As if he were “incidental”

For a young man who wanted to become a singer since childhood and has spent his formative years training to reach this end, the choice of the genre most suited to his voice, character and temperament can’t have been an easy one. Gábor Winand’s first choice was opera, but circumstances did not permit him to pursue an operatic career. So it was only in 1983 – the year he was admitted to the Jazz Department of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music as a vocalist – that it became clear that his true genre was jazz. Though he has also learned to play the clarinet, and plays the saxophone and the flute so well that his colleagues hold a high opinion of him as an instrumental musician also, Gábor Winand is first and foremost a jazz singer. More precisely, the number one singer of contemporary jazz in Hungary.

From the moment he completed his studies he became the most sought-after singer in Hungarian jazz life, and is constantly in demand to this day whenever a male singer is needed for a modern production. Thus, all those who take an interest in Hungarian jazz will know exactly who the “protagonist” of this album is – at the most they will wonder how it is possible that an artist who has been a leading figure of the genre for two decades has only now come out with a solo album.

On his album entitled Corners of My Mind, Gábor Winand reveals the whole gamut of the tools of his trade, but he does this without affectation, without ever needing to resort to soloist bravuras. This “restraint” derives in part from his character, and in part has always been an essential feature of his interpretative technique. Winand often sings as though the music had just put him in mind of something – as if he were “incidental” or at the most merely another “instrument”.

At the same time he is obviously well aware that a natural mode of interpretation is essential when the music is about real states of mind and the thoughts and emotions that accompany them. This is why Eszter Molnár, the author of the lyrics, found in Gábor Winand’s personality a most convincing “medium” for the interpretation of the most intimate and deeply felt emotions of adulthood – for which singing theatrically, “for effect”, or cloaking oneself in an artistic haze, is simply not enough.

Mannerism is not foreign to jazz singers, an imperfection that cannot be laid at Winand’s door; but at times his singing is imbued with a coolness, and an inherent imperturbability arising from his temperament, which enhances his authenticity as a performer. It is to this aloofness, and this male bashfulness, if you will, that we owe the exceptional qualities of his style.

Given the clarity and beauty of Gábor Gadó’s compositions, we should not be surprised if some of his pieces were to turn up as new standards in the repertory of world-famous musicians of the genre in a few years’ time even if it is hard to imagine a better performance than Gábor Winand and his companions recorded on this album.

László Matisz

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Crossroads of life

All the roads from North to South
East to West, meet here at the crossroads
No footsteps to show you the way

Others have gone before

I have travelled many miles,
Many years, till I reached these crossroads
No signpost to show you the way

Leading to joy for you

Who’ll guide me?
Decide for me
Where to go
How to choose

Need a sign
Need a sage man
Who will know
Who’ll advise me

Why is it so hard
Hard to make my mind up
Knowing the end

And if the choice was wrong
Then must you carry on
Until you reach the end?

Or do these roads all lead
Endlessly run to meet
In crossroads of life?


Corners of my mind

Through the night
she holds me tight

Her dark eyes
so restless
as wordless
she questions
wants to know
has to know
all my thoughts
all my dreams
wants to reach, read
my mind

...lying in the dark...feel her eyes search mine...

Can’t tell her what I feel
Can’t find the words she needs to hear from me
...to stop her reaching into the corners of my mind

...read my mind...
...bare my soul...

She wants me
to tell her
find words to
convince her
what I feel’s
what she feels
just as deep
just as sure
lasting and
just as true


Love song

I have found peace
In the warm glow of lamplight
Flames dart and cast shadows on the wall
By the light of the dying fire I try to read your eyes
But your face is turned from me – now
Soon, before long, I know you’ll come to me
Take me by the hand
And desire, like a flame
From smouldering embers kindled back to life
Born from ashes, lighting up the night
Gently warms my sleeping heart.


Cold light of dawn

In the cold light of dawn
Whole town’s asleep I’m alone
Roaming the streets too tired
Scared to go home
Why did I stay out so long?
And what am I going to say?
Coward, liar
That’s what I’ve become
That’s what I’ll be
What you made me
that’s what you made me

Sneaking home like a thief
Through all these bleak empty streets
No one about to know
No one to see
Hiding behind every shuttered eye
May lurk a spy better beware

Fearing every step
Like a hunted beast
What have I become
What have I become

Never thought, never dreamed
I’d come to this, can’t believe
I was so weak, a tool
Easy to fool
Told myself it was just a game
Turned out to be too much for me
Turn the clock back
I don’t want to fear
Fear the light of day
Cold light of dawn
So dazzling
Daylight


Seasons of the heart

She stands and stares into the dark
Searches the shadows of the past
Watching rain stream down the pane
Clouds hanging heavy, weighted with her pain and shame
The twisted quinces standing guard
Frost rimes their gnarled, mottled bark
Bare branches reach for the sky
The silent sentries of her frozen, troubled heart

A crystal sheath of ice – holds her bound, rooted to the ground
Trapped in her nightmare – never ends never gives her rest

Locked in a dark cage, trapped in the mazes of her mind
Lost to the world, ceaselessly searching for

And every year the hardest time
When deep of winter comes around
And fog descends like a shroud
Closing her off from colour, light and sound

And every year she waits for spring
Fearing the changes it will bring
Stirred by the wakening earth
Wishing to share in the promise of rebirth

And every spring she waits to see
The creamy flowers of her tree
Like candles lighting up the green
Stop her from thinking of all that might have been

Prisoner of the past – holds her bound, rooted to the ground
Trapped in her nightmare – never ends, never gives her rest
Locked in a dark cage, trapped in the mazes of her mind
Lost to the world, ceaselessly searching for

Like flowers always seeking light
While summer lasts she’ll come to life
Lose heart as soon as it turns dark
Prey to the ever changing seasons of her heart

Lyrics by Eszter Molnár