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Dresch Quartet

Mihály ”Dudás” Dresch is an outstanding figure of the Hungarian jazz scene. His albums are considered to be the cornerstones of ‘Hungarian jazz’, in which the dialects of Hungarian folk music sound crystal clear through the universal language of jazz.

He was born in 1955 in Budapest, but spent much time in his grandparents’ village in the Great Plain region, where he first met folk music. He was completely overwhelmed by Johnny Griffin’s music, began playing the saxophone and enrolled at the Liszt Academy, where he completed his studies in jazz in 1979. But after a while he had to concede that it was not worth imitating the great black jazz musicians: “I realised that music requires the whole person, including who they are and where they are from – that’s what sounds through the instrument. I realised I would never be able to make music from the same impulse as Coltrane, Griffin, and the other masters. That’s how I realised I needed to play my own experiences. When I was practising, I noticed that while my first small pieces were taking shape, I was thinking of my grandparents.”

He founded his first quartet in 1984. Until the mid-nineties, there was a frequent changeover in members: István Grencsó (percussions), Róbert Benkő (double bass) Tamás Geröly (drums), Félix Lajkó (violin) and Ferenc Kovács (violin, trombita) have at one time been part of the quartet. The recent lineup (István Baló – drums, Mátyás Szandai – double bass) exists since 1998.
Over the years Dresch and his musicians have played and recorded with such artists as Archie Shepp, Roscoe Mitchell, Chico Freeman, Lee Konitz, David Murray and Dewey Redman.

Since ’Sorrow’ (Sóhajkeserű, 1985[PR1] ) the Quartet has produced a dozen important albums, such as ’Homeward bound’ [PR2] (Hazafelé), ’Thoughts about the ancients’ (Gondolatok a régiekről), ’The sounds of soul’ (Zeng a lélek) ’Winding’ (Folyondár), ’Ferryman, my ferryman…’ (Révészem, révészem…), ’Still Voyage’ (Mozdulatlan utazás), ’Quiet as it is’ (Szép csendesen), ’Hungarian Bebop’[PR3] , ’Straight music’ (Egyenes zene), ’Rare Bird’ (Ritka madár), and most recently ’Fuhun’, which title refers to the chromatic flute based on his idea. This album features Ernő Hock on the double bass – he is the fourth double bass player in the quartet.