September/October 2001
Manuel Barrueco, "Nylon & Steel," 2001
The Guitar Summit is a yearly touring musical series that in the past has presented to the
concert public in one show an amalgam of guitarists representing styles from jazz,
classical, blues and rock. One byproduct of that excellent series is Manuel Barrueco's CD
"Nylon and Steel". Barrueco is a classical guitarist of renown, who freely admits that his
musical horizons have opened by the relationships he developed during the course of past
Summits in which he's participated. He invited other past participants, jazzman Al
DiMeola, Dixie Dregs rocker Steve Morse and ex-Police guitarist Andy Summers for a
collection of duets that comprise this CD. "Nylon and Steel" is a descriptive title
which one rightly guesses places these three guest guitarists individually on steel-string
acoustic guitar opposite Barrueco's nylon string guitar. Guest recordings of this sort can
be a gimmicky contrivance, but the top-notch artistry of these players assures that this
is not the case here. DiMeola's style of jazz, classically influenced as it is, is most
congruent with Barrueco's, dovetailing elegantly. Barrueco and Morse are the duo venturing
farthest from the safety of the trunk down a long limb on "Wolvesville" (a play on the
translation of the composer's name), where Morse plays a searing fuzztoned lead line over
Barrueco's version of Villa-Lobos' Étude No. 1. Morse's other two tunes from Dregs
days "Up in the Air" and "Northern Lights" are more intricately melodic and so more
receptive to Barrueco's virtuosic hand, beautifully performed. The Summers tracks
"I Remember" and "Crow at Midnight" are anti-melodic and furiously meandering tone poems,
which though are very, very interesting from a compositional standpoint, fall flat when
graded for virtuosity from players of this stature.
Holly Figueroa, "Dream in Red," 2001
Holly Figueroa's edgy sound clones Alanis Morissette's a bit. In this case, that's a
very good thing. There's a palpable and intense sensuality in Figueroa's vocals.
The first time I was sonically manhandled by the lurching-ahead track "Here" was
appropriately in my car CD player... its effect was a sweaty and heavenly uneasiness
that had me losing control on the curves and missing the clutch pedal. Figueroa shares
not only Ani DiFranco's occasional in-your-face brashness, but also DiFranco's natural
rhythmic feel with the acoustic guitar, a talent fortuitously let out the door when
serendipity knocked. As a novice in 1999, Figueroa was forced to learn three guitar
chords that would serve best to accompany her vocals in the three days prior to her first
major festival and tour after her band's guitar player broke his hip. Talk about a quick
study. She makes songwriting look that easy too, traversing genres from alternative
("Inside Out") to blues ("She") to folk ("Turn Around") with a confident facility.
But it's Figueroa's unique vocal style that is on a true trajectory to seek you out,
grab you and demand your rapt attention. "Dream in Red" is mercurial in mood,
spanning a spectrum between irreverent and thoughtful, but is uniform in one aspect.
Jaquie Gipson, "Hometown," 2000
The names Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges are often mentioned in the same breath. But the
two really manifest contrary guitar styles. It would be as difficult to imagine Kottke
slapping harmonics from his guitar as it would be to imagine Hedges power-plucking a
churning rag on 12-string. That a hometown mom and wife from tiny Trinidad, Colorado
would be the one to artfully hybridize the styles of these two masters might raise eyebrows.
And raise they should for Jaquie Gipson. Try this. Subject your most musically knowledgeable
friends to a blindfold test with five tracks from Gipson's "Hometown": "Wazubi",
"Chicken Chase", "Plato's Playground", "Ride the Wind" and "Rush Hour". Damned if
ten out of ten of them won't confidently proclaim that's Leo Kottke. You might get a
more varied response when you quiz them on "Tap Dance", "Francisco Street" and "High Wire",
with many venturing Hedges' name but also a smattering of the names Billy McLaughlin and
Preston Reed. Gipson's a little more adventurous than the average solo instrumental
fingerstylist, risking the unconventional addition of cello to three tracks and rainsticks
to the ambient "Visions". It works. Gipson didn't skimp on this CD, giving listeners
19 total tracks that run for 59 very pleasing minutes.
Darryl Purpose, "A Crooked Line," 2001
A crooked line might indeed be the shortest distance between life milestones when the path
is impeded by obstacles. But it might also be the natural arc of a rich and varied
experience, however convoluted, as Darryl Purpose poetically intimates in his new CD
"A Crooked Line". Purpose should know, having arrived relatively late in his life to
this, his current life assignment, after a zigzag start as a professional gambler and
nuclear protestor. And so it's easy to discern in these recordings that his passion
for folksy songwriting is still fresh and new like the anticipation of new borders at
the start of a journey. Taylor guitars has recognized too his fluency on fingerstyle
guitar, naming him to their spokesperson's bureau. Purpose is joined by several musical
friends including Ellis Paul and Tracy Grammer on vocals, Dave Carter on banjo, Dan Tyack on pedal steel and dobro, and Doug Wintch
contributing a screaming electric guitar line on the title track that sounds like
David Lindley. "I Can Get There from Here" utilizes a string trio in a graceful
Eleanor-Rigbyish way that lyrically wraps the message: "Kicking myself for the time
I waste, Cursing these rocks in my way, When with tolerance and a gambler's good grace,
They become stepping stones leading my way".
John Morgan, "The Journey-Places Real and Imagined," 1996
There's a reason most "unknown" guitarists are unknown. Either they are simply not blessed
with the gift, or their heroic day-to-day routine of slogging through mundane commercial
enterprise to support their families restrains them from an unbridled pursuit of artistic
excellence. Though John Morgan is as far as can be from a household name, his gift must
be uncommonly generous, or he paradoxically draws on a creative force engendered by his
life and family that is magically transmuted into great music unbefitting that of an
unknown. This Ohioan's melodic solo fingerstyle composition is similar to that of Phil
Keaggy, another excellent player and writer whose musical roots were nourished in a similar
place and time. The tracks from "The Journey-Places Real and Imagined" could be easily
intermixed with Keaggy's Dove-award winning "Beyond Nature" without causing a stir or
departing thematically. The liner notes refreshingly indicate that "all songs were
performed in standard tuning", almost a rarity in solo fingerstyle performance these days,
and even more surprising considering the booming harmonics nursed bell-like from Morgan's
Taylor 710. "Streams of Mercy, Showers of Blessing" begins as a disquieting collage of
suspenseful arpeggios, resolving pleasingly into a requited and reassuring familiarity.
"Diamonds in the Snow" similarly pits two disparate sensations against each other,
a harsh diminished riff spinning around a luminously comfortable theme sounding like the
opening guitar line to "Scarborough Fair". Perhaps metaphorically recapitulating something deeper, Morgan has a feel for tension and redemption in his music.
Michael Tomlinson, "Watching the Storm Roll In," 1999
This CD hooked me immediately. There's something endearing about hearing the artist
put down his guitar between tracks and, one imagines, walk to the recorder to push
the "stop" button. But that's only true if such self-production is otherwise
overwhelmingly excellent, as with Michael Tomlinson's "Watching the Storm Roll In".
The sentiment of the music is proudly and unapologetically untainted by crass and
commercial interests. In fact, "crass" is the very antithesis of Tomlinson's wholesome
and feel-good jazz-pop sound. Tomlinson has an incredibly resonant voice like
Michael Martin Murphey. He also has an innate songwriting knack for crafting evocative
and catchy tunes in the style of Kenny Loggins or Michael Johnson. These are tunes that
have you unconsciously drumming your fingers, tunes that nudge you into suddenly realizing
that, gosh, life is really pretty darn good. Tomlinson skirts the danger of coming off
almost too syrupy if it weren't for his obvious sincerity and capable commitment to what
he does. He makes one production mistake of linking the songs together with contrived
spoken interludes, inviting the listener onto his porch during a thunderstorm, a
distracting and slightly corny technique. But the bottom line is that I genuinely enjoyed
this CD. If Tomlinson ever gets a crack agent and producer, watch out!... he'll take
the radiowaves by storm!
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com
©
A.F.
Buy it at Amazon.com