Back to the dreaded Lajos Dudas with Monte Carlo, 1981

This is the third album to be ripped in this series and it's from 1981 (I think?).  Earlier we had Sunshine State feat. Toto Blanke, and Contrasts.  Here as marked on the cover he is accompanied by the great Hungarian guitarist Attila Zoller who had a long and prolific career in the German jazz scene playing with such famous names as Doldinger and Mangelsdorff since way back in the mid-60s.  (He even made a duo album with the Japanese pianist Masahiko Satoh in 1971 which I'd love to hear.)

At times, they really approach the dynamic inventiveness plus free freak-flag-high jazz spirit of the early Association P.C. minus maybe the top inch of their over-the-top lunacy.  Compositions are by Dudas with the exception of A2, Rumpelstilzchen with its ingenious riffs, which is by Zoller:





I see that A1, the Blues song, was "awarded best composition by the 11th International Competition for Jazz Themes in Monaco, 1982."  (Or perhaps, a very reliable time machine predicted it would win that award the year after this was released.  Mine are not as reliable.)

Lajos Dudas in Contrasts

This album presents to us the interesting premise of jazz variations on pieces by Liszt and Bartok. It would've benefited from a bit of the electric influences that were used for example in Romanian prog band Experimental Q to really push it over the edge, but we'll have to accept what we got here.

Csardas Obstine:

Lajos Dudas with the great Toto Blanke in Sunshine State from 1985

I couldn't avoid buying this one when I saw the involvement of the great Toto Blanke, much mentioned here before.  He contributed one composition called Que tal Carlos and otherwise seems quite self-effacing, in fact that would apply as a description of his track.  Keyboardist Ernst Hartmann contributed 2 songs both kinda humdrum, with the remainder penned by the leader, clarinetist Dudas, whose brief discogs bio reads

Hungarian jazz clarinetist, born 18 February 1941 in Budapest, Hungary.

Despite the title the songs reference West Coast places incl. the famous and beautiful Pacific Highway, which I have yet to have the fortune to see: