'El Totumo de Guarenas' Benito Canonico

Venezuela, like many South American countries, has a mix of native Indian, Spanish and African culture. In the notes to his superb new collection of Venezuelan guitar music, John Williams points out that Africans kept arriving in the country up until the 1950s, and he argues persuasively that African string music, and African ideas of layering rhythms, are crucial elements in classical guitar compositions there. Dances with African aspects-- fandango, danza de moros--were prohibited in the 18th century as "vulgar." They flourished anyway, and African ideas became part an parcel of Venezuela's music culture.

If all this sounds like the thinking of a man who caught the African string music bug after his 2001 African guitar adventure, The Magic Box , there might be something to that. But Williams, it turns out, has been listening to Venezuelan guitar composers for fifty years, so the train of thought might go the other way around. Either way, these 26 lively, lyrical pieces, performed with masterful spirit and precision, add up to one of the most satisfying guitar recordings this reviewer has come across in a long time.

Some of the pieces sound very close to Spanish classical guitar, elegant waltzes with pregnant pauses and passionate melodic passages. Others are clearly informed by folkloric sources, like Ovelio Riera's canción, "Seis por dereche," which layers 6/8 and 4/4 rhythms in just the sort of Africanism Williams now savors. Alfonso Montes joins Williams on cuatro for four tracks, adding terse, snappy strumming to, among others, two lively pieces by Antonio Lauro. One of those, "Nelly" is a gaita, a plainly African-influenced genre from the Maracaibo region. The other is designated a valse, but in Venezuela, waltzes take on the restless, rhythmically complex feeling of the joropo, the national dance, so if you're thinking stately and sedate, think again.

Williams is a staggeringly talented player, and one not afraid to venture into unfamiliar territory, as he did on The Magic Box. This set of performances is ultimately more polished, coming as it clearly does from years of deep familiarity, but one hopes that Williams will continue to challenge himself with more new discoveries in the future. Few figures in classical music seem to have contemplated how Africa fits into the world's musical mix. Here's one who does so with conviction, wit, and unassailable musicality.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre for www.afropop.org