Balázs Major
Instruments
Bio
Balázs Major was born in Mezőtúr, Hungary, 1955. He started drumming in a
completely self-taught manner. In the 70s he was a determining member of the
band called Watt’73. Between 1977 and 1979 he was a private student of Gyula
Kovács who directed his attention towards jazz and improvisation. In 1980 as a
drummer he formed the Szabo-Major duo with the contribuition of guitarist Sándor
Szabó. In the beginning of the 80s he was studying Indian classical music and
also learning to play the tabla. In the following few years the Szabó-Major duo
performed in almost every club in the country. In 1988 their first album was
released by LEO RECORDS, a British company. They frequently invited foreign
artists and hence they could participate in several concert tours, and managed
to produce many records. One such cooperation’s result was the album recorded
together with Belgian guitarist Gilbert Isbin, released by HWYL RECORDS. The
most significant period of his career was his 10-year-long contribution to the
SzaMaBa Trio. They worked with numerous guest musicians and managed to release 3
albums. One of their live concerts was recorded during the Tata Jazz Camp,
Hungary – and was published by Pannon Jazz in 2005. Due to the cultural crisis
in Hungary the trio disbanded in 1995.
Balázs Major did solo drum concerts as far back as the mid-80s. During these
performances he used the musical instrument not only for expressing rythm, but
also for its most ancient purpose: messaging and thought transfer. His first
solo album was released in 1996, called ’Infinity between Borders’ with the
contribution of Krisztián Major and Sándor Szabó which was a collection of
absolutely clean and authentic pieces of drum music. In 1998 his album called
’Fate of Scamps’ was published with the contribution of Mihály Dresch, Grencsó
István and Sándor Kármán. He still works regularly together with Sándor Szabó
even without their band called ’SzaMaBa’: they created multiple albums since
then with the usage of the musical instrument built by the Swiss company, PANArt,
and designed by Balázs Major.
In July 2007 his solo concert had been recorded on DVD that was released later
in March 2008. However he appeared again on Sándor Szabó’s album called ’Modern
Hungarian Makam’ in 2010. In 2011 a trio album was released in the US under the
title ’Triptych’ that had been recorded with the contribution of guitarists
Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó and drummer Balázs Major. Afterwards he recorded
his next album called ’Wizzard Dance’ together with Sándor Szabó and
internationally acclaimed German guitarist Ralf Gauck that was released in 2012.
In 2013 he returned to the trio with Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó for the US
album called ’Becoming’, and in the same year another CD was released in Norway.
The concert recording called ’Fractal’ recorded in 2008 was released in the US
in 2014 where he was working with Sándor Szabó, American bass guitarist Michael
Manring and German guitarist Boesser Ferrari. His album ’Clouds on the Lake’ was
completed in 2015 with the contribution of Ralf Gauck, Sándor Szabó and Roland
Heidrich.
Website
Greydisc
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Greydisc Records Ltd | USA