Sándor Szabó/Kevin Kastning Duo, Dominic Miller solo concert (Basszus Magazine; Hungary Dec.2009)
The Millenaris Teatrum dedicated a night for the acoustic guitar and celebrating this event we had almost a two hour long concert.
Sándor Szabó, the
organizer of the night opens the concert with his baritone guitar. Its range is
somewhere between the bass and normal guitar. He started with an enjoyable
composition which was a little abstract but definitely interesting.
A short introduction and announcement and the American Kevin Kastning arrived at the stage. Kevin has released three duo albums so far with Sandor. They recalled some pieces of these albums tonight.
The audience could fill the Millenaris Teatrum, though they were a perfect audience, silent space, careful attention. This was necessary because the concert was not loud. It was possible to hear when Sandor stomped the rhythm with his foot, not to mention the noise of the cameras.
We could hear modern contemporary guitar music written to two baritone guitars. Sometimes a little dissonant, difficult to listen pieces which seemed to me like melody and idea streams.
The cleanness of the pieces was enhanced by the custom made rich guitars which were supported by a very professional sound reinforcement.
The played pieces were
in tight relationship with each other, but were recalled ideas and examples of
the albums, but these pieces described well the world of this guitar duo.
There is not a sharp
boundary line between the two players, they perfectly fused in the music.
Sometimes a little faster rhythmically, sometimes a darker part followed each
other.
After
4 pieces Sándor remains alone on the stage and he played an easier piece, theme,
variation and theme again, the music is flowing freely. The time is running very
fast. Dominic Miller arrives at the stage. Many people know him only from the
Sting Band.
He sits down with his guitar and starts to play the seemingly simple, slow songs. We can hear a nice, refined playing with no any flowery. He created a special atmosphere on the stage, something special happens. His playing attracts the attention, he leads us to calm, peaceful worlds.
A part of the pieces are
Dominic’s compositions, he plays two Bach pieces and some hits from Sting
(Fields of Gold and the Shape of My Heat) and he recalled a Beatles song Day in
a Life. Dominic seemed to be a modest person, he mentioned how much he likes to
be in Hungary and is happy for the invitation from Sándor Szabó.
Sándor Szabó comes again to the stage and now they play an improvised piece
duo.
In the encore they play in trio Dominic Miller compliments the other two players and expresses his joy to play with them. The last piece was the Blind Flying which was even more abstract and inward composition. By the middle of the piece it had a very high level of energy then gradually decayed and run out. This night was the fest of the acoustic guitar, exciting, a rarely heard specialty. It was not the easiest music but fitted well to these instruments.
27. September, Sunday, 20:00, Millenáris Teátrum
Szabó Sándor (gitár)
Kevin Kastning (gitár)
Dominic Miller (gitár)
- Basszus Kulcs magazine, Hungary
Concert Review of Sándor Szabó & Kevin Kastning Duo in Budapest
(Greg's Jazz Blog; Hungary)
Guitarist Sándor Szabó gave four concerts in four different venues along with
two famous international musicians (Kevin Kastning and Dominic Miller) between
24th and 28th September 2009. The shows were held in Vác, Szeged, Budapest and
Pécs with the aim to make modern acoustic guitar music more popular. The
53-year-old Hungarian artist has been a representative of this style for 30
years or so. His professionalism is proven by his albums released in Germany,
United Kingdom and United States, his enthusiasm is marked by self organized
concert tours and festivals. Four years ago when Sándor Szabó started to prepare
for this particular event he made up his mind to invite two colleagues and
friends, American Kevin Kastning and British Dominic Miller.
The overture of the first 45-minute long set was a beautiful and passionate song
titled Broken Soul or Megtört lélek in Hungarian, performed by Szabó from his
solo CD, Deeper Reality from 2007. Kevin Kastning is a really kind, 49-year-old
composer who lives in Massachusetts. He writes choruses, chamber music and
besides these he is also known for his unique guitar playing. He graduated in
Berklee School of Music in Boston where he used to be a disciple of Pat Metheny
among others. His and Szabó’s main instruments are 12-string baritone guitars
and they released three albums together in the US so far. The baritone guitar is
usually tuned a perfect fifth lower compared to the standard guitar: A D G C E A*.
After listening to the Beach Boys, Dave Matthews, John Petrucci and Pat Metheny
(One Quiet Night) we had the chance to get closer to these wonderful instruments
live.
The next part consisted four compositions by Sándor and Kevin. All of them were
recorded recently for their upcoming fourth album which will be released next
year. The first song played together was called Hermitage which was an
interesting tune with a restless feeling. Kevin was playing in the background
while Sándor was soloing confidently. According to Szabó, no music like this has
ever been performed in our country before, not even a similar one. And he was
right! Kevin played his 12-string Santa Cruz guitars during the show, but Sándor
sometimes changed his 12-string to 6-string. While both musicians were on the
stage we could see that they were holding their guitars and playing with their
nails in a classical way. Improfugue V was a dissonant, hard stuff which was
followed by the brand new Invocation. This bluesy song had a nice pulsation and
was rich of fine and creative solutions. Improfugue VI started with a melody
reminiscent of a medieval lute song then it collapsed and an alternative
approach was followed by a striking ending. Sándor Szabó performed a solo tune
again, a real shaman song, A varázslók tánca (Dance of the Wizards). After this
enjoyable and country-like composition came to the stage Dominic Miller, the
superstar of the night, who is nearly 50 and has been playing together with
Sting for 20 years.
During the encore all three guitarists played together the song entitled Blind
Flying, which was a very appropriate title according to Dom who had to
absolutely improvise. Before this tune he also praised Kastning’s fantastic
harmonies and compositional abilities. We sincerely hope that these kind of
marvelous acoustic tours will be continued in the future to enrich and cheer up
the small but nice audience.
- GregJazzBlog
http://gregjazz.blog.hu
*Note: Actually, the root strings of my 12-string baritone are tuned one
octave lower than concert-pitch guitar. On the 2009 tour, I employed my
own intervallic tunings on both the 12-string
baritone and the 12-string alto guitars.
Excerpt from an interview with Dominic Miller
Greg: "Let's turn into the
present. How did you meet Sándor Szabó and Kevin Kastning?"
Dom: "I met Sándor in a guitar festival in Croatia 2 years ago. He heard my
playing there and now he invited me here. I remember I received an e-mail from a
Hungarian guitar player that I already knew from name, then he contacted my
manager and he asked me if I wanted to play in Hungary. Of course I said yes to
this possibility. I like to play in different countries not only in the States
and Germany or Great Brittain. It is always interesting and exciting to travel
to foreign places. Our first common concert was yesterday where we really heard
and saw each other.
Kevin is also an amazing player.
They play something absolutely different than I do and I never heard such music
in my life before. It is very nice to meet new people to get new experiences so
I am very happy that I can be part of that."
Kevin Kastning/Sándor Szabó + Dominic Miller Concert review at Zene Magazine (Hungary)
Concert review from Szeged Index Magazine
Concert review from Delmagyar Magazine
Concert review and photos from MIMK Magazine
A photo of me from the 2009 European tour.