Béla Szakcsi Lakatos (8 July 1943 – 2 October 2022), also known by the mononyms Szakcsi or Sa-Chi, was a Hungarian jazz pianist, keyboardist, arranger and composer.

Life and career

Born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Szakcsi Lakatos studied at the and started his professional career in the mid-sixties. In the 1970s he was part of the

Aladár Pege Aladár Pege (8 October 1939 – 23 September 2006) was a jazz musician from Hungary. He was well known for his work and was dubbed "the Paganini of double bass". He was chosen as best soloist of Europe in 1970, performed at Carnegie Hall an ...

’s quartet, with whom he performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival to great critical acclaim.Szakcsi Lakatos, Béla
''

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2002. Later he was part of the bands Rákfogó and Saturnus, as well as leader of his own ensemble. He recorded 16 albums and composed several musicals. Szakcsi is regarded as a key figure in promoting the jazz and fusion genres in Hungary. During his career he received numerous honours and accolades, including the

Kossuth Prize The Kossuth Prize (, ) is a state-sponsored award in Hungary, named after the Hungarian politician and revolutionist Lajos Kossuth. The Prize was established in 1936, by the Hungarian National Assembly, to acknowledge outstanding personal and grou ...

and the title of . He died on 2 October 2022, at the age of 79.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Szakcsi Lakatos, Bela Hungarian jazz composers Hungarian keyboardists 1943 births 2022 deaths Musicians from Budapest Hungarian jazz pianists Hungarian male composers Recipients of the Kossuth Prize