Rambling Alone
Look * May 6 * 2001

Many say of you that with your voice, you could be a world star. Would it entail extra effort to achieve that, or might it just happen on its own?
It can not happen if you just hang on to the dream like death; a lot of random factors have to come together. It is not easy either, because nowadays jazz has become too much of an instrumental genre; at festivals there is usually one vocal act for every 50 groups performing, and these are usually female singers who have made their name in New York.
You must be giving it a try anyways, since you have entrusted the promition of your new album to a Hungarian company that is pretty good at getting domestic albums out to the world market.
Yes, the company you are talking about is Stereo Kft., and they have already led my record to success in Japan.
Also, the cover of the CD is only in English.
That was done for the sake of simplicity, althoguh the Hungarian version is on the inside cover.
To what degree is your voice a gift you were born with, and how much of your current sound is the result of training?
Of course classical singing technique has to be mastered, then again you can not play the violin either. I still do voice training to this day, but the genre itself can be learned by listening to the old jazz greats. And beyond that, my university is the concert stage.
What are your thoughts on the new album?
One part of it is technical: this is not just a CD, but a CD-ROM as well. After the musical material there is a 10-minute concert film, and then there are interviews and reviews to read in English and Hungarian.

The other thing is that though I have always meddled with the lyrics a bit, and this time I have gone a bit further than usual. For example, I wrote my own English lyrics toa Duke Ellington orchestral piece called “Black Beauty”. And then there is an Otis Redding number that already had lyrics, but I added different words to it, and thus was born a piece entitled “Hitchcock”. And next there is the title song, which was originally a Serb urban folk piece, which did not have English lyrics until I wrote them.

The third thing I would mention is the so-called “extra verse”, when I develop my own song around a theme, and write lyrics to it. An example of this is “Fascinating Rhythm”. A number of people have said that they like the CD on the whole, crediting the fact that it is a well-constructed album.
You mentioned that you meddle with the lyrics; does this simply mean that you write extra verses for the songs or do you also make changes in the classic lyrics that everybody knows?
Yes, I often leave things out or add things; in other words I am pretty free with the raw material.
So you do not work with a composer, but you interpret the originals, or write new music yourself.
Yes, like a kind of airwaves-vampire, I avidly listen to radio broadcasts, an I try to use every tiny interesting snatch of song for my own ends. I do not stick only to the songs of the so-called jazz age, for example the Otis Redding number originated in the 50’s and 60’s. Getting stuck in the 20’s and 30’s would not like that because many people consider jazz to be a kind of musical nostalgia, and it really isn’t that.
Do you change the melodies and tempos? As I remember the Hungarian version of “Rambling Alone” from the 60’s, it was much slower than yours, a sort of dreamy song.
That is precisely one that didn’t change, because the tempo of the original was also very fast. Of course the fact that in the middle part it switches to a half-tempo, and then goes back to the original, this way my own idea. On the other hand “Blue World” was originally a slow, medium-tempo song, but I adapted it. First I added a completely free slow part, and then a faster tempo.
For me there are two more points of interest on this album; one is your version of the well-known melody “Take Five” with lyrics, and the other song “Johnny”, which I first heard from Vaya con Dios.
It surprised me as well to find that lyrics already existed for “Take Five”, which was written by Al Jarreau; but in my performance apparently the tone is much different from his. “Johnny” could be called an urban folk song, and it has lyics written in many languages.
Your perform with big-name professional jazz musicians, who have been your regular accompanists for long time. Who are they?
That band has Tibor Márkus on piano, Viktor Hárs on bass, István Gyárfás on guitar, Imre Kőszegi on drums and Béla Szalóky on fluegelhorn and cornet.
Were can you be seen and heard in the near future?
My next performance is on 31 May at 21:00 at the La Ventura Club (Krúdy Gyula u. 11), and then I’ll be at the Kalóztanya on 17 June. I’ll be at the Pepsi Island as well, althoguh I do not know yet which day. In the autumn we’ll continue the Akácos Udvar concert series (Akácfa u. 61).
“Rambling Alone” came out more than a half a year ago; can you tell us anything yet about your next production?
At least half of the next album is already in my head, so it is a never-ending process. When will it come out? Certainly not this year or next, because I have realized that it takes about two years for the songs to really take shape in concert


T.T.