HISTORY
In March 1995, during the second Level One
Guitar Craft Course in Argentina, Martín de Aguirre
and Claudio Lafalce met for the first time. They got in contact
with Horacio Pozzo who attended his first L1 in 1994.
They already had some experience in the professional Buenos Aires
scene: Horacio played and recorded with León Gieco, Gabriela,
Juan Carlos Baglietto and Pino Marrone, and also was the keyboard
player with Rael, a prog rock band between
1987 and 1993. Martín was the guitarist of Déjà
Vu, a glam rock band, and at the moment was working as a session
musician. Claudio was the leader of Faljap,
a group that used to combine art-rock with a new language within
a multimedia environment. The three of them were also teaching
music in schools and privately.
GUITAR POINT + TRIO INHUMANO
= PUNTO INHUMANO
Since October '94, Horacio was working in trio with Pablo Mandel
and Marcelo O'Reilly: The Guitar Point. With this group (Gaucho
Martin Schwutke was an important guest) they played quite intensively
in BA, sometimes with the Buenos Aires Guitar Circle and during
Robert's Soundscapes shows at the Goethe Institut in March '95.
After the completion of their L1, Martín and Claudio joined
Christian De Santis to become the Trio Inhumano. They began writing
new material and performing in BA, until they went to an A&A course
in Grossderschau, Germany, for a month. In that course some of
the future repertoire of BigTime was composed: "Cartas desde
Grecia" ("Letters from Greece"), "Flippers
in the Night", and the covers "In my Life", and
"Fiesta" which were the result of a challenge presented
during that course. Back in BA, the Trio Inhumano added "El
Payaso", "C minor Fugue" and Martín's tunes
"Alef-Thau" and "Last Herdim". They also joined
the growing Buenos Aires Guitar Circle with more than 25 members.
At the end of 1995 the two trios blended quite naturally, forming
alternative quartets-quintets-sextets sharing the New Standard
Tuning and the will to widen the standard repertoire. Guillermo
Olivera and Luciano Pietrafesa were invited to play sometimes
and a quintet performed in Rosario in december under the name
of Punto Inhumano. A month later they played with Fernando Kabusacki
at the Auditorio Bauen as The League of Gauchos.
Also in december 1995, Steve Ball (at that time working with
Los Gauchos Alemanes) invited HP, MdA, CL, CDS, PM, MOR, GO
and LP to play some songs he wrote, arranged for guitars and vocal
solo. Greenthumb
performed in Buenos Aires and Mendoza and recorded a CD released
in the USA by Ballistic Music in 1999.
LA LEY DE LOS 7
LD7 before a concert
in Rosario
For the third Level One in Argentina, a new group was established:
La Ley de los 7. Christian de Santis, Guillermo Olivera, Martín
de Aguirre, Horacio Pozzo, Claudio Lafalce, Marcelo O'Reilly and
Luciano Pietrafesa put together a quite powerful septet working
from March to July 1996, and performed ten shows in La Plata,
Rosario and BA, with a thirty minutes TV show on Canal "A" along
with an unreleased CD. From this period are the Ravel String Quartet
proposed by Horacio, and Claudio's "Rita's Rouge Rumba".
BIGTIME
In July 1996, part of the group went to Germany, and Horacio began
working with Mart’n and Claudio under the name of BigTime, as
an optimistic way to describe the new period of work to come.
They arranged the existing repertoire looking for balance and
a personal sound. Horacio brought Corea's "Children Song
#3 " and "Blue Rondo", while Claudio came up with
"Boda en Londres" from the spanish tecno-pop group Mecano.
In November 1996 during another course they began playing Guillermo
Olivera's arrangement of Mozart's "Little Night Music",
and Claudio presented "Taquito Militar", a very popular
tango. During a meeting with Robert, he suggested to work intensively
on circulations and after the course, a very slow version of "Larks'"
opened up every rehearsal at Martín's house. Meanwhile,
the work with Greenthumb was under way. The beginning of 1997
was a period of rehearsals, facing the recording of the first
CD. Martín proposed a beautiful piece recorded by Jeff
Beck: "Diamond Dust".
THE FIRST CD
On a sunny autumn weekend BigTime began the recording of their
first CD. 19 songs were recorded in 56 takes which later would
receive some percussion, electric guitars and keyboards. In another
session at Martín's house, the quartet pieces (Ravel and
Mozart) were taped with Guillermo Olivera. After some editing
work made with Andrés Jankowski, they went to Estudios
Edison to add the percussion (played by Fernando Juarez) and to
complete the mixes. Afterwards, the mastering was made by Andrés
Mayo and Eduardo Bergallo at Mr. Master, one of the top mastering
studios in BA. The CD named "Bigtime" was released on September
the 24th 1997.
ECHOES
The trio presented their CD in a series of shows, and the press
made some pretty good reviews of the new group, specially in Clarín
newspaper. BigTime also took part of the workshops held in BA
by GC instructor from New York Tony Geballe in 1996. A year later
they worked with Bert Lams (from the California Guitar Trio) and
The BA Guitar Circle in another workshop which was completed with
a trip to Santiago de Chile to offer a concert a the Universidad
de Santiago, where they presented their first CD.
Towards the end of 1997 they began working on Astor Piazzolla's
masterpiece "Fuga & Misterio".
Claudio brought a ballad called "You" and Horacio came
up with "Three Balls in The Air". Martín worked
the arrangement for "New Country" (Jean-Luc Ponty's
hit from the 70's). They also played some stuff which didn't survive:
"Jerusalem", the piano intro of "The Lamb Lies
Down on Broadway" (circulated) and a bizarre piece by Eric
Satie.
In March 1998 they traveled to Chile, as part of the Kitchen Team
for the Level One Course at Quilpué. "Palabrasanta"
and "Viajeros" took shape on that course and also "Three
Balls" was completed there. The rest of the year BigTime
played some gigs at BA bars and small auditoriums. After a show
in Tobago Café at 3 AM they went to a professional studio
to record 16 live takes of "Fuga & Misterio" for a microphone
setting test. That was a step forward for the piece!
Martín finished his superb piece "Moving Mountains"
and in September they attend a new workshop with the BA Ensamble,
this time with GC instructor Curt Golden. During that week, Claudio
began writing a funny rock/blues piece called "El ingrediente
secreto del Pastel de Mary" ("Mary's Pie's Secret Ingredient")
and on the transcription of a full-orchestra tango from 1918 "Quejas
de Bandoneón" ("Bandoneón's Moan")
by Filiberto. They had their first real vacation during that summer
and in March 1999 BigTime began working on the new CD. Martín
and Horacio were already practising the "C# Prelude"
by JS Bach while Claudio showed a soft ballad: "The Original
Spark (of Life)".
Horacio presented "The Juggler's Etude", by Ralph Towner
which was read and circulated from a score, and was never heard
in a recording. Horacio also suggested an argentinian rock piece
by Charly García: "Desarma y Sangra", a piano
song from 1980. Rehearsals at Martín's new house went over
for five weeks, and just before going to the studio Martín
proposed a new fresh piece called "Release", in which
each player had a considerable amount of freedom to play along,
a sort of release from a very demanding repertoire.
TROIKA
June 1999, winter in BA, hot sessions at Anel Paz Studios. During
25 days between takes, editing and mixes they put up together
14 tracks with the help of Guillermo Olivera playing 12-string
guitar on "Viajeros". Mastering again at Mr. Master
with Andrés Mayo and photo session with Laura Viviani and
Miguel de Aguirre.
Guillermo Olivera
recording 12 strings on "Viajeros"
BT with Federico
Ariztegui at Anel Paz Studios
The name Troika has a very similar spelling in different languages
and reflects the work of a trio as a unit. The image of a wonderful
pendant reinforced the concept and the artwork of the CD. Troika
was released on October the 2nd, and presented in a series of
shows concluding the year at the Centro Cultural San Martín
in december.
Troika received also some very supportive comments from Curt Golden
(from the Seattle Guitar
Circle) and Paul Richards (from the California
Guitar Trio). Paul wrote in his diary: "The Big Time
CD is one of the best Guitar Craft related recordings that I have
heard so far. The playing is really great, their originals and
choice of compositions are excellent. This Argentine guitar trio
has definitely found its own voice. It is also the best sounding
recording of the Ovation guitars I have heard. Very inspirational!"
In
March/April 2000 they attended the fifth GC course in Argentina
and the preparation of the new repertoire began. In November 2000,
TROIKA, the second CD is included in the Discipline Global Mobile
Catalogue.
2001-2003.
A tough period, with a happy ending: the release of The Ballroom
& The Lounge. In 2002 Horacio moved to Madrid and the trio
got together in January 2003 in Los Molinos to rehearse. One show
in Madrid and 3 recording sessions at Axis, the studio run by
Hugo Westerdahl. Martín and Claudio worked in Buenos Aires
with the mixing and production and they were back in Spain in
July, with the CDs and four shows in the capital.
Another
round of recordings, this time aiming at a tango sampler. Projects
for the summer 2004 arise
and lots of work to be done.
2004.
This
year was intense. We were not able to be playing together a lot,
but we made some important steps forward, indeed. In the first
place we were invited to perform at the famous Montreux
Jazz Festival in Switzerland, July 6,7 and 8. At the end of
June we met in Madrid to prepare our concert repertoire and also
work on new pieces to be recorded.
In July 3 we went to Axis Studio and recorded three new tangos
for the next CD. Three days after we were flying Madrid-Zurich-Geneva
to go to Montreux by the Léman Lake. Our
five days in the Swiss Riviera are documented in this website
with more details.
The end of the year is dedicated to the production of "Porteño",
scheduled to be released in January 2005. Twelve tangos from different
composers and styles...
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