Youthful exuberance drives the energetic music on The Quest, the latest album from Limerick resident - and indeed Quincy Jones protégé – Andreas Varady. At the age of nine, the musician, who is of Hungarian-Roma descent, moved with his family to Ireland. At eleven, he was busking on the streets of Limerick and Cork with his father, Ondrej Bandi.
Brightness, exhilaration, verve, brio - these are the kind of words that spring to mind as you listen to the title track of Varady’s third album, The Quest. Very much a family affair, the album features Andreas’s younger brother Adrian on drums and the lads' father on bass. Fellow Slovak Radovan Tariska plays a storm on alto saxophone, and New York City-based Benito Gonzalez, a Venezuelan native, is the pianist in this tightly-knit crew.
The Irish connections run deep – 20-year-old Varady made one of his first appearances at the Inishowen Jazz Festival in Culdaff, County Donegal. George Benson, Django Reinhardt and Kurt Rosenwinkel have exerted their individual influences on the player. But there is more to it than guitar.
"I’ve always been obsessed with saxophone players, " he says. "I get as much influence listening to John Coltrane as I get from guitar players." Radiohead and A Tribe Called Quest have also quite possibly left their mark as young Varady is a fan. At times, one is reminded of Chick Corea's Latinisms, as it were, particularly on the fast and furious Radiska.
Her Dream and Follow Me are blithe and tuneful, like Pat Metheny. Other tracks dabble in electronica, notably the brief gem Patience. Through all of The Quest, the band are dipping into a palette of tonal colour and time signature complexity, vibrant shape-shifting. Listen to the delightful ripple of guitar notes that surge into play seconds into the opener, Lost Memories. If you are of an absorbent frame of mind, you may be unaware of track progression as the entire album sounds at times to be evolving as some kind of extended suite. In other words, don't put the spuds on to boil while listening, things may happen.
Two other Quincy Jones protégés, Justin Kauflin and Alfredo Rodriguez, will also be releasing new albums in 2018 on the Resonance label which is something to anticipate with delight. In the meantime, be content with The Quest and welcome Andreas Varady, his family and associates, into your listening experience.
