Gábor Szabó - Spellbinder (Verve Vault Series 180g Vinyl LP) PRE-ORDER

Expected Release Date: 20-March-2025 - This Pre-order will be shipped on or just before this date. Release dates are subject to alteration.

Spellbinder, released in 1966 on Impulse! Records, introduced Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó to a wider American audience with a set that blends modal jazz, Eastern European folk influences, and 1960s pop textures. Recorded in May 1966 at Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio and produced by Bob Thiele, Spellbinder features Szabó in a quintet setting with bassist Ron Carter, drummer Chico Hamilton, and percussionists Willie Bobo and Victor Pantoja. The group’s hypnotic blend of grooves and drones helped establish Szabó’s signature approach: vamp-based forms, sitar-like guitar articulation, and modal lines shaped by his Eastern European heritage.

The title track, a slow-building vamp, showcases Szabó’s minimalist phrasing and rhythmic sensitivity. The record’s standout moment is a reimagining of Sonny Bono’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” which Szabó transforms into a darkly lyrical modal meditation. Elsewhere, the group blurs the lines between jazz improvisation and global rhythms, bridging bop vocabulary with the expanding musical frontiers of the mid-1960s.

Tracklist:

Spellbinder

Witchcraft

It Was A Very Good Year

Gypsy Queen

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

Cheetah

My Foolish Heart

Yearning

Autumn Leaves/Speak To Me Of Love