Authenticity And Improvisation

Look magazine (2001. november)

During more than a quarter century of its existence, the world famous Vujicsics ensemble has not spoiled us with dozens of albums. That is just why their recent relase ofnew material on the „Podravina” CD is welcome event. In connection with this event, we spoke with Mihály Borbély, the wind instrument soloist for this authentic Southern Slav folk music group. The diversity of the topics covered was a guaranteed in advance by the fact that Borbély is participating in various jazz projects in addition to Vujicsics, and he is also a sought-after session musician for a variety of other musical productions.

Look: How much will the new album differ from your previous productions?

MB: The album is special because this time we concentrated on one geographical region, while the previous Vujicsics albums have always had a wider section. This CD draws on material from Podravina, or the Dráva River Bank region, in other words it’s Croatian folk music. It’s interesting that most of this material was collected by Tihamér Vujicsics, the best-known Hungarian composer and researcher of folk music, who has Serbian descent, and, who also gave the band its name. He was an example to us of how to approach the music of other peoples and cultures. We perform it all in arrangements which are very close to original, and suitable for dancing.

Look: I undersand that the next album is already in preparation.

MB: We are working on a number of pieces from a 1912 Bartók collection from Bánát. This isn’t a well-known area of Bartók’s lifework; his collections of Hungarian, Romanian and Slovakian music are much better known. There are 21 songs altogether, which he collected from the Serbs of Bánát. So the next album will be Serbian, in this respect. We will finish it this year, and it will come out next spring.

Look: Considering that the band is over a qurter of a century old, you have released very few albums.

MB: We’ve released five albums so far, and one of them was only released in America; on thatvinyl we play on one side and the Ökrös ensemble plays on the other. We are a group that takes a long time to let the songs ripen. With the songs that we play at concerts, we could maybe make one or two more albums; but we always wait to record the songs until we feel that they are ready. In this we diverge from the trend in which bands release a new album every one or two years. It’s sure that we have sped up during the past couple of years; it used to be that 6-8 years would pass between two albums, and now that is beginning to reduce to more like two years. This is because for a while we have been publishing our own albums.

Look: Let’s talk about the other bands that you play in. First of all there is the duo with Károly Binder, which will give a concert on November 17th at the Music Academy.

MB: We’ll be playing mostly the material from the „Hangok” (Voices) album, thought that came out about half a year ago. We gave a one-time joint performance together 6-7 years ago, and that’s when we decided that we should play together again someday. In the music of this duo jazz, folk, and contemporary music all come together. We began this CD by improvising for an hour and a half or two hours, playing little 3-8 minute oppuses, and when heard the material, we agreed that for once it may be a good idea to publish a record that is improvisational in character.

Look: Yuo have two jazz bands as well.

MB: One of them is Quartet B, in which the folk music elements take the lead. Not long ago the world famous American jazz flautist Herbie Mann was in Hungary again, researching  folk music roots here, because his family comes from Eastern Europe. We made a recording with him last year, and he put it on his own album back in America. In this our role is not the important thing, it’s the fact that people there are opening in our direction. The other group is Borbély Műhely (play on words: it means barber’s shop in Hungarian), whichis also preparing to release an album. That is a band where the folk music influence is also felt, but it’s a more traditional jazz quartet, with piano, bass, drums and winds. Borbély Műhely is more closely tied to language of jazz, but it is definitely saturated with Hungarian culture. We could do swing numbers as well, but anyone who hears it anywhere in the world should feel that this music comes from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Look: You play both folk music and jazz; what is the difference in attitude between them?

MB: When yuo play traditional folk music, not world music, then you have to respect the stylictic context. In order to able to do this, it is essential to collect and listen to a lot of original material.  If you’re playing world music or jazz, your character has a much greater role. As opposed to the interpretative practice in classical music, improvization makes the performer much more personal, and, at the same time, a re-creator of the piece.

Look: How many instruments do you play altogether?

MB: I basically play wooden wind instruments, ’though I often play a stringed instrument, a variety of the tambura which has to be sounded with a pick. The clarinet was my first instrument, and then the saxophone. Naturally in the course of my dealings with folk music. I’ve encountered many different kinds of flutes. Then I also play other special instruments, like then Bulgarian kaval, or the Slovakian fujara, which you can also hear at the concert on November 17th. The thing that I’m most interested in right now is use the tárogató, which is a very unusual instrument – a modernized version of the töröksíp. It looks like a clarinet, but its system is more like a soprano saxophone made out of wood. I started to practice with it, and after a while my colleagues began to say that I should bring my tárogató to jazz recording sessions, because although it doesn’t offer as rich a range of technical possibilities as the saxophone, it has a magical tone.
 

(Tamás Tóth - Look magazine)