Part of what inspired the music on Close Connection is Gardony’s own roots, specifically folk music elements from Central Europe (a quality he shares with Bela Bartok, whose great appreciation for folk tunes of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia informed his work). That certainly comes across on the album’s opener, “Irrepressible,” which is teeming with dissonance and those distinctive Central European scales. “Most of that influence reached me via Bartok’s music; it was around me throughout my childhood,” said Laszlo.

Another aspect that comes to the fore here, particularly on the heavy duty, back-beat driven second track, “Strong Minds,” is Gardony’s early interest in progressive rock while growing up in Budapest. “I’ve been a jazz player for most of my life and that’s been my main influence as a grownup. But as a young person I was into King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Soft Machine and more obscure prog rock groups like Atomic Rooster and Can.” And while Laszlo doesn’t necessarily want to play that kind of music now, he is interested in harnessing some of that energy in an acoustic trio setting, much as bands like The Bad Plus, E.S.T. and Phronesis have done.