Oliver Báder: Make life more beautiful
We spoke with jazz guitarist Olivér Báder from Várad about his album Make Your Life Better (2010).
Visitors to the Posticum Cultural Center in Oradea can sometimes witness the scene of a lone musician strumming his guitar on the building's picturesque terrace. He is Olivér Báder, one of the city's special spots on the jazz scene. He doesn't really like to appear in public, nor does he like interviews, but he enjoys talking to those close to him. In such a friendly and informal atmosphere, we talked to him about his recently released new album, his life, and his plans.
He was born on February 20, 1975. He learned from the greatest jazz musicians – self-taught. At first, he listened to their songs on the radio, and when he had the chance, he bought their records. He studied classical guitar for three years and spent a year studying in Vienna. One of his great regrets is that there is still no jazz guitar course in Romania, where this extremely complex and demanding musical genre would be taught at the appropriate level. That is why he has long cherished the idea of organizing a jazz course, which will probably be realized this summer with the support of Posticum. Few people know that 10 years ago, Olivér was the dreamer of Jazzland, which operates in Posticum. The first fruit of the initial collaboration was born in modest circumstances Jazz Fusion (2001) was a CD.
Over the past ten years, Olivér has had an extremely varied career. He would have loved to be a street musician, but according to the relevant legal regulations and laws, he would have to start a business, pay various fees and taxes, and thus the business would slowly kill music. According to Olivér, liberation is essential for jazz music that comes from the depths and involves the personality to a great extent. Therefore, any kind of constraint is alien to him. Although he has played with the most famous individuals of Hungarian jazz, which he considers a great honor, he is still embarrassed by “professionals” due to his peculiar anxious personality. When he plays with them, his spasmodic nature resulting from an excessive desire to conform deprives him of the joy of self-forgetful music-making. At this point in the conversation, the difference between amateur and professional comes up. Olivér has a very strong opinion on this: an amateur is someone who “accidentally” sometimes hits a note or melody better than a highly trained musician; A professional is someone who can reliably produce a certain level of quality under all circumstances. Olivér calls himself an amateur, but he seizes every opportunity that helps him play music professionally. He is rarely satisfied with himself, but sometimes he surprises even himself. (Once, while sitting on the terrace of the Posticum, he listened with rapture to the melodies of the music filtering through the reception, only to suddenly break into it after a few bars, this is his guitar playing.) Olivér's songs are often born in "moments of grace", when he does not invent or compose the music, but "only" plays the melody that resonates within him.
Published for the tenth anniversary of Posticum, with the support of the Soros Foundation Make Your Life Better contains such songs. Attila László, a Liszt Prize-winning jazz guitarist and composer, rightly wrote about it: “We can hear great, liberated music on Olivér Báder’s album. Talent and the joy of playing… A joy to listen to!” The extremely tastefully designed cover is the work of Zoltán Imre, a visual artist from Nagyvárad. The material for the album was recorded in a day and a half in a Budapest studio. The tight time frame was not the reason why the songs were not re-recorded or cut after minor mistakes. According to Olivér’s conviction that jazz is live music, the album should also convey this and not a “manipulated version”.
Finally, we asked the musician about his plans. He has some finished songs, but he is not planning to release another album yet. He is currently working on setting psalms to music with well-known Hungarian jazz musicians. When saying goodbye, he says that he will continue to play music with his cousin Sándor Gáspári and József Görbe (Gino), and that he was recently asked to play twice a week in a bar in Oradea. His personal website has also just been completed, where those interested can find all the information about him (www.baderoliver.net).
István Bruncsák, Bihari Diary, June 19, 2010.
PS In the meantime Psalms The material for the psalm arrangements mentioned in the article has been prepared and can be downloaded for free from the author's website.