Gergő Borlai

Gergö Borlai (right) with the KLB trio

Gergő Borlai (born May 27, 1978 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian jazz and fusion musician ( drums , arrangement ).

Live and act

Borlai's parents work as sound engineers. He began playing drums at the age of three, listening to music with his father, and was soon influenced by Harvey Mason and Joe Morello . He made his first recordings with his father's amateur band at the age of six. He was tutored by Iván Nesztor (until 1990) and by János Szanyi (between 1992 and 1996). As an autodidact, he learned the piano and bass.

In 1998, at the age of 20, he released his first album at 17 . In 2001 he formed his first band, European Mantra , which split in 2008 and re-formed in 2010; four albums have been created with the band so far. In 2004 Gergő went into the studio to record his second solo album Sausage , which was somewhere between jazz and thrash metal . Different artists participated. He also worked with Tommy Campbell , Steve Smith , Trilok Gurtu , Akira Jimbo , Hiram Bullock , Vernon Reid , L. Shankar , Bob Mintzer , Al DiMeola , Nguyên Lê , Hadrien Feraud , Eivind Aarset , Eric Moore, Tim Lefebvre , Gary Willis , Yolanda Charles and Iain Ballamy as well as studio musicians . In 2014 he became a member of the fusion band Tribal Tech .

Borlai has been a professor in the jazz department of the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu in Barcelona since 2012 . His lessons on apps were recognized as the best “application for drummers” on iTunes in 2013 .

Discographic notes

• Sausage (Tom-Tom 2004, with Gábor Winand , Jamie Winchester , Kornél Kovács Black, Zoltán Zana, Mihály Borbély, János Nagy, Péter Lukács, Gergő Mits and Gergő Kolta)
• Szalóki Ági & Borlai Gergő Kishúg (Folk Európa 2011)

Web links

• Brief portrait
• Gergo Borlai at Drummerworld (English)
• Gergő Borlai at Discogs (English)