Discographers with a liking for musical categories might have trouble with this one: it isn’t jazz, neither is it – strictly speaking – world music, and it certainly isn’t ‘classical’. Roby Lakatos melds the gipsy style of his uncle Sandor (whose artistry is celebrated on at least one excellent Hungaroton White Label CD) with a generous helping of tonal cream and the easygoing jazz manner of Stephane Grappelli. There is little hint of camp-fire spontaneity, the sort you might hear from, say, the Romanian gipsy group, Taraf de Haidouks (whose Cram World CDs have been a constant source of pleasure), and while the jazz contingent might conceivably appreciate Lakatos’s own laid-back Pour Villa, Post Phrasing or Mr Grappelli, will they, I ask myself, take to Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, the ‘Sabre Dance’ or a hybrid, jazzed-up reworking of Kodaly’s Kallo Double Dance? Somehow I doubt it. Lakatos’s quick reflexes, lightning bow and warming tone are sources of pleasure in themselves, though the style is more a modern-day equivalent of Strauss-Lehar ‘gipsy kitsch’ than genuine gipsy music.
The instrumental line-up adds cimbalom, guitar, piano, double-bass and a second violin to Lakatos’s lead, and the sound is excellent. I would call this CD a spicy variety of ‘dinner jazz’, brilliantly played and great for easy listening, but more transnational crossover than ‘authentic ethnic’.'