Faith in love
is what’s at stake throughout this Spain Again. And in the human
condition. In friendship. The recording is a return trip. Tomatito looks
to the Mediterranean luminosity he grew up with. The epic guitarist turns
intimist, lyrical. The three have inhabited other regions. This duet record
features love and believing in your partner. That which civilized society
has lost and longs to rediscover. It’s an adventure, another kind
of epic story, an internal one. That which James Joyce or Kafka narrated
in their intermediate stages on the way to hell.
1. El Día que Me Quieras
Tributo a Piazzolla:
2. Libertango
3. Fuga y Misterio
4. Adiós Nonino
5. Stella By Starlight
6.Twilight Glow
7. A Los Nietos
8. La Tarde
9. La Fiesta
10. From Within
11. Amor de Conuco (with Juan Luis Guerra)
Tomatito has struggled to control the helm of his time. With virile
harmonies. Now he has achieved the serenity of one who knows that sometimes
battles are won falling to the ground which then supports.
Michel Camilo, the powerful Caribbean sound and beat, the ability to
keep moving forward into the void with new variations. And he also puts
the intimist feeling of such a fascinating composition as Twilight Glow
which moves inward on a simple but effective arpeggio. Today we truly
know the simplest thing is the truest.
Spain Again is another Spain, very different from the one of six years
ago. This is a record where everything is finely sewn and woven. In which
everything flows with the naturalness of life itself, with the certainty
and calm of the seasons. The Argentine tango, from Piazzolla to Gardel,
submerged beneath the Atlantic. Tomatito, the man responsible for the
tango inspiration of the record, follows Astor Piazzolla’s sheet
music faithfully, while he takes Gardel to the luminous dunes holding
hands with Luis Salinas’ arrangement. The tango comes out of the
night and the ghetto and walks barefoot with naked acoustic instruments
in broad daylight.
Tomatito offers two original compositions which, situated at the rhytmic
antipode, are united by the same spirit, an internal light. The bulería
A Los Nietos: the guitar is an orchestra of the soul and the piano, the
arms of the spirit of the sea. Intimacy without affectation. Virtuosity
without flash, inward-looking. And La Tarde, or the emancipation of contemporary
flamenco guitar, completely free of stylistic affiliation. With an air
of improvisation, between the tiniest molecule of H2O and the immensity
of the ocean.
And two oldies but goodies: Stella by Starlight and La Fiesta, a powerful
bulería of Chick Corea, one of the most joyful moments of a record
which, in a certain sense, addresses this piece. A simple modulation to
major key is capable to carrying us to melodic heaven, which is the least
we can ask of a modulation.
The grand finale is an explosion of joy and nostalgia, an exercise in
maturity and friendship, of mutual faith. Three friends making music from
the soul. One of Juan Luis Guerra’s hits, Amor de Conuco. Faith
in love, the naturalness of someone stripped naked. A song, just as simple
as that: a brilliant melody, a direct text and three maestros in full
technical and creative maturity. That is the realm of classics, to be
reborn naked from the ashes. In Amor de Conuco, one could be happier,
no doubt about it. Or more miserable, as a result of realizing that our
pain is not always justified. Do not fail to experience the simple joy
of going out in the sun.
In conclusion, here’s a quote from another illustrious man from
Buenos Aires, Borges, with a greater affinity for milonga than tangos,
and who resisted flamenco one spring afternoon in Seville in the Santa
Cruz neighborhood (what more could one ask?): “when I was young
I loved the night, the neighborhood and misfortune; today I prefer the
morning, the center, serenity”.
