Elek Bacsik was a Hungarian Gypsy jazz guitarist who today is virtually unknown. The cousin of Django Reinhardt, Bacsik was born in 1926 and began playing the violin at age 4. After studying at the Budapest Conservatory in the '40s, he taught himself the guitar, playing Gypsy and classical music. In the post-war 1940s, he left Hungary for Vienna and then Switzerland. In Bern, he played in light-music groups fashionable at the time in cafes, returning to Hungary to record in the late 1940s.
In 1949, Bacsik discovered bebop and bought all of the Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie records he could find. Throughout the 1950s, he played his way through Lebanon, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In 1959, he moved to Paris, where he gigged at many of the city's Left Bank jazz clubs. He also recorded in Paris as a sideman on albums led by Art Simmons, Clark Terry, Kenny Clarke, Lou Bennett and others. In February 1962, he recorded his first album as a leader in Paris. That summer, he played with Gillespie at France's Antibes Jazz Festival and recorded on Dizzy on the French Riviera (Philips).
Bacsik moved to the States in 1966 with hopes of making a name for himself as a jazz musician. But with a name difficult to pronounce or remember and little in the way of mass-market recognition, his dream was increasingly tough to realize. Instead, he disappeared with his violin into the Las Vegas pit orchestras, resurfacing in the 1970s to record two jazz albums on the violin and the electric violin—I Love You in 1974 with Hank Jones and Bird and Dizzy/A Musical Tribute, featuring Med Flory and Warne Marsh in 1975. Those would be his last jazz recordings. Sadly he never again would reach the status he had achieved as a jazz musician in Paris years earlier.
Listening back to his leadership albums recorded in Paris, one realizes immediately that Bacsik was exceptional and a forceful, swinging player. He had an aggressive attack and improvised beautifully, letting notes ring. On his first leadership album, The Electric Guitar of the Eclectic Elek Bacsik (Fontana), later released as Jazz Guitarist, he was joined by two different bassists and drummers over the two recording sessions:
On the first, he was backed by Pierre Michelot (b) and Kenny Clarke (d) on Take Five, Blue Rondo a la Turk, Willow Weep for Me, My Old Flame, On Green Dolphin Street and Milestones. On the second session, Bacsik recorded with Michel Gaudry (b) and Daniel Humair (d) on Nuages, Angel Eyes, Godchild and Opus De Funk.
Sadly, we don't have nearly enough recordings by Bacsik, who arrived in the States at exactly the wrong moment in jazz history. Elek Bacsik died in 1993.
JazzWax tracks: Jazz Guitarist is out of print, but you'll find all of the tracks on Jazz In Paris: Nuages here. This release combines Jazz Guitarist with four bossa nova tracks recorded the same year.
You'll find his Jazz Conceptions (1963) on Jazz in Paris: Jazz Conceptions here.
Bacsik also recorded a superb, little-known album with Serge Gainsbourg in 1963—Gainsbourg Confidential. You'll find the album at Spotify. [Photo above, from left, Serge Gainsbourg, Elek Bacsik, Michel Gaudry]
JazzWax tracks: Here's Bacsick on Godchild...
Here's Bacsik on Conception...
And here's Serge Gainsbourg's Chez les Ye-Ye...
A special thanks to Tom Fine.
