-cuff, improvised, feel-it-within-and-go approach of jazz, and the musical “skeleton” of Indian classical music, also known as raga. The relationship between sound styles is so intimate, involved, and symbiotic. It would be this specific style that would go on to influence such musical artists as Carlos Santana and Beck.
The track ”Mizrab”, for instance, showcases Szabo’s intricate guitar work with a running percussion that incites the kind of calm comes with multiple all-expenses-paid trips to the day spa (one can dream). “Raga Doll” is a carefree, almost-breezy track with traces of coupling and love, which interestingly bleeds into the “we’ll do as we please [with the posse, perhaps?]” style of “Comin’ Around”. It would only make sense that these would be followed by a killer rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” (which employs the sitar in the prime spot – i.e., where Keith Richards’ guitar used to be).
A well-rounded album comes to the surface in a day and age where switching from radio station to radio station is like trying to find a pearl in a sea of oysters. Perhaps Szabo knew how high he set the bar by way of the largely instrumental album; perhaps he didn’t’. But needless to say it is an inspirational musical interpretation that – as long as there’s music – will retain relevancy for generations to come.
Jazz Raga is available via Light in the Attic Records.
Rating: 10/10
Track List
- Walking on Nails
- Mizrab
- Search for Nirvana
- Krishna
- Raga Doll
- Comin’ Back
- Paint it Black
- Sophisticated Wheels
- Ravi
- Caravan
- Summertime
