Bela Szakcsi Lakatos, an iconic figure of Hungarian jazz, died on Sunday morning, at the age of 79, the Hungarian Jazz Federation said. Multiple award winning Szakcsi Lakatos was a pianist, composer, holder of the Artist of the Nation title and “a towering figure of Hungarian jazz”, the federation said on Facebook. Szakcsi Lakatos received the highest state honour, the Kossuth Award in 2005 and the Artist of the Nation title in 2014. In 2019, he was the artistic director of the European Roma Festival Orchestra project.