Szakcsi Lakatos, Bela & Lukacs, Miklos - Check It Out, Igor (piano-cimbalom Improvisations) (CD)

The music was recorded in just eight hours, improvised from beginning to end.Music begins where words lose their meaning and when music reaches the standard it has on this album, it's well-nigh impossible to verbalise it.I received a rough copy of this record long before it was finalised. It had no title. All that was written on it with a felt pen were the names of the two artists: Bela Szakcsi Lakatos, arguably the greatest jazz pianist in Hungary and Miklós Lukács, the phenomenal rising young star of the cimbalom (a folk instrument not unlike the hammer dulcimer and much loved by the Gypsies of Hungary and Romania). So, what was one meant to expect? Before putting the CD on, I was wondering how on earth a piano and a cimbalom will sound together without the mediation of a solid rhythm section? Will it be Gypsy jazz? Will Szakcsi Lakatos' brilliant pianism bury the cimbalom? To be frank, I was not prepared for what I was to hear.The music struck me as a conversation between equals,