The Bolla Quartet is a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

band based in Hungary. The Bolla Quartet is one of Hungary's youngest and most successful jazz bands. The

quartet In music, a quartet or quartette (, , , , ) is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers; or a musical composition for four voices and instruments. Classical String quartet In classical music, one of the most common combinations o ...

was founded on 15 October 2003 by Gabor Bolla, a school-age

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

player. They were the winners of the 2005 Avignon Jazz Festival Competition, taking the First Prize and the Audience Prize, their pianist, Robert Szakcsi Lakatos, taking the Best Soloist Prize. They have given concerts both in Hungary and abroad, including Germany, Austria, France, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

The members

Gabor Bolla

Bolla was born on 15 October 1988. At the age of ten he started playing classical music on the

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

. He was twelve when he won first prize in the National Music Schools' Competition. Towards the end of 2001 he started to show an interest in jazz, influenced mainly by the music to which his jazz-loving parents were listening. He took up the soprano and then the tenor saxophone, and is mainly self-taught on those instruments. He received the Hans Koller Prize as the Talent of the Year in Austria in 2004. After playing the saxophone for only six months, he was picked out to play at the Getxo Jazz Festival in

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. Since then he has been playing with the leading jazzmen in his own country. During the summer of 2003 Gábor was the only Hungarian and the only teenager who qualified for the semi-finals of the World Saxophone Competition held at the

Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...

. He brought the house down when he played, but failed to make the finals. He was also well received at the Yatra Jazz Festival in India and at the

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Jazz Festival in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. Bolla has performed with David Murray,

Guy Barker Guy Jeffrey Barker, (born 26 December 1957) is an English jazz trumpeter and composer. Early life Barker was born in Chiswick, London, the son of an actress and a stuntman. He started playing the trumpet at the age of twelve, and within a year ...

Art Themen Arthur Edward George Themen (born 26 November 1939) is a British jazz saxophonist and formerly orthopaedic surgeon. Critic John Fordham has described him as "an appealing presence on the British jazz circuit for over 40 years.... Originally a D ...

John Critchinson John William Frank Critchinson (24 December 1934 – 15 December 2017) also known as "Critch", was an English jazz pianist. Biography Critchinson was born in London in 1934. He worked as a part-time musician with Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, and J ...

Bryan Spring Bryan Spring (born 24 August 1945) is a British jazz drummer. He is sometimes credited as Brian Spring. He was born in London, England. Spring was self-taught, beginning at the age of six, though he later studied with Philly Joe Jones. He led and ...

Benny Golson Benny Golson (born January 25, 1929) is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launch ...

Johnny Griffin John Arnold Griffin III (April 24, 1928 – July 25, 2008) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Nicknamed "the Little Giant" for his short stature and forceful playing, Griffin's career began in the mid-1940s and continued until the month of ...

Roy Hargrove Roy Anthony Hargrove (October 16, 1969 – November 2, 2018) was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles ...

Joey Alexander Josiah Alexander Sila (born 25 June 2003), known professionally as Joey Alexander, is an Indonesian jazz pianist. He became the first Indonesian musician to chart on ''Billboard'' 200 when his album ''My Favorite Things'' debuted at number 174 ...

and

John Engels John Engels (January 19, 1931 South Bend, Indiana - June 13, 2007 Vermont) was an American poet. Life John Engels graduated from University of Notre Dame in 1952. After Navy service, Engels studied at the University College, Dublin, then gradua ...

Robert Szakcsi Lakatos

Lakatos is equally at home as a classical or a jazz

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

. He won both the Best Soloist and Best Pianist prizes at the 1995 Krakow International Jazz Festival, and then a year later took first prize at the Bach Piano Competition organized by Radio Basel in Switzerland. He won first prize at the Piano Competition of the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2001, and the Best Soloist title at the 2005 Avignon Jazz Festival. Lakatos comes from a long line of

Gypsy The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

musicians.

Gyorgy Orban

Orban plays

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

. He was studying classical guitar from the age of six until he turned eighteen. He took up the double bass after that as he felt he could best express himself on that instrument. In 2003 he came third at the National Jazz Bass Competition organised by Hungarian Radio. He's played at several important jazz festivals and is a member of the famous New Gypsy Jazz outfit led by pianist Bela Szakcsi Lakatos and can also be heard on their riveting album as well as on records by the world-famous tenor-sax player Tony Lakatos.

Andras Mohay

Mohay is the band's

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one mem ...

, as well as playing with four other Hungarian bands.

Discography

*2004: ''The Way We Play'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bolla Quartet, The Hungarian jazz ensembles