The story of the Szabó/Major Duo started in 1980 when they decided to make a duo project including acoustic guitars and percussion. In the begining Balázs Major played tabla and other indian percussion instruments, Sándor Szabó Played 12 string and classical guitar. They started their career in Hungary in the early ‘80-s as the Szabó/Major Duo. They were one of the first musicians in Hungary who blended the different cultures in their music. The duo performed in Belgium, Italy, Austria, France, Bulgaria and of course in Hungary.
Their first album was released in 1986 at the Leo Records in England. In the middle of eighties another guitar player joined to the duo and they took the name SzaMaBa Trio. This trio was the basic of a very prolific music collaboration with different musicians for a longer period. In the SzaMaBa Major’s main percussion instrument was the udu, combined with the cymbals. This combination and two acoustic guitars created the main sound of the SzaMaBa.
In 1995 the SzaMaBa Trio split off. Balázs Major continued his music carieer in solo and Sandor Szabo also started his international solo acoustic guitar carreer. In 2003 they were invited to the Fretless Guitar Festival in Mende/France. This invitation gave them the idea to reunify the duo.
In the begining of 2003 they started to record a new album called Amusing. They continously added new compositions and recordings to the forthcoming new album, however the album was never released. The compositions finally released on different compillations. This duo created the basis of different other projects such as the Bulgarian/Hungarian ethno jazz SzaMaNi Trio with Nikolay Ivanov piano player, the Fractal String with Michael Manring and Claus Boesser Ferrari, the Kontaktus trio with Kevin kastning, the Euro–Oriental Consort with Ralf Gauck as well as their brand new formation, the Szabó/Major/Heidrich Trio.
In the last years the instrumentation of the duo has been developed. Balázs Major’s double udu and cimbal combination resulted in a never heard sound. Sándor plays his 24 string double neck fretless lute, 16 string acoustic guitar, the chinese zither called guzheng and the indian esraj. The Szabó/Major duo performs relatively rarely.
