His mother was a violin teacher. Deseo began playing violin at the age of 10, continued his musical education at Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest, got his diploma in 1961. He taught in music schools until 1967 when he became member of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, where he played until 1999. During the time when János Ferencsik and later Kobayashi Ken-Ichiro were chief musical directors of the orchestra he played innumerable concerts in Hungary and in many countries of the world from Japan to the United States. He performed with artists like Antal Doráti, Sir George Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Lamberto Gardelli, Giuseppe Patane, Christoph von Dohnányi, Ádám Fischer, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrach, Mstislav Rostropovich.
His career took off in 1963 when he appeared with his first group at the legendary Dalia Club in Budapest. From 1964 they gave regular concerts and were frequently featured on Hungarian Radio and TV. Csaba Deseo's debut abroad was in Bled, Yugoslavia 1966, where he played with János Gonda's Qualiton Ensemble. That same year he played with his own group at the Prague International Jazz Festival and with the combo of guitarist Andor Kovacs at the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree. Csaba Deseo's first album under his own name "Four String Tschaba" was published in 1975 by MPS Records in West Germany. On that Deseo played both violin and viola, his partners were German, British and Swedish musicians. (by wikipedia)
Deseö was going through an electric period, driving his violin and viola through a wah-wah pedal in tracks like "Für Kinder" ("For Children"). Despite this, whether it's jazz, classical or any other musical form, Hungarian composers tend to reference their folk roots - Bela Bartok, for example, was the sound recordist on most of the ethnographic recordings of Hungarian folk musics in the early part of the 20th century, then incorporated the structures into his music. With Deseö, you can particularly hear Hungarian folk references in the melodies and harmonies of tracks like "Roof Dancer", as well as his scratchy folk style and tonal slides.
Besides Deseö, the main soloist here is saxaphonist Wolfgang Engstfeld, who you can also hear on the Klauss Weiss Ensemble's MPS album "Drum box", also from 1974.
Dieter Reith is mainly on the rhodes here, bringing in piano for the excellent "Reith Right On", and arp and string synths in "Closed", which has a sort of mid-period George Duke feel in its arrangement. If you don't know it already, check out his solo date "Knock Out", as well as more Herbolzheimer dates like the superb "Waitaminute" and "Wide Open".
Trombonist Åke Persson also featured on "Wide Open", but his regular gig was as a member of Francy Boland and Kenny Clarke's various big bands throughout the 60s and early 70s, albums like "Sax No End", "More Smiles", "Handle With Care", Mark Murphy's "Midnight Mood" and Sihab Shihab's "Companionship" (file 1 - file 2). Tragically, on February 5th, 1975, Persson was found dead in his car at the bottom of the Djurgarden canal.
Apart from the Herbolzheimer albums, bass player Günter Lenz appeared on albums like Wolfgang Dauner's "Knirsch" and the live album "Leon Thomas In Berlin", as well as records by Albert Mangelsdorff and Volker Kriegel. Drummer Ronnie Stephenson also appears on two sought-after 60s dates by the Paul Gonsalves Quartet and Ronnie Ross. (by neverenoughrhodes)
Csaba Deseo in 1993
Personnel:
Csaba Deseő (violin, viola)
Wolfgang Engstfeld (saxophone)
Günter Lenz (bass)
Åke Persson (trombone)
Dieter Reith (keyboards)
Ronnie Stephenson (drums)
Tracklist:
01. Roof Dancer (Reith) 5.15
02. Für Kinder (Csillagok, Csillagok) (Bartók) 6.38
03. Makin' Whoopee (Kahn/Donaldson) 3.38
04. Rock Talk (v.Rooyen) 4.00
05. Reith (Right) On (Reith) 4.38
06. Something Blue (Deseő)
07. Closed (Reith) 5.09
ARMU 2069
ARMU 2069 (zippyshare)