PhilPaine.com

If you are bored with the famil­iar reper­toire for clas­si­cal gui­tar (what you might call the Segov­ian Canon), then you might try the com­po­si­tions of the Paraguayan poly­math Augustín Bar­rios (1885–1944). Gui­tarist John Williams has led the revival of his work. A poet, math­e­mati­cian and jour­nal­ist, as well as a per­former and com­pos­er, Bar­rios was a Paraguayan mes­ti­zo, flu­ent in the Guaraní Indi­an lan­guage as well as Span­ish. His com­po­si­tions are warm, imag­i­na­tive, and vir­tu­osic enough to chal­lenge and excite any gui­tarist. Yet under­neath they have a sol­id archi­tec­ture. For exam­ple, the piece called La Cat­e­dralseems as del­i­cate as a snowflake, but it’s struc­ture is as strong and dis­ci­plined as a Bach par­ti­ta. Most of the pieces that I heard have this “float like a but­ter­fly, sting like a bee” qual­i­ty. Oth­er pieces that espe­cial­ly move me are Una Limosna Por el Amor de Dios, Acon­qui­ja, Max­ixe, and Chôro da Saudade. But, they are not excep­tions: every piece I’ve heard is worth lis­ten­ing to sev­er­al times. Paraguayan folk music influ­enced his work as much as the famil­iar baroque and clas­si­cal sources, giv­ing it a flavour you won’t find else­where. Williams offers sev­er­al record­ings. I’m lis­ten­ing to The Great Paraguayan, which offers sev­en­teen rep­re­sen­ta­tive pieces.

22747. (Kinks) Kinks
22748. (Rose­buds) The Rose­buds Make Out
22749. (Jim­my Smith) Jim­my Smith [Verve Jazz Mas­ters #29]
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I’ve played the Blue Suit Records com­pi­la­tion of Louie Bluie’s coun­try blues about twen­ty times since I got it. Arm­strong had an appeal­ing per­son­al­i­ty, and was a far cry from the trag­ic and self-destruc­tive fel­lows that fill blues his­to­ry. Mul­ti-tal­ent­ed, able to speak sev­er­al lan­guages and to engage audi­ences as a racon­teur, he died at the age of 95, respect­ed and com­fort­able though not rich. Between the two world wars, he played with Sleepy John Estes and Big Bill Broonzy, among many. His cheer­ful style on fid­dle, man­dolin and gui­tar, often accom­pa­nied by bril­liant­ly-told per­son­al anec­dotes, dis­tin­guished him from the surli­er, less artic­u­late per­sonas that dom­i­nat­ed coun­try blues. After serv­ing in WWII, he worked for twen­ty-five years in a Detroit auto plant, then start­ed to per­form and tour exten­sive­ly when pub­lic inter­est in old blues revived. Check out, if you can, his unusu­al and delight­ful fid­dle ver­sion of Gershwin’s “Sum­mer­time”, which segues ele­gant­ly into a beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of the old hymn “When He Calls Me, I Will Answer.”