Szabolcs Olah, Gabor Cseke, Adam Bogothy, Laszlo Csízi, Accord Quartet - The Silent Call (2022)

Guitarist and composer Szabolcs Olah has enjoyed success on the Hungarian jazz scene for more than two decades. A graduate of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, he founded an international quartet in 2002, with which he received several awards. From the very beginning, Olakh's career was characterized by the original sound of original works, the desire for creativity and a multi-genre approach that goes beyond jazz. The desire for self-realization and creativity bore fruit, but Ola wanted to continue his compositional art. In 2020, he received a master's degree in Jazz Composition and Arrangement from the University of the Arts in Amsterdam. He successfully completed his studies and it was at this time that the album The Silent Call began to be created.
The album offers five compositions from the pen of Szabolcs Olah. His original and ambitious sound ideas were transformed here into a combination of a jazz quartet and a string quartet. The string quartet has a long history in classical music, so it is not surprising that music is moving in the direction of combining jazz with classical music. Nevertheless, the music is very narrative and sound, so we also touch on other genres, such as filmmaking. The author himself said about the music that this is a concept album inspired by eastern spirituality. The five–part suite opens with the composition Pure Laws of Growth, which evokes the main characteristic of the album - peace, contemplation. Szabolcs Olah creates excellent catchy melodies, making full use of all the expressive means of a jazz ensemble and string quartet. He often juxtaposes these two different formations to create dynamism and contrast, but he can also combine them into beautiful harmonious surfaces. Despite the larger composition, Ole managed to achieve a very homogeneous and minimalistic sound. Everything together leads to harmony and meditation. Especially in the final climax of the suite with the composition "Equanimity", larger elements of dynamism and a bit of dissonance appear. In addition, it is a very calm album, mostly at a medium tempo with a strong melody. Maybe everyone likes the concept of beautiful calm melodic music, because it is not some kind of modern, progressive, dissonant, super-complex music. Well, it is Olah who shows that there is beauty in simplicity, and that even in our age of super-complex music, he can make an impression. In the melodic lines and jazz phrasing, one can also hear that he is inspired by Scandinavian performers. We can also hear Pat Metheny's inspiration here. In addition, Ola's compositional style clearly shows that he has a wonderful sense of jazz tradition and improvisation, which is manifested here in a wonderful symbiosis with classical music and music from films. The Silent Call is a great fusion of stringed instruments with a jazz orchestra that deserves your attention!