In this latest release by the Borbély Workshop, skeletal scores, and inspiration from poetry, the
visual art and philosophy take on auditory form in the hands of this experienced and fecund group of
artists. The typical ethno-jazz sound of the Borbély Workshop is less of a feature here, and emphasis
moves from carefully notated compositions towards freedom, even more so than on their previous
discs. On this CD, our wind musician trains himself, his fellow musicians, and the listener, to feel at
home in fleeting moments.
‘Music of the night’ is how Borbély characterizes the music on this CD. It’s his second with this lineup for BMC
Records since Grenadilla was released in 2019, and his sixth CD for this label. His description applies less
to the mood and dynamics of the compositions, than to the ideal situation for listening to them, because a
significant proportion of the CD consists of melodies that originated in free improvisation, and they require
a meditative listener. The miracles of the night lie concealed, but the sharp-eared listener might detect the
nuances that inspire and briefly appear, from Jancsó and Pilinszky to Miles Davis and John Coltrane. With this
concept Borbély invites the listener into the dense air of the studio, where we find musicians playing with
abandon for high stakes: Mihály Borbély (horns), Áron Tálas (piano, drums), Balázs Horváth (contrabass),
and Hunor G. Szabó (drums) wallow in this ocean of improvisation, flashing countless musical colours,
characters, and even extremes, embracing even humour and drama. Keeping the guidelines of this album,
along its structural arch it’s increasingly easy to pick out the silhouettes of the compositions, as if the dark
of the night were lifting.
The Borbély Workshop was founded around the millennium with the leadership of Mihály Borbély, who
is equally at home in folk and world music, jazz, contemporary music, and is a holder of Artisjus, eMeRTON,
Gábor Szabó and Liszt Prizes, the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, and a Kossuth Prize as a
member of the band Vujicsics. He asked similarly thinking musicians to join him. Their improvisatory music
is characterized by a blend of various branches of jazz with the folk music heritage of the Carpathian Basin
and the Balkans, seasoned with interesting melodic formulae, rhythms that are by turns refinedly transparent
and vigorous, and elements of contemporary music. As well as concerts in Hungary and elsewhere in Europe,
they have twice performed to great acclaim in Mexico. In 2004 they were awarded an eMeRTon prize as ?Jazz
Band of the Year’. Their first album Meselia Hill was voted by the critics of Hungarian Gramofon magazine
as ?Jazz album of the year’. Their next album, Hommage à Kodály was also received positively by both the
critics and the public. In their third CD (Hungarian Jazz Rhapsody, 2014) they arranged pieces by composers
of Hungarian jazz and hit songs. In their fifth and sixth albums for BMC Records, Be by Me Tonight (2016)
and Grendadilla (2019), the focus is on a contemporary jazz-chamber music sound deriving from Hungarian
and Balkan folk music, which in the case of Miracles of the Night (2022) is subsumed in a more universal jazz
sound.