Family D
Lakatos
Lakatos primás families — Bihari’s line
Hungarian Roma — Budapest (and Belgium, for a time)
Style: Hungarian Romani music / Cigányzene
Seven generations of restaurant violin. The family names János Bihari as ancestor. Antal Lakatos (father of Roby), uncle Sándor, Roby Lakatos (b. 1965). Another public primás line: Sándor Déki Lakatos. Jazz piano: Béla Szakcsi Lakatos. Not one man. A name that means the café bow.
János Bihari (1764–1827) is the ancestor the Lakatos families name: verbunkos primás, heard by Liszt, a source for the Hungarian Dances the world later attached to Brahms. Whether every Lakatos chair is a direct blood line from Bihari is family claim, not a parish register. The craft is real: more than two centuries of professional Romani violin in Hungarian public rooms.
Sándor Lakatos was, in Roby’s telling, the most famous violinist of the family in the mid-twentieth century — known everywhere the restaurant orchestra still mattered. Antal Lakatos, Roby’s father, led a café band in Budapest. Roby (b. 1965) played in that band from nine, first violin in front of the orchestra. He is the seventh generation in which, he says, everyone was a violinist. He spent decades in Belgium, then the concert stage, still carrying csárdás and nóta.
Sándor Déki Lakatos is another widely recorded primás of the same surname — Déki Lakatos and his Gypsy Band, the Hungaroton restaurant sound. We Love Budapest: from 1965 id. Déki Lakatos Sándor played Mátyás Pince nightly; his son later took the stand. 24.hu (29 December 2011): after 45 years the resident ensemble of ifj. Déki Lakatos Sándor played its last night there on 3 December 2011 — the investors wanted a trio; he refused. Béla Szakcsi Lakatos (1943–2022) took the family name into jazz piano. László Bóni has long sat with Roby. These are chairs, not a single household. The archive keeps the names distinct so a listener can tell which Lakatos is on the record.
This family plays Budapest restaurant violin. That sound is what the Dutch Veres and Mirando rooms took from Hungary. Django’s pompe is another tradition. Roby can play Django. His own style is the café bow.
Lineage
Birth and death on a vertical line — generation by generation. Places are listed where we could find them.
Generation 1
János Bihari
Violin, verbunkos · 1764–1827
Born 21 October 1764 · Nagyabony — Died 26 April 1827 · Pest
Lexicon. Verbunkos violin. Five-piece band in Pest from about 1801.
Generation 6
Sándor Lakatos
Violin, primás · 20th c.
Born 17 December 1924 · Budapest, Hungary — Died 24 May 1994 · Budapest, Hungary
The famous mid-century restaurant primás. Roby’s uncle. Led the Hungarian state radio folk orchestra 1950–52. Father, in one recorded line, of Sándor Déki Lakatos.
Generation 6
Antal Lakatos
Violin, café bandleader · 20th c.
Roby’s father. Café bandleader in Budapest. Roby sat first violin in that band from nine.
Generation 7
Roby Lakatos
Violin · b. 1965
Born 1965 · Budapest, Hungary
Seventh generation from Bihari, in the family’s count. Béla Bartók Conservatory, decades in Belgium, then the concert stage. Csárdás and nóta, not Django’s pompe.
Generation 7
Sándor Déki Lakatos
Violin, primás · 20th–21st c.
Born 1944/1945 · Hungary
Restaurant primás. Hungaroton. Sixth or seventh generation depending on the chair you count from. Son of Sándor Lakatos on the Discogs line.
Generation 8
Sándor Déki Lakatos Jr.
Violin, bandleader
Carries the Déki restaurant orchestra.
Generation 7
Béla Szakcsi Lakatos
Piano (jazz) · 1943–2022
Born 8 July 1943 · Budapest, Hungary — Died 2 October 2022 · Budapest, Hungary
Jazz piano. Same surname, another room of the Budapest family.
Generation 8
László Bóni
Violin
Violin. Long-time associate of Roby Lakatos.
Orchestra years
When the band was founded, when it split, when a new generation took the stand.
c. 1800
New orchestra
The named ancestor
Bihari’s orchestra
János Bihari (1764–1827), verbunkos primás. The Lakatos families claim this line.
mid-20th c.
New orchestra
Uncle Sándor’s restaurant band
Sándor Lakatos orchestra
The famous mid-century Lakatos primás. A Budapest café orchestra under his name.
mid-20th c.
New orchestra
Father Antal’s band
Antal Lakatos café orchestra
Parallel chair in the same city. Roby grows up in this seating, not in a jam.
c. 1974
Generation joins
Roby, nine, first violin
Antal Lakatos orchestra
Next generation joins the father’s café band as primás in front of the orchestra.
1960s–80s
Split — new band
Another Lakatos orchestra
Sándor Déki Lakatos and his Gypsy Band
The Déki line records the restaurant book (Hungaroton). Same surname, separate band — not Roby’s chair.
c. 1984
Split — new band
Roby leaves for Belgium
Roby Lakatos Ensemble
At about nineteen, first prize in hand, he leaves the Budapest café and founds his own group: Liège, then Brussels.
1986–96
New orchestra
Ten years, Brussels
Roby Lakatos Ensemble — Les Ateliers
House band at Les Ateliers de la Grande Île. Yehudi Menuhin in the room. A concert ensemble, not a restaurant kapelle.
c. 2010
New generation leads
Déki’s son takes the restaurant line
Sándor Déki Lakatos Jr. band
New generation of the Déki orchestra. Budapest chairs continue while Roby is still based in Brussels.
c. 2018
New generation leads
Return to Budapest
Roby Lakatos Ensemble
After about thirty-four years in Belgium, Roby is based in Budapest again. Ensemble with László Bóni and younger classically trained players.
Neighbours
Same country or city, but a different way of playing.
- Veres (Sárközi) — Hungarian Roma → Rotterdam / The Hague
- Sárközi / Sárközy — Hungarian Roma — Budapest
- Czinka — Hungarian Roma — Kingdom of Hungary, eighteenth century
- Kalyi Jag — Hungarian Roma — Nagyecsed / Budapest, from 1978
- Járóka — Hungarian Roma — Kisvárda / Budapest
- Boross — Hungarian Roma — Budapest
- Danyi — Hungarian Roma — Budapest
- Lendvai Csócsi — Hungarian Roma — Ménfőcsanak / Budapest