Thunder Duo DVD Kornél Horváth & Gábor Dörnyei
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Fireworks aplenty on this instructional and performance DVD featuring the outstanding talents of Hungarian master percussionist Kornél Horváth, who has appeared on over 300 albums including with Gabor Szabó and Tony Lakatos, and Hungarian-born but now London-based drummer and educator Gábor Dörnyei, whose monster mashing jazz, fusion and groove chops make him a hot call on the capital’s jazz circuit as well as an in-demand player for shows such as the Michael Jackson Thriller production.
Based mostly on their Thunder Duo performances the empathy between these two is astonishing with Horváth essaying a highly musical travelogue across Latin, African and Indian rhythms on congas, udu clay drums, pandiero, bongos and a marimba-like box while Dörnyei stokes huge fires on his vast Sonor SQ kit, complete with a mirror-image Sabian cymbal set up, where the left side ride, crashes and splashes mirrors the right hand set up. Recorded live at Sabian Day in Budapest in 2010, well known drum educator Dom Famularo is on hand to introduce the duo, grin endlessly and throw in a few moves of his own. But it’s Thunder Duo where the rhythmic concepts and exchanges brew and percolate, with a myriad of ideas on offer as inspiration and a riveting lesson in musical communication.
Jon Newey