• List Price: $15.99  
• Your Price: $15.99
• In Stock: 39

You must login to place orders.




Not purchasing for a business? See our consumer site.

While he scans the skies, Mátyás Szandai also takes note of what is on earth, in the material world. He digs deep to lay down his compositional and conducting foundations. He researches primarily in himself. As a contrabassist, by virtue of his instrument he has long had both feet on the ground, and this groove-orientation is just as evident in this composer's CD. As is the fact that in his career to date he has, to coin a phrase, laid the foundation for a great many varied first-class musical constructions, and Mátyás Szandai himself is of course also imbued with these influences. Among his permanent partners in music we meet personalities like Archie Shepp, David Murray, Herbie Mann, Chico Freeman, Hamid Drake, William Parker, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Gerard Presencer, Chris Potter, or Zbigniew Namislovsky. However, on this disc the listener is only intermittently brushed by the wind of these influences. Over the years Mátyás Szandai has distilled a kind of musical essence from these inspirations, and now offers them to us in concentrated drops. In the line-up of his quartet the striking musical personalities come from different musical cultures, and what is more they all draw on several different sources. The guitarist Nelson Veras is of Brazilian origin, and Pat Metheny discovered him when he was a child prodigy. The tenor saxophonist Ricardo Izquierdo was born in Cuba, and is known mainly for trying stubbornly to renew his improvisation technique at every moment. The drummer Fabrice Moreau is French: he first tried to depict moods in paint and only later came to sound, where his self-taught musicianship led to an instinctiveness convincing for both big-name musicians and the audience too. The "branches" of these four musicians intertwined in the dense forest of the Paris jazz scene.

Track Listing

Press Quotes

Sadhana is an exceptional work of art and presents an engaging set of unique writing and playing. Beyond providing the strong compositional foundations, Szandai has also gathered a group of musicians around him who complement his ideas with aplomb. Here's hoping this won't be the last strike from this group.

     —Friedrich Kunzmann, All About Jazz