Charlie Haden & Carlos Paredes - Dialogues

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Charlie Haden & Carlos Paredes - Dialogues

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Even for the adventurous Charlie Haden, this encounter with the Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes is pretty unusual. Paredes plays a 12-stringed, lute-shaped instrument which has a jangly tone quality, almost like a hammer dulcimer, and Haden dances around or underpins him adroitly and flexibly, with an occasional long solo interspersed. Apparently Haden was a national hero in Portugal for his left-leaning political crusades — he was even arrested once by the Portguese Political Police — and in this completely improvised program, you can recognize passages that resemble calls to arms in the manner of the Liberation Music Orchestra. The music, mostly by Paredes with an occasional exception like Haden's "Song For Che," has the stateliness and gusts of passion that mark the music of the Iberian peninsula, though without jazz feeling per se. World music fans thus will probably find it easier going than the average jazz browser. All Music Guide

The Portuguese guitar is a 12-string instrument with double courses (string pairs) and a small body, similar in tone to the mandolin or Greek bouzouki. Its penetrating sound is championed by Carlos Paredes, a sensitive, even shy performer who balances tradition and spontaneous invention. His original approach was likened to the freshness of Ornette Coleman by bassist Charlie Haden, who is himself a minor cultural hero in Portugal. All Music Guide