I Love You - Elek Bacsik

Tea For Two

I Love You
Elek Bacsik
Produced by Bob Thiele
Engineer: Bob Simpson
Front & Back Cover Photos: Dale Thorsen
Liner Photos: Ray Roos
Design: Haig Adishian
A Product of Bob Thiele Music, LTD
Bob Thiele Music BBL-1-0556
Manufactured and Distributed by RCA Records - New York, N.Y.
1974

Featuring:

Oliver Nelson
Hank Jones
Richard Davis
Bucky Pizzarelli
Ray Mantilla
Richard (Pablo) Landrum
Elvin Joes
Grady Tate

From the inside cover: Bacsik, a gypsy, was born in Budapest on May 22, 1926. At four, he had started playing violin, and three years later, was already into Mozart. While growing up playing gypsy music, Bacsik was also preparing for a career as a concert violinist, studying at the conservatory in Budapest with George Cziffra.

The war, however, turned everything "upside down," as Bacsik puts it. He was in the army for three years, and after the war, he left Hungry for Vienna, and later for Switzerland where he played what he calls "continental music" on violin, cello, cymbalum, and other stringed instruments. (He is, by the way, self-taught on all the instruments he plays, except for the violin. And while still in Hungry, he became renowned as that country's leading jazz guitarist only a relatively short time after having taken up the instrument for the first time).

Elek Bacsik's European odyssey included stays in Lebanon, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Paris. In that latter city, he performed with nearly all the key French and visiting American jazzmen from 1959 to 1966. Bacsik was best known in France as a guitarist, but as this album demonstrates, Elek is also an extraordinary virtuosos of the jazz violin.

Coming to the United States in 1966, Bacsik first toured with a gypsy band, then was based in Los Angeles for a time. Among his other musical experiences on the west coast was a tour with a near-eastern band backing a belly dancer. The band needed a bouzouki player and Elek, a half hour after he had picked it up, was manipulating that challenging instrument, he recalls with gusto, "as if I had been playing it all my life."

Since 1967, Bacsik has been in Las Vegas. Most of the time during the past four years he has been a characteristically resourceful member of the orchestra at the International Hotel. Now, with the release of I Love You, Bacsik, should soon be expanding his American scope by playing in major jazz clubs throughout the country, for he surely is one of the more vividly swinging musicians on the scene – on any scene anywhere.

From Billboard - July 27, 1974: This gypsy violinist-guitarist is a master musician, and his treatment of classic standards and originals is very noteworthy. While he plays guitar on only one track, he shows his versatility as a jazz musician. Back up musicians include Olvier Nelson, Richard Davis and the Jones brothers (Hand and Elvin). Best Cuts: "I Can't Get Started, " "Donna Lee," "Tea For Two," Blues For Elek." Dealers: The cover art is very appealing and with the violin in the mainstream. Play selected cuts.

I Love You
Blues For Elek
Valse Triste
Season Of The Rain
Tea For Two
They Can't Take That Away From Me
Donna Lee
I Can't Get Started