Customer Reviews

An Evening With International Guitar Night

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoy listening to this album. The variety of styles all working together in various permutations of the 4 talented musicians is really cool. The quality of music, musicianship and recording makes this a worthwhile way to spend an hour. It's what I think they call finger picking style. The audience is kept out of the recordings as well except when the song is done. The snippets should give you a good indication of what you are geting.

Well, I stand 360 degrees opposite the earlier reviewer since for me this album was all hits, no weak tracks to speak of, just different tracks. Nothing but the best in sophisticated finger-style acoustic guitar music, music that is relaxing and ambient without being in the slightest bit shallow or watered-down even if it does have some upbeat 'new-age' vibrations in general. Excellence is to be expected from any project Pierre Bensusan is associated with and his tracks are the best ones here (the version of "Bamboule" Pierre performs here is quite different than the studio cut and his excellent vocalise singing is good enough to remind one of Bobby McFerrin) but only by a hair or two. Every other track by Gore, York & Guinga is also close to perfection, making for a varied but consistent album you can listen to all-the-way-through many times over. What's even more impressive is that the cuts were recorded live over 3 or 4 nights in 2004 in different cities in the USA with only 2 days of rehearsal. The sound quality of the disc is quite superb, not giving any hints of being a rush-job at all. Kudos to Steve Vai, of all people for releasing this stuff on his label.

This is a summit between four different acoustic guitarists...Andrew York, Brian Gore, Guinga (from Brazil) and Pierre Bensusan (from Algeria). It's quiet, very ambient Sunday morning music that touches on folk, blues, jazz and classical. For me it was hit and miss. Some of the stronger tracks are "Moontan", "Bamboule" with some very nice scat-singing by Bensusan that reminded me of Bobby McFerrin, and "Senhorinha" which is an absolutely beautiful piece by Guinga. Much of this was recorded right up the road from me at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA.