{carmo}

Egberto Gismonti is world-renowned as a multi-instrumentalist and composer. He was profoundly influenced by Brazilian master Heitor Villa-Lobos, his works reflecting the musical diversity of Brazil. From the Amazon Indians' batuque to the Carioca samba and choro, through the Northeastern frevo, baião, and forró, Gismonti captures the true essence of the Brazilian soul in a way that is primitive, yet sophisticated, and reflects it through his personal vision, elaborated by years of classic training and literacy in a wealth of musical languages in which jazz plays a significant role.

Ernesto’s interests cover a wide range of sounds and he feels comfortable with acoustic projects as well as more experimental tones. He has been playing MIDI guitars for most of his career. A guitarist, composer and music producer, his style as a performer has proved difficult to label, since it reflects a broad range of musical influences (jazz, tango, South American folkore, rock). This familiarity with playing different genres has enabled him to participate as a recording artist in over seventy albums, including most notably his contributions for León Gieco and Alejandro Lerner, Calle 13, Julieta Venegas, Soledad, Jairo, Kepa Junquera, Axel, Miranda, Ariel Ramírez and Patricia Sosa, Peteco Carabajal, Litto Nebbia, Liliana Herrero, La Bruja Salguero, etc.

Rodney Waterman elevates recorder music to heavenly and stratospheric levels of artistry, and Doug de Vries follows him up there on equal artistic footing on nylon-string guitar. The particular timbre of the recorder occasionally lends this duet music a medieval and minstrel-like feel ("El Noi de la Mare", "Recercada Primero"), but the raging virtuosity and deftness of speed of these two players can also result in a synergistic blastfurnace of sound out of proportion to the sparse tonal qualities of each instrument alone, most notably on "Ade", "Salvador" and "Frevo". It's not surprising, considering the fiery passion that they evoke, that these last two pieces are Egberto Gismonti compositions as are six of the total 21 tracks on this collection, perhaps qualifying the CD as a Gismonti tribute.