Zoltan Szekely learned guitar from a Hungarian trapeze artist.
"Before that, I played the violin, and I was a miserable failure at violin," he said. "After I got instructions from the circus trapeze artist, I began to see the way."
His band, the Zoltan Orkestar, is made up of accordion, guitar, bass, percussion and occasionally violin. It plays tonight at the Market Café.
Szekely celebrated his 26th birthday at the Verb with five bands while sipping on a bottle of Ouzo, a Greek licorice liquor.
The Orkestar plays gypsy samba carnival music.
"Samba was invented by Brazilian gypsies," he said. "I'm a big fan of circus music. I like trapeze-artist guitar teachers and clowns, midgets - I'm a big fan of midgets."
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Szekely was born in Transylvania. He also lived in Budapest and Canada before moving to Albuquerque 10 years ago.
He makes his living as a professional classical guitarist and guitar teacher. He plays with accordionist John Keith at Java Joe's, at 906 Park Ave. S.W., on Thursday mornings.
He also participates in neurological creativity and intelligence studies at the MIND Institute at North Campus.
"I have my brain MRI-scanned for money," Szekely said. "I'm a very popular study at the MIND Institute, actually. I'm not sure of the results. I never dared to ask. I'm not sure if I want to find out. But I do some button-pushing with images and sounds - I endorse that institution."
Keith said the Zoltan Orkestar puts the "star" in "starving."
"And did you know Zoltan is Hungarian?" he said. "He puts the 'hung' in 'Hungarian.'"
Keith said he was considered tone-deaf as a child.
"I was voted the person least likely to succeed in music, which has been my driving inspiration ever since," he said. "Hell, except for Zoltan, we're pretty good."
Keith used to be a school bus driver in Baltimore, where he became infatuated with a short circus clown named Bernice. He relays the story sometimes when performing with Szekely.
"True story, by the way," he said. "On the first day of school, I saw two kids walking up to the school bus stop. And when they got there, I realized one was a mom, and one was a kid. She was 4-foot-7. Beautiful."
They got to know each other over the year, talking at the bus stop. They were both sad on the last day of school because they wouldn't see each other again.
"One of the things she could do was run down the street on her hands - she could run upstairs on her hands," he said. "She knew it made me laugh to walk on her hands, and she didn't want to see me sad. So, she got on her hands, and with tears flowing down her forehead, walked away, and I never saw her again."
