Gabor Szabo – “Nightflight” at 50

The first of the final four studio albums Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo recorded before his untimely death in 1982, Nightflight is also, notably, the penultimate album under his own name to appear in his adopted homeland. It is also a polarizing one, but one that has remarkably gained in stature since its release half a century ago.

Some marvel at it, particularly contemporary listeners, while others – back in the day – either ignored it or just outright despised it. There are those that – fairly enough – think that Szabo was simply tapping into the popular zeitgeist. Then there are those, who, well-accustomed to the guitarist’s ever-evolving brand of fusions, found that this shift in course of Szabo’s musical trajectory a bridge too far.

What one music-industry magazine called “a subtle redefinition,”¹ was, by current standards, a total “rebranding” of the guitarist that has, at least to these ears, taken a bit of getting used to.

After recording three albums in as many years for Creed Taylor’s CTI Records, the era’s preeminent jazz label, Gabor Szabo signed with Mercury Records in early 1976. At the time, Mercury was known for such pop and rock acts as Paper Lace, 10CC, Thin Lizzy and Rush and such country artists as Tom T. Hall, Johnny Rodriguez, Faron Young and Terry Bradshaw. Yes, that Terry Bradshaw.

Szabo was signed by Charlie Fach (1928-2011), Mercury’s executive vice president and chief A&R guy at the time, after organist Charles Earland’s 1976 Mercury debut, Odyssey, reportedly sold a remarkable 70,000 units in its first month of release.² Fach wanted to bring jazz back to the storied label and one-time home to such heavyweights as Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley and Sarah Vaughan.

Although Fach wound up bringing in such jazzers as Earland and Szabo, as well as Houston Person, Jimmy Smith and Chico Hamilton, none of these artists’ Mercury records were – with one or two minor exceptions – particularly groundbreaking or especially notable. Fach had much better success with the label’s hit-makers: Bachman-Turner Overdrive, the Bar-Kays and funkmasters The Ohio Players.

The arrangement was brokered by Szabo’s recently-hired manager, Forest Hamilton (1945-2000), a former executive at the famed Stax Records and the son of drummer Chico Hamilton (1921-2013), in whose quintet Szabo got his start in the early sixties. At the time, Forest was an “advisor” to Isaac Hayes, while managing such soul acts as The Dramatics and Side Effect, as well as crossover jazz artists Roland Bautista and former Crusader Wayne Henderson.³

The younger Hamilton was also responsible for the seemingly unlikely pairing of the Hungarian guitarist with singer, songwriter, producer and one of the architects of the “Philly Soul” sound of the early seventies, Walter “Bunny” Sigler (1941-2017). Sigler had recently overseen the production of another one of Hamilton’s clients, R&B singer Carl (“She’s a Bad Mama Jama”) Carlton’s 1975 album I Wanna Be With You.

At the time, Sigler worked as musician, staff songwriter, producer as well as recording artist at the then-thriving Philadelphia International Records. He worked in each of these capacities on such hit albums as Joe Simon’s Drowning In the Sea of Love and The O’Jays’ hit Back Stabbers (both 1972). Sigler also had several minor R&B hits of his own on the label, including “Tossin’ and Turnin” (1972), “Shake Your Booty” and “Keep Smilin'” (both 1974). He also composed the wickedly funky theme to the little-known martial-arts film “Five Fingers of Death” (1973).

For Nightflight, Sigler assembled a tight group of Philly-based studio musicians, the majority of whom were to become known collectively as Instant Funk: brother James (Jimmy) Sigler on organ, Kim Miller (billed here as “Ken”) on guitar, Raymond Earl on bass and Scotty Miller on drums.

Instant Funk backed Sigler on his own LPs My Music (1976) and Let Me Party with You (1977) and would issue their own Sigler-produced debut album, the insanely funky Get Down with the Philly Jump later in the year – but wouldn’t find its groove until their 1979 hit, the earwormy disco classic “I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl).”

Sigler also brought in to the Szabo project frequent writing and arranging partner Richard V. Di Cicco, a.k.a. Richie Rome (1930-2020). The Philly-born Rome had previously arranged the 1963 Inez and Charlie Fox Top 10 hit “Mockingbird,” as well as the 1970 O’Jays hit medley “Little Green Apples & Something.”

Rome also created, with Jacques Morali (who would later go on to co-create the Village People), the successful disco band The Ritchie Family – named for Rome, with an added “t” – which had significant disco hits with “Brazil” in 1975 and the ingeniously clever mash-up “The Best Disco in Town” in 1976.

II.

For a brief period in the early seventies, Philadelphia was a hot bed of hit action. The O’Jays had hits with “Back Stabbers,” “Love Train” and the insidiously influential “For the Love of Money,” while still others had hits of their own. There was Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones,” MFSB’s instrumental “TSOP” (also known as the “Soul Train” theme), The Three Degrees’ “When Will I See You Again,” Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “If You Don’t Know Me By Now,” and Lou Rawls’ “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine.”

While pop stars like Dusty Springfield and David Bowie – and, later, such R&B artists as The Jacksons (formerly the Jackson Five) and Lou Rawls – went to the Pennsylvania state capital for a little bit of that “Philly Soul,” hardly any one from the jazz world journeyed there. Even such Philadelphia-based players as Grover Washington, Jr. and Shirley Scott recorded primarily in and around New York City at the time, never to become affiliated with the Philly sound.

Apart from Szabo, the only other jazz players to bask in that Philly soul during this period were saxophonist Willis Jackson for his 1975 album The Way We Were and another former CTI artist, Stanley Turrentine, for his 1978 disc What About You! Both discs are more crossover – practically disco – than jazz, and both feature arrangements courtesy of the ever-busy Richie Rome.

But the air of the Philly sound loomed less over Nightflight than something else blowing in the wind at the time. Exactly one month before Szabo’s album was recorded (and two months before it was released), a seismic shift occurred in the music world with the release of guitarist George Benson’s landmark Breezin’ album.

Benson, himself a former CTI artist, recorded an album that was unprecedented in that it shot to number one on the Jazz, R&B and Pop charts by July 1976. Breezin’ eventually scored as a triple Platinum success. The disc also featured two massive hits in its title track – a song that originated on Szabo’s own 1971 album High Contrast – and a silky-smooth and sublime cover of Leon Russell’s “This Masquerade.”

Not only did Breezin’ change the trajectory of Benson’s career, much in the way that Nat King Cole’s career shifted a generation before, but the hugely popular and still beloved album changed the face of jazz itself.

The music shifted from the fusion of jazz and rock (or soul and funk) of the early seventies to a smoother, pop brand of instrumental music. This yielded to such crossover hits as Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” (1977), Herb Alpert’s “Rise” and Spyro Gyra’s “Morning Dance” (both 1979) and James Last’s “The Seduction” (1980) and eventually to the smooth jazz that emerged in the early eighties. Such was the transition of the music that Nightflight was inevitably caught up in.

III.

Like so much of the music noted above, Nightflight was recorded at Philadelphia’s famed Sigma Sound Studios. The studio, founded by sound engineer Joe Tarsia (1934-2022) in 1968, was located at 212 N. 12th St. in the Center City area of downtown Philadelphia, and captured much musical history during its tenure, particularly during the first decade of its operations. Tarsia eventually sold the business in 2003, but the city added the property to its Register of Historic Places in 2020 to protect the cultural landmark from an otherwise looming demolition.

Nightflight engineer James Gallagher, a Sigma Sound staffer from 1973 to 1983, had previously recorded albums by the above named Carl Carlton, Willis Jackson and Lou Rawls as well as discs by MFSB, Salsoul Orchestra, Spinners, People’s Choice (Boogie Down U.S.A.), Double Exposure (Ten Percent) and many others.

But Nightflight – strangely – only hints at its significant Philadelphia parentage. It’s as though they were trying to mask the fact that a jazz album could come straight outta Philly.

After about 20 seconds of what sounds like a jet engine warming up, the Flamenco-like “Concorde (Nightflight)” opens the disc with a bang. Named for the legendary supersonic Air France jet liner – which entered service in January 1976 (it was retired in 2003) – “Concorde” ranks as one of Szabo’s most memorable songs, and, indeed, soon became part of the guitarist’s permanent repertoire.

(Live versions of the song can be heard on Szabo’s Live in Cleveland, a “Club Date” performance included in Carlos Santana’s video Influences, where Santana himself plays part of the melody, and The Complete Gabor Szabo in Budapest. Other performances of the song have been recorded, but not officially released.)

“Concorde (Nightflight)” is credited here to both Richie Rome (first) and Gabor Szabo (second), although, curiously, only Rome’s music publisher is listed. In fact, Rome was the sole writer. What probably happened is that Szabo whipped off a line – as he did in 1971 with “Breezin” – and Rome wrote an entire song around it, as Bobby Womack had on the earlier track. The credit is likely Rome’s concession to Szabo for the slight that the guitarist felt over George Benson’s huge success (credited solely to Womack) with what Szabo felt was his tune.

The result is a signature Szabo showpiece. Doused with lush, dramatic strings and cinematically ominous horns, Szabo delivers a first-rate performance, that one reviewer aptly noted in performance “successfully captured the intensity of being on a plane at night.”⁴ My only complaint is that Szabo, who performs magnificently here, is dialed back in the mix behind the aggressive rhythm and the orchestral fireworks that were certainly the norm in disco’s heyday.

Otherwise, Rome has crafted here not merely a “theme for Gabor” but, what seems to this listener to be a concerto for the guitarist. “Concorde (Nightflight)” surely had to have had some influence on the 1977 Santa Esmerelda hit “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood).” The parallels are uncanny.

The ballads “Funny Face,” “Keep Smilin’,” and “Smooth Sailin,” likely nods to George Benson’s lovely crooning on the hit “This Masquerade,” find Szabo ill-advisedly singing for the first time in a decade. Szabo’s flat, off-key vocalizing tends to be anything but soulful and even descends into unnecessary Donna Summer-like heavy breathing at points in “Funny Face.” The otherwise pretty “Funny Face” does, however, include some attractive noodling by the guitarist.

The nearly martial-sounding “Keep Smilin,” a minor R&B hit for Sigler in 1974, limits Szabo to sing in his Hungarian-accented monotone, “Keep smilin’, baby, keep smilin’, keep smilin’, keep smilin’, baby, keep smilin’, keep smilin'” over and over again. The song, however, is mostly a feature for Szabo’s meandering guitar. But while the plodding rhythm doesn’t give the soloist much to work with, Szabo works his magic on the tune with some especially fancy fretwork.

Sigler’s 1974 original, arranged there by Norman Harris, had more of a lush “Back Stabbers” quality to it. Here, Sigler’s arrangement gives the song a sort of a low-gear “You’ll Never Find Another Love Another Love Like Mine” quality. (Incidentally, Sigler wrote and produced one track, “From Now On,” for that hit 1976 Lou Rawls album, All Things in Time. Richie Rome arranged that piece.)

“Keep Smilin” also briefly paraphrases a catchy part of the lyrics to William DeVaughn’s 1974 hit “Be Thankful for What You Got,” which itself was recorded in 1972 at Sigma Sound: “Diamond in the back, sunroof top/Diggin’ the scene with a gangster lean, woo-hoo.” Here, though, “gangster” is replaced by “Philly.”

The initially dreadful “Smooth Sailin” – featuring Szabo miserably crooning “I’m talkin’ about smooth sailin’, like sailing on an ocean of love” several times – is a seemingly pointless bit of filler. Written by Philadelphia’s own Michael Holden and Theodore Life (a.k.a. T. Life), the song appears to be unique to Nightflight.

(Two years later, T. Life would make a name for himself as producer of the teenaged Evelyn “Champagne” King’s breakout album Smooth Talk, featuring the hits “Shame” and “I Don’t Know If It’s Right.” Smooth Talk also featured such Nightflight participants as Bunny and Jimmy Sigler, Kim Miller, Raymond Earl and Dexter Wansel.)

At about the 02:45-mark of “Smooth Sailin’,” though, the rhythm suddenly shifts gears into unaccountably Blaxploitation funk mode, similar to Cosmic Slop-era Funkadelic. It’s a peculiar shift for something called “Smooth Sailin,” but not altogether unwelcome. Szabo, who seems pretty game here, offers his jazz-inflected metallic jangle, a notable and noticeable contrast to the heavy-metal psychedelia of Parliament/Funkadelic’s Eddie Hazel.

Gabor Szabo did not often do outright funk. But when he did, as on “Hum a Song” (1970) and “Fingers” (1971),” he proved he could get down with the best of them. That is also the case with Sigler and rhythm guitarist Kim Miller’s addictive and high-adrenaline “Baby Rattle Snake.” Here, at last, is the groove that gave Instant Funk its name.

For many listeners, this high octane groover is the album’s centerpiece. Nothing on the rest of the album comes close to this level of energy, enthusiasm and, well, downright fun. Some listeners, however, might tire of the repetitive melody “line” (played four times before Szabo’s solo). Others might wish there was some of the counterpoint guitarist Jimmy Stewart or keyboardist Bob James offered on earlier Szabo recordings.

Rome’s “Theme for Gabor” seems to take its cues from The Stylistics’ 1974 hit “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” which, not at all surprisingly, was also recorded at Sigma Sound. Here, the guitarist helms the plaintive melody, backed only by piano, bass and synth textures courtesy of Dexter Wansel, whose own tremendous fusion/disco solo debut, Life on Mars, was issued at around the same time as Nightflight.

In addition to the title track, one of the album’s most notable and memorable tracks is the lovely “Every Minute Counts,” credited, again, to both Szabo and Rome, although this one is a truly collaborative effort. Lushly-appointed – Rome presents a nice mix of strings, flutes, horns and viola on the outro that gives a strong sense of drama and emotion – “Every Minute Counts” is a highlight of Szabo’s playbook, although, unlike “Concorde (Nightflight),” this one never made it in to the guitarist’s playbook.

The fetching melody gives way to Szabo’s melodic, though melancholy solo (one senses that “time,” or the lack of it, was something very much on Szabo’s mind). Unfortunately, the long solo – which takes up over half of the song’s playing time – simply fades out rather than resolve itself in some meaningful way that such past collaborators as Gary McFarland or Bob James would have either insisted on or naturally considered.

“Every Minute Counts” was later adopted by Carlos Santana for the song “Novus,” included on the 2002 disc Shaman, the number-one follow-up to the million-selling Santana “comeback” album Supernatural (1999). and featuring vocals from no less a figure than acclaimed Spanish opera tenor Plácido Domingo (b. 1941).

“Novus” employs a bridge of “Every Minute Counts” that can be heard at that song’s 01:30 to 01:50 mark (and again at the 02:57 to 03:17 mark) as its main melodic motif. The always generous Mr. Santana gave both Gabor Szabo and Richie Rome (who likely composed this part of the theme) songwriting credit for “Novus,” as well as the song’s other contributors.

IV.

Nightflight was released in May 1976 to initially little notice and only a middling response. For its part, Mercury, perhaps feeling Szabo was poised for the same success that Charles Earland’s Mercury debut had unexpectedly experienced earlier in the year, did little to promote the record. Indeed, the otherwise major label was unprepared at first to promote any of its new jazz product.

Mercury was also, no doubt, unprepared for the industry thunderstorm that Breezin’ had become: At the time of Nightflight‘s release, George Benson’s album was not only the number one disc on the Jazz chart (where it would reside for much of the remaining year) but topped the Soul chart, too. That unprecedented – and, still to this day, unrivaled – disc even cracked the Easy Listening chart and was working its way up the Pop chart as well.

While the jazz press didn’t much approve of Breezin’,⁵ it was merciless with Szabo’s disc. “Nightflight opens with Gabor Szabo’s romantic, flamenco signature,” noted DownBeat in its scathing one-and-a-half star review, “gradually surrendering to ominous, bombastic synthesizer tones, funky rhythm guitar tracks, and discofied string and flute settings. For the most part, it’s silly and dispensable, but Szabo alone manages to keep his melodic integrity intact.⁶

The print version of “All Music Guide to Jazz: The Definitive Guide to Jazz” (Backbeat Books, 2002) merely listed the album’s title (no review) and assigned it only one star. But years later, the very same AllMusic’s Thom Jurek noted in his three-and-a-half star review that “Nightflight is stronger than his CTI dates because Szabo is far more comfortable in a setting where the record label’s sound doesn’t need to assert itself over his own. The softer, more lustrous production by Sigler reflects a better understanding of Szabo as an artist, making Nightflight an all-around winner.”

This listener, however, can’t muster such fulsome praise. I find the record to be, at best, a mixed bag and, at worst, a wholly unsuccessful attempt at some sort of a crossover: It’s not quite disco, it’s not quite soul and it’s not quite pop. But when it’s good, the jazz is clearly there.

To these ears, Bunny Sigler seems a bad match for Szabo’s sensibilities. Perhaps if Richie Rome, who seemed to make a musical connection with the guitarist here, had helmed more of the record, it would have been more representative of Szabo’s abilities (if not also possibly more disco-oriented and overly arranged).

On the other hand, such late-period Szabo recordings as Nightflight continue to cast a spell over listeners. When I interviewed guitarist Carlos Santana in the mid nineties, I was genuinely surprised when he cited Szabo’s Mercury records as his favorites among the Hungarian guitarist’s body of work.

Guitarist Bill Frisell, in a recent interview with journalist David Holzer, also said that he “appreciated the later things Gabor did.” Frisell, who recorded Szabo’s “Lady Gabor” in 2021 as part of Charles Lloyd’s Marvels band, added that “In the last few years, I’ve gone to some of his later records that were critically trashed at the time and I went and got these things and I thought ‘This stuff is great, it’s really awesome, wild’. There was all this thing at the time that he was selling out.”⁷ 

Mr. Frisell’s point about “selling out” is particularly well taken. I, too, don’t believe Gabor Szabo was “selling out” here – or anywhere else, for that matter – as much as he may have been selling himself short.

V.

Nightflight yielded no single release until four full months after the album’s release. It seems that Mercury was unsure of exactly what to do with the album. So, several months after the record’s release, some tone-deaf hot shot at the label pulled “Keep Smilin” and paired it with – of all things – rock act and fellow Mercury recording artist Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Gimme Your Money Please,” not from a recent release, but rather from the group’s eponymous 1973 debut.

The songs were combined on a 12-inch promotional record and distributed to radio stations in a plain cardboard sleeve that noted the music was “For Disco Only.” The stations most likely to program disco at the time were probably completely turned off by BTO’s chugging (if not clunky) rocker. But “Keep Smilin'” likely attracted at least enough moderately favorable attention by such programmers for Mercury to follow up on it.

Eventually, a superbly well-done three-minute and two-second edit of “Keep Smilin’,” backed by a three-minute and twenty-one-second edit of “Baby Rattle Snake,” appeared in September 1976, just as Nightflight was beginning to lose its momentum on the Jazz chart (it never crossed over on to any other chart). Ironically, the single was Szabo’s first such release since his version of “Breezin'” was issued on 45 in 1971.

(The Benson version of “Breezin'” was issued as a single a month later, in October 1976, where it hit only number 63 on the Pop chart. But that, of course, didn’t matter. Benson now owned “Breezin’.”)

Oddly, “Keep Smilin'” started getting spins on R&B stations in major American cities like St. Louis and Chicago, helping the single to reach an impressive number 77 on the R&B (now Soul) charts (Sigler’s original reached number 46 on the same chart in 1974), the very same week as Philly’s own O’Jays had a number one R&B hit with their “Message in Our Music.” To this day, “Keep Smilin'” remains Gabor Szabo’s highest-ever charting single release.

Three years later, for some reason, the British arm of Mercury records paired the “Full Length Version” of “Keep Smilin'” (all seven minutes and 24 seconds of it) with the soulful disco (à la Barry White) of “Sugar Pie Guy,” the minor 1974 hit on Mercury by The Joneses, a group that hailed from Pittsburgh, in the western part of Pennsylvania. There’s no doubt that “Keep Smilin'” then found favor and fans among the U.K.’s Northern Soul crowd.

“Gabor made an impression on the UK jazz funk scene,” notes the website soulwalking.co.uk, “with two albums recorded for Mercury Records in the mid-70’s. These were Nightflight (1976), including ‘Keep Smilin’ produced by Bunny Sigler (an earlier version having been recorded by Sigler on a Philadelphia International album a few years earlier) and Faces (1977), produced by Wayne Henderson.”

Nightflight was issued on CD nearly forty years later in 2015 by the British Vocalion label, through a licensing arrangement with Universal Music. The disc contains the original LP’s seven tracks, plus the single edits of “Keep Smilin'” and “Baby Rattle Snake,” as well as what is billed as the “Full-Length Version” of “Keep Smilin’,” presumably the version that appeared on the promotional 12-inch. But that version is the exact same 7:24 version that appeared on the original LP, as is the CD’s “Full-Length Version” (the last 11 seconds of the listed playing time is nothing but dead air).

With special thanks to David Holzer and Bill Frisell.

About the cover: Nightflight is one of the relatively few American releases by Gabor Szabo that does not boast a lush, laminated gatefold sleeve. But for a single-sleeve matte issue, it is hard to top the magnificence of the front and back sides of this Mercury Records sleeve.

The cover features the handsome guitarist luxuriating in the nighttime opulence of a jumbo jet (it’s probably not the Concorde), while the back cover features the mysteriously pondering Hungarian, dramatically lit in front of a not-at-all-Concorde sonic jet.

Whatever one thinks of the music, Nightflight‘s sleeve is especially compelling. The photos were taken by acclaimed photographer David Alexander.

He was responsible for an astonishing number of iconic record covers, including Parliament’s Mothership Connection (1975), Ringo Starr’s Ringo’s Rotogravure (1976), Freddie Hubbard’s (Bob James arranged and produced) Windjammer (1976), Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Street Survivors (1977), James Taylor’s JT (1977), the Doobie Brothers Minute by Minute (1978), Ry Cooder’s Bop Till You Drop (1979), the eponymous albums by both Donna Summer and Lionel Richie (both 1982), among many, many others, and, most notably of all, The Eagles’ Hotel California (1976) and The Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full of Blues (1978).

He also photographed movie posters for such films as 9 to 5 (1980), Stripes (1981), Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982), Fletch (1985), and, most memorably of all, The Terminator (1984).

Endnotes:

1. Record World, June 5, 1976. p. 59. This was the only industry publication that even covered Nightflight. ↩︎
2. Billboard, April 17, 1976, p. 6. ↩︎
3. Billboard, May 23, 1977, p. 34. ↩︎
4. Billboard, September 4, 1976, p. 43. ↩︎
5. DownBeat, June 17, 1976, pp. 20-22. In its opening salvo, the reviewer said of Breezin’, “Hearing George Benson on this album is like watching Marlon Brando in a Three Stooges movie.” ↩︎
6. DownBeat, January 22, 1977, p. 26. ↩︎
7. E-mail correspondence with the author, December 2, 2025. ↩︎