Victor Wowk

Victor Feldman's one Riverside date as a leader (which has been reissued on CD) features him playing piano on five songs and vibes on four others (three of which add Hank Jones on piano). Joined by bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes (both of whom were at the time, with Feldman, the rhythm section of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet), Feldman is in excellent form on a straight-ahead set. The trio/quartet performs five standards that for the most part are not overly familiar, plus four of the leader's originals. Tasteful and swinging music.

Piazzolla, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bettinelli: the fil rouge that unites this apparently anomalous choice is to be sought, first and foremost, in the original character of the repertoire, composed purposely for two guitars, in other words conceived especially for this combination and for its ‘double’ and ‘specular’ sonic possibilities. This exploration of the sonic universe allows us to rediscover a repertoire whose leitmotiv can be found in the element of dialogue, in the capacity of the guitar to become ‘other’ than itself by reverberating in its own identity: the mirror image that reflects a vision that is identical and yet filtered by a reality, that captures the essence of the guitar duo as an extended form of the solo guitar, a vehicle of complementarity and of expression amplified in its sonic potential. But that is not all: the choice of three composers whose expressive forms differ widely from each other, in their genesis, in their syntax and realization, can nonetheless find coherence in their common search for a balance between the voices, in the crystalline clarity of the conduct of the parts and in the sonic representation of a singular unitarity, in an accomplished identity of intent.

'The dreamer! That double of our existence, that chiaroscuro of the thinking being', wrote Gaston Bachelard in 1961. 'The old is dying, the new cannot be born, and in that chiaroscuro, monsters appear', adds Antonio Gramsci. Sandrine Piau has chosen to use these two quotations as an epigraph to her new recording: 'My family and friends know about this obsession that never leaves me completely. The antagonism between light and darkness. The chiaroscuro, the space in between…'

This is Victor Villadangos’s first recording for Naxos and I hope it is not the last as we are treated to some beautifully clear articulated playing that extracts just the right nuances from this music of the Argentine. Most of the pieces are new to me, although I am familiar with the "Serie Americana" of Hector Ayala, firstly through an early vinyl recording by Narciso Yepes and recently on CD by Eleftheria Kotzia. This rendition by Victor Villadangos, with its firm rhythms and fine clarity, is, I feel, the superior version.

Victor Assis Brasil was the best Brazilian jazzman of his generation, having being praised by international critics. Brasil showed early evidence of talent for music, excelling at the harmonica and the drums. At age 12 he gave his first concert at the harmonica. In 1961, at age 16, he was presented with an alto saxophone. In 1965, while already a professional, Brasil recorded his first album, Desenhos, with highly favorable reviews, consolidating his pioneering role as a Brazilian jazz musician. His next conquests were the achievement of third place at the 1966 International Jazz Contest in Vienna, Austria, and of the Best Soloist award in the Berlin Jazz Festival, which granted him a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music (Boston, MA). During the following four years he spent in the U.S., Brasil wrote most of his 400 works…