''Magical Connection'' is an album by Hungarian guitarist
Gábor Szabó
Gábor István Szabó (March 8, 1936 – February 26, 1982) was a Hungarian American guitarist whose style incorporated jazz, pop, rock, and Hungarian music.
Early years
Szabó was born in Budapest, Hungary. He began playing guitar at the age ...
featuring performances recorded in 1970 and released on the
Blue Thumb
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obse ...
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
review states "Consciously more percussive -- and more commercial -- Szabo's newly formed sextet was clearly up to the challenges of combining rock with jazz. More an instrumental-pop confection, ''Magical Connection'' doesn't quite live up to its promise. But even as Szabo covers pop hits by Carpenters,
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield was a rock band formed in Los Angeles by Canadian musicians Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin and American musicians Stephen Stills and Richie Furay. The group, widely known for the song "For What It's Worth", relea ...
and
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and harmonicist who founded the rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969Payne, D Allmusic Review accessed February 21, 2012
(They Long to Be) Close to You
"(They Long to Be) Close to You" is a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The best-known version is that recorded by American duo the Carpenters for their second studio album '' Close to You'' (1970) and produced by Jack Daugherty. Rele ...
" (
Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...
,
Hal David
Harold Lane David (May 25, 1921 – September 1, 2012) was an American lyricist. He grew up in New York City. He was best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach and his association with Dionne Warwick.
Early life
David ...
) - 3:04
# "Country Illusion" (Wolfgang Melz) - 3:45
# "Lady With Child" (Chuck Blore, Jerry Wright, Don Richman) - 3:45
# "Pretty Girl Why" (
Stephen Stills
Stephen Arthur Stills (born January 3, 1945) is an American musician, singer and songwriter best known for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. As both a solo act and member of two successful bands, Stills has com ...
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and harmonicist who founded the rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969Alex North
Alex North (born Isadore Soifer, December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' (one of the first jazz-based film scores), ''Viva Zapata!'', ''Spa ...
) - 3:13
:*Recorded in Los Angeles, California on May 27 (track 1), June 3 (track 6), June 5 (tracks 4 & 7), June 10 (track 3), June 13 (track 5), June 15 (track 2), June 27 (tracks 5, 8 & 9) and July 8 (overdubs), 1970
Personnel
*
Gábor Szabó
Gábor István Szabó (March 8, 1936 – February 26, 1982) was a Hungarian American guitarist whose style incorporated jazz, pop, rock, and Hungarian music.
Early years
Szabó was born in Budapest, Hungary. He began playing guitar at the age ...
-
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
*Lynn Blessing -
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
*Richard Thompson -
keyboards
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
*Wolfgang Melz -
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range:
** Bass (instrument), including:
** Acoustic bass gui ...
*
Jim Keltner
James Lee Keltner (born April 27, 1942) is an American drummer and percussionist known primarily for his session work. He was characterized by Bob Dylan biographer Howard Sounes as "the leading session drummer in America".Howard Sounes. ''Down ...
-
drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...
*
Emil Richards
Emil Richards (born Emilio Joseph Radocchia; September 2, 1932 – December 13, 2019) was an American vibraphonist and percussionist.
Biography Musician
Richards began playing the xylophone aged six. In High School, he performed with the Hartfor ...
, Hal Gordon -
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...
*Erno Neufeld -
concertmaster
The concertmaster (from the German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (U.K.) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (or clarinet in a concert band). After the conductor, the concertmaster is the second-most signifi ...
*George Kast, Marilyn Baker, Jack Gootkin, Henry Ferber, Ambrose Russo, Leonard Malarsky, Jerome Reisler -
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
*Allan Harshman, Myron Sandler -
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
*Anne Goodman, Frederick Seykora -
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
arranger
In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...