Babos Gyula
guitar
Place of Birth
Budapest
Date of Birth
1949
Orchestra
26 June 1949 Budapest - 12 April 2018 Budapest
Guitarist, composer, arranger, and professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Gyula Babos was one of the best known personalities of jazz life in Hungary. He was hardly 17 when he won the Jazz Competition of the Hungarian Radio in 1966, and since that time his goal has been to make his mark on the international music scene with compositions rooted in Hungarian folk and Gypsy music. After joining and founding several groups (the Aladár Pege Quintet, Kex, Rákfogó, Kőszegi Rhythm and Brass, Saturnus, BDSZ Collection, the Babos Trio and Quartet) and participating in European jazz festivals, in 1989 he produced his first solo album, called In'n Out, which contains his own compositions, just like Blue Victory, his second release, recorded in 1994, with Victor Bailey, Terri Lyne Carrington, Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, and the late George Jinda. The album was released in twelve European countries. He made his third solo album for Sony Columbia in 1998, entitled Once upon a time..., which is the realization of his intention to fuse jazz with Hungarian and Gypsy folk traditions in his own way. The material was recorded with the Babos Project Romani. Babos introduced the group not only in Europe, but also in England and in Israel at the Red Sea Festival. Seventy-five Minutes Live is the second album of Babos Project Romani. It was released in 2004 together with the celebrated percussionist Trilok Gurtu. On this album, East-, West- and Middle-Eastern Europe meet in Babos' music. Besides recording and composing (film and cartoon scores included), he was also a producer for pop and contemporary artists. One of his greatest dreams was fulfilled when in 1991 he played with Frank Zappa in front of an audience of thirty thousand people in Budapest.
Bands:
1964 Futurama
1965 Kovács Andor
1966-1967 Pege Quintet (Aladár Pege, Vilmos Jávori, István Ungár, János Magyar)
1968 Junior sextet (Vilmos Jávori, Mihály Ráduly, Vilmos Lakatos, György Kürtösi, János Magyar)
1969 Pete Lanchaster and The Upsetters
1970 Kex
1972 Rákfogó
1975 Kőszegi Rhythm and Brass
1979-1983 Saturnus (Gyula Babos, Péter Dandó, Péter Gritz, Lakatos Béla Szakcsi)
1984 BDSZ Collection (Gyula Babos, László Dés, Lakatos Béla Szakcsi, Kálmán Balogh, Péte Dandór, Gábor Szende)
1985 Babos Trio Plusz (Gyula Babos, János Egri, Gábor Winand, Endre Berecz)
1989 Babos Trio (Gyula Babos, János Egri, Elemér Balázs)
1994-1996 Babos Quartet (Gyula Babos, György Szappanos, Béla Lakatos Jr., Gergely Borlai)
1995 Take Four (Gyula Babos, Rudolf Tomsits, Aladár Pege, Imre Kőszegi)
1997 Babos Project Romani (Gyula Babos, Gergely Borlai, Emilio, István Fekete, Viktor Hárs, Katalin Kunovits, Lajos Nagy)
2005 Babos Project Special (Gyula Babos, Lakatos Róbert Szakcsi, Öcsi Patai, Viktor Hárs, Gábor Oláh, Mónika Veress)
Concerts, Festivals:
1969–1970 Pete Lanchaster and The Upsetters—club concerts in Western Europe and the United States
1973 Warsaw Jazz Jamboree, concerts at university clubs with Kex and Rákfogó
1974 Nuremberg Jazz Festival
1975 Enger Jazz Festival
1977 Prague
1977–1983 Numerous concerts with pop bands (Neoton, Demjén, Zorán)
1978 Gábor Szabó TV show
1979 Warsaw
1988 Live performance with LGT and Saturnus at MTV Studio 4
1988 Sofia, Ruse
1990 Blue Victory concert at Petőfi Hall
1991 Farewell concert in Budapest with Frank Zappa
1992 Concert with James Moody at Petőfi Hall
1993 Tony Scott
1996 Rick Margitza – Debrecen Jazz Days
1996 Babos Quartet in Košice and Bratislava
1996 Kiskanizsa (Dezső “Ablakos” Lakatos, Aladár Pege, Imre Kőszegi)
1997 Marseille – Babos Project Romani
1998 Bucharest, Nagykanizsa – Babos Project Romani
Awards:
1991 eMeRTon Prize
2003 Gábor Szabó Prize
2005 Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic
2008 Liszt Award
Guitarist, composer, arranger, and professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Gyula Babos was one of the best known personalities of jazz life in Hungary. He was hardly 17 when he won the Jazz Competition of the Hungarian Radio in 1966, and since that time his goal has been to make his mark on the international music scene with compositions rooted in Hungarian folk and Gypsy music. After joining and founding several groups (the Aladár Pege Quintet, Kex, Rákfogó, Kőszegi Rhythm and Brass, Saturnus, BDSZ Collection, the Babos Trio and Quartet) and participating in European jazz festivals, in 1989 he produced his first solo album, called In'n Out, which contains his own compositions, just like Blue Victory, his second release, recorded in 1994, with Victor Bailey, Terri Lyne Carrington, Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, and the late George Jinda. The album was released in twelve European countries. He made his third solo album for Sony Columbia in 1998, entitled Once upon a time..., which is the realization of his intention to fuse jazz with Hungarian and Gypsy folk traditions in his own way. The material was recorded with the Babos Project Romani. Babos introduced the group not only in Europe, but also in England and in Israel at the Red Sea Festival. Seventy-five Minutes Live is the second album of Babos Project Romani. It was released in 2004 together with the celebrated percussionist Trilok Gurtu. On this album, East-, West- and Middle-Eastern Europe meet in Babos' music. Besides recording and composing (film and cartoon scores included), he was also a producer for pop and contemporary artists. One of his greatest dreams was fulfilled when in 1991 he played with Frank Zappa in front of an audience of thirty thousand people in Budapest.
Bands:
1964 Futurama
1965 Kovács Andor
1966-1967 Pege Quintet (Aladár Pege, Vilmos Jávori, István Ungár, János Magyar)
1968 Junior sextet (Vilmos Jávori, Mihály Ráduly, Vilmos Lakatos, György Kürtösi, János Magyar)
1969 Pete Lanchaster and The Upsetters
1970 Kex
1972 Rákfogó
1975 Kőszegi Rhythm and Brass
1979-1983 Saturnus (Gyula Babos, Péter Dandó, Péter Gritz, Lakatos Béla Szakcsi)
1984 BDSZ Collection (Gyula Babos, László Dés, Lakatos Béla Szakcsi, Kálmán Balogh, Péte Dandór, Gábor Szende)
1985 Babos Trio Plusz (Gyula Babos, János Egri, Gábor Winand, Endre Berecz)
1989 Babos Trio (Gyula Babos, János Egri, Elemér Balázs)
1994-1996 Babos Quartet (Gyula Babos, György Szappanos, Béla Lakatos Jr., Gergely Borlai)
1995 Take Four (Gyula Babos, Rudolf Tomsits, Aladár Pege, Imre Kőszegi)
1997 Babos Project Romani (Gyula Babos, Gergely Borlai, Emilio, István Fekete, Viktor Hárs, Katalin Kunovits, Lajos Nagy)
2005 Babos Project Special (Gyula Babos, Lakatos Róbert Szakcsi, Öcsi Patai, Viktor Hárs, Gábor Oláh, Mónika Veress)
Concerts, Festivals:
1969–1970 Pete Lanchaster and The Upsetters—club concerts in Western Europe and the United States
1973 Warsaw Jazz Jamboree, concerts at university clubs with Kex and Rákfogó
1974 Nuremberg Jazz Festival
1975 Enger Jazz Festival
1977 Prague
1977–1983 Numerous concerts with pop bands (Neoton, Demjén, Zorán)
1978 Gábor Szabó TV show
1979 Warsaw
1988 Live performance with LGT and Saturnus at MTV Studio 4
1988 Sofia, Ruse
1990 Blue Victory concert at Petőfi Hall
1991 Farewell concert in Budapest with Frank Zappa
1992 Concert with James Moody at Petőfi Hall
1993 Tony Scott
1996 Rick Margitza – Debrecen Jazz Days
1996 Babos Quartet in Košice and Bratislava
1996 Kiskanizsa (Dezső “Ablakos” Lakatos, Aladár Pege, Imre Kőszegi)
1997 Marseille – Babos Project Romani
1998 Bucharest, Nagykanizsa – Babos Project Romani
Awards:
1991 eMeRTon Prize
2003 Gábor Szabó Prize
2005 Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic
2008 Liszt Award