Archives for September 2012

Martin Taylor will be performing in Canada this November as part of the International Guitar Night (IGN) tour. THE INTERNATIONAL GUITAR NIGHT (IGN) brings together the world’s foremost acoustic guitarists to perform their latest original compositions and exchange musical ideas in a public concert setting. Each tour, IGN founder Brian Gore invites a new cast of guitar luminaries to join him for special evenings of solos, duets and quartets that highlight the virtuosity and diversity within the world of acoustic guitar.  Date details can be found at the Martin Taylor home page here.

For the November 2012 Canadian tour and for the January/February 2013 U.S. tour, Brian and Martin will be joined by Solorazaf, a great Madagascar guitarist and singer with a unique rhythmic sense, and Brazil’s renowned singer/songwriter and guitarist Guinga.

International Guitar Night is North America’s premier mobile guitar festival. Sponsored by Acoustic Guitar Magazine, it is the only production of its kind to have grassroots origins. Ever since its beginning in 1995 in a converted laundromat in the California Bay Area, IGN has featured the best performing guitar composers from around the world. Since the beginning, audiences have cherished the friendly informal ambiance of the performances. Participants have relished the chance IGN affords to express reverence for one another, and to collaborate rather than compete. The unique brand of “guitar positivity” the forum provides has helped make IGN the most successful guitar showcase of its kind.

Martin Taylor

Described as “THE acoustic guitarist of his generation” by America’s Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Martin Taylor has established a unique career as an internationally acclaimed guitarist, and his inimitable style has seen him recognised as the world’s foremost exponent of solo jazz guitar playing. Although completely self taught, he has enjoyed a musical career spanning over 30 years, dazzling audiences with his solo shows, which combine virtuosity, emotion and humour, with a strong stage presence. He spends much of the year travelling the world, playing in concert halls in Europe, North America, Japan, Asia, and Australasia. As well as his solo concerts and recordings, he has also collaborated with musicians from many different musical genres including, Stephane Grappelli, Chet Atkins, Bill Wyman, Dionne Warwick, Sacha Distel, and Bryn Terfel.

In 2002, he was appointed MBE “For Services To Music”, in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List, which he received personally from Her Majesty The Queen at an investiture at Buckingham Palace. When not touring he divides his time between his homes in France and Scotland where he writes music for TV and film. His autobiography MARTIN TAYLOR – AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRAVELLING MUSICIAN and his latest album DOUBLE SOLO are available worldwide.

“Martin Taylor is one of the most awesome solo guitar players in the history of the instrument. He’s unbelievable.” – Pat Metheny

“No matter how complex or daring, Taylor’s interpretations never short change the melodies; indeed, his remarkable fluid touch embues a seamless beauty. Martin Taylor is something to behold.” – The Washington Post

Solorazaf

Solo Razafindrakoto (“Solorazaf”) is an amazing guitarist and singer from Madagascar currently residing in Paris. He mixes complex guitar patterns with his singing to produce a sound that is at once highly rhythmic and smoothly flowing. He also adds foot percussion, using home made “stompboxes.” The left foot plays a kind of bass drum & the right foot a kind of shaker. His latest CD “Andreasong” is dedicated to his son Andrea. This album is the result of a journey with many stopovers from Europe to Africa, between Paris and Antananarivo. It was recorded both in France (his birthplace) and in Madagascar (where he grew up). In Solorazaf’s words: “In this musical project, there is a union of SALEG and SéGA ,”6/8″ rhythms coming from the southern Indian Ocean region (Madagascar, Comoros, the Réunion and Mauritius islands). Think about waves of ternary rhythms, and we also can feel binary beats inside, combined with guitar compositions shaped like songs with or without lyrics (lyrics are mostly in French & Malagasy, with some written in English).

You can hear me humming, talking, and singing the songs with a “Brazilian flavor” (as a journalist said) and sometimes the voice embodies an imaginary seventh string of a guitar, or also uses “throat clearing” and “tongue clicking” (from my 15 year South African musical experience as a lead guitarist of Miriam Makeba’s band). As a self taught musician, I learned guitar inspired by traditional world musics that I mixed with some jazz -blues chords, plus a combination of a fingerstyle guitar picking that is similar to the way the African string instruments Valiha and Kora are played.

On stage, the guitar, the voice and the different “foot percussion” form a “one man band,” performing without any loop pedal, or sequencers. It’s live only. I am simply narrating with music that I belong to many different cultures, either rich or poor. My personal goal is to communicate the need for sharing what I have experienced, trying to express this “potpourri” of all those many influences in a way to avoid contradictions.

PRESS QUOTES

Awarded the Prix OPUS 2010-11 for the Best Canadian Jazz & World Music show “Dans les cordes”, a SmallWorld project with Solorazaf and the Montreal Guitar Trio

“A highly recommended concert” ( New York Times, for performance at Joe’s Pub)

“Solorazaf is simply superb & magnificent” (Afropop Worldwide, New York City)

“New guitar textures” (Froots, UK)

“A master of & 12/8 saleg rhythm” (Acoustic Guitar Magazine)

“Solo Razafindrakoto (Solorazaf) is an exceptional musician! He appears to play with absolute freedom & choice, his mastery of his instrument is always perfect whether it is in his groove or his execution, and while the Madagascar’s rhythms are often complex he toys with them with complete freedom. (Adlg, France)

DISCOGRAPHY
Solo CD’s: “Guitares à Balanciers” 1993; “9 Pieces of Bizarre ” 2001; “3
Rayons de Pluie” 2004 (compilation), and “Andreasong” 2010
DVD: “Rendezvous à Melting Point” 2006

Guinga

Guinga (Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar), born June 10, 1950, is a Brazilian guitarist and composer born in Madureira, a working-class suburb of Rio de Janeiro. As a child, he was nicknamed “Gringo”, because of his pale skin, and the artistic name “Guinga” comes from the way he pronounced the word. His uncle taught him to play the guitar when he was eleven years old. Guinga began composing music at the age of 14. In 1967, when he was 17, his song “Sou Só Solidão” reached the first elimination round in Rede Globo’s second Festival Internacional da Canção (International Festival of Song). At the age of 26, he began his five-year classical guitar studies with Jodacil Damasceno.

During the 1970s, Guinga accompanied famous singers such as Beth Carvalho and João Nogueira and recorded with samba legends Cartola and Clara Nunes. He also began a fertile songwriting partnership with the poet and lyricist Paulo Cesar Pinheiro. Their songs were recorded by important artists like Elis Regina, Nelson Gonçalves, Miúcha, Clara Nunes, and Michel Legrand.

During the same time, Guinga embarked on a parallel career in dentistry, which he practiced for nearly thirty years. His music career took off in earnest in 1990, when Ivan Lins and Vitor Martins formed the Velas label in order to release Guinga’s first album, with a repertoire of songs he coauthored with lyricist Aldir Blanc.

Guinga is now widely considered to be Brazil’s most innovative songwriter, as well as one of its foremost guitarists. He is known for drawing on many musical genres, including choro, samba, baião, frevo, modinha, waltz, foxtrot, blues, classical music, and jazz. His compositions are often harmonically and rhythmically complex yet melodically accessible and emotionally resonant.

DISCOGRAPHY
Simples e Absurdo (1991) Velas
Delírio Carioca (1993) Velas
Cheio de Dedos (1996) Velas
Suíte Leopoldina (1999) Velas
Cine Baronesa (2001) Velas
Noturno Copacabana (2003) Velas
Graffiando Vento – Guinga & Gabriele Mirabassi (2004) Egea
Casa de Villa (2007) Biscoito Fino

Brian Gore

San Francisco guitar poet Brian Gore is gaining a reputation as one of the most interesting and influential performers of “the next generation” in fingerstyle guitar. A musical romantic, his compositions draw inspiration from myth and modern literature. Hailed as having “…one of the most unique new acoustic guitar styles on the scene today (News and Review),” his lyrical, understated compositions integrate classical and percussive techniques that display what the Los Angeles Times calls “a characterful bounce and spaciousness all his own.”

Gore’s style of playing offers strikingly beautiful tone and dynamics– qualities that are often hard to find in steel string players. His melodic, evocative songs rely heavily on the use of open tunings, extending the “stream of consciousness” style of guitar composing he grew up with in Northern California.

“Music started out as a kind of therapy for me,” says Gore. “Consequently, I am a very emotional player. Now, my style of playing has also become a well honed craft. I am very grateful I can share this with people.”

His buoyant personality and odd sense of humor help add lightness to his shows. “By the time I’m done with a performance,” explains Gore, “people really know the meaning of the term ‘extroverted introvert’.” While Gore integrates some of the flashier percussive techniques into his pieces, the poetic quality of his music is preserved. “Because my music is simple and somewhat rootsy, it’s easy to relate to, which is something I’m thankful for. Also, it helps keep me grounded.”

Gore’s first CD, produced by Peppino D’Agostino, is called The Path of Least Resistance. His second CD, Legacy: Solo Guitar and Duets, is available on Germany’s Acoustic Music Records Label. His music has been featured on NPR’s nationally syndicated Echoes Radio, and many other local public radio programs.

Brian founded The International Guitar Night in 1995 as a forum for the world’s finest guitarists/composers to play their latest original songs and share musical ideas with their peers in public concert. This has evolved into critically acclaimed annual tours in the US (starting in 2000), Canada (starting in 2006) and the UK (starting in 2007), a CD on Favored Nations Records released in 2004, a guitar instruction book published in 2005, and IGN releases on Warner Music Canada (the 6th annual CD will be released in 2011).

“Brian Gore’s strong, well developed melodies and intriguing chord sequences set him apart from the myriad of steel-string fingerstylists who compose in open tunings. His finely crafted poetic “songs without words” take the listener on a spellbinding emotional ride.” – Ron Forbes Roberts, Acoustic Guitar Magazine

“An artist of the highest caliber.” – Ray Toumey, the Boulder Chautauqua