MagyarPeter Lipa is a singer for more than 40 years on the european jazz scene. At an early age he fell in love with blues and this influenced him greatly – so much so, that his music is dedicated to it until today. Since the 80s he was placed in the 5 top of the European jazz singers charts by “Jazz Forum magazine”. But this didn’t help him in the communist era, when he was (without any reason) forbidden to record. That’s why his first own recording (for OPUS – Moanin’) was released when he was 40. After that Peter Lipa started his recording career under his name and made an appearence on a variety of recordings. He is the founder of the internationaly acclaimed Bratislava Jazz Days. Bringing world-class jazz musicians to Slovakia for 39 years, he (among others) sang with Bobby McFerrin on stage at the BJD in 1986. Not only a pioneer in jazz music in Slovakia, he was the first person to have a computer-animated music video (in Slovakia) for his biggest hit-single “Balada o štyroch koňoch”. For his CD “Lipa spieva Lasicu” he received 5 Aurel awards (the slovak equivalent of “The grammy award”) and it became his biggest-selling album with 15 000 copies sold to date. Today he has 25 CDs as a leader and lots of compilations and DVDs.
Recording is only a part of the musicians life. He performs on more than a hundred concerts per year in Slovakia and abroad mostly in Czech republic. Only in recent years he played in London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Cairo, Chicago , Vancouver, Brussels, Prague, Budapest just to name the biggest cities. A lot of radio and TV performances are something that belongs naturally to an artist in his position.
As a usual part of the concert you can listen to some standards and also some covers of the Beatles songs which were specially covered and recorded for his “Beatles in Blues” CD in 2002.
His music is changing with time. The last couple of years he is recording and playng mostly original music written together with his musicians and sang in english and slovak. If you call it Vocal Jazz you might not be wrong, but this doesn’t take anything away from his 4 musicians – they are first class improvisers and together with his vocal they form a homogeneus quintet.
His live recordings have an international character. So far, there are the 4 projects, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia of course. Live in Hungary is from 2004 and recordings was created on 4 concerts at various cities of Hungary.
Peter Lipa was host to the Hungarian group Djabe and it was a very pleasant cooperation. 9 tracks forms a perfect view of Lipa’s skills and gives good opportunity for his four colleagues to show their instrumental mastery. Selecting tracks reflect the internationality of the situation and Lipa singing exclusively in English (except for the first half of the song Don’t you let the good times go) although at home in Slovakia today he mostly recording original music in Slovak. Lonely avenue at the time was opening blues as a memory of one of the Lipa’s favorit Ray Charles.
Beatles songs accompanied his career since the beginning. His first big performing in prague presented “A Day In The Life” in 1968. Compette studio recordings under the name “The Beatles in Blues” issued by Lipa in 2000. The House of the Rising Sun is his indicated mark especially in Hungary, where it is often asked as a special request. Other songs are original based on the lyrics written by some friends. Concerts in Hungary Lipa graduated with his stable lineup, composed of four outstanding instrumentalists.
Thanks to Gramy Records there are Peter Lipa’s unique recordings from Hungary concerts from1980 as a bonus tracks. That time was Lipa unable to record back home in Slovakia.
