Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins added a real gem to modern jazz repertory
when he recorded "St. Thomas"
for his 1956 "Saxophone Colossus" LP. It's
undulating calypso rhythm, and lively, simple melody are
irresistible to
instrumentalists of various genres, including fingerstyle guitar master Eric
Lugosch,
whose latest CD "Kind Heroes" includes a crafty version of Rollins'
West Indies-inspired ditty.
Arranged
in dropped-D tuning, Lugosch introduces the head with a lovely
rubato section where the melody is
harmonized with jazzy chords, a great
bass line and a ringing A7-D suspension a la Joseph Spence.
He then sets the
piece in motion with a bouncy I - V vamp that becomes the background for the
melody
with embellishments in tempo, followed by a series of ingenious
variations that move around the fretboard
in surprising and delightful ways.
Lugosch keeps listeners in touch with the form by periodically
quoting
snatches of the melody and combining previous variations with new ones. The
three-and-a-half
minute arrangement returns to a variation of the opening
vamp and fades off into the tropical distance.
Lugosch says he first heard Rollins' recording of "St. Thomas" in the 1960s,
and that later guitar
recordings by Pat Donahue and Phil Heywood got him
more interested in making his own arrangement.
"I used Pat's intro because it seemed in keeping with the theme of the
album, which is dedicated to
all the people who've inspired me," he says. "I
first met him years ago at the National Fingerpicking
Championships and I've
always admired the way he plays. He did 'St. Thomas' with an ensemble. Phil
Heywood's version kind of mixed it with 'Brown Skinned Girl,' which I
thought was interesting."
Solidifying
the many variations and ideas he had toyed with over the years
for "Kind Heroes" was accomplished
under difficult circumstances. Lugosch's
mother had passed away a few days earlier, and he needed
to finish the
record before embarking on an imminent tour of Germany.
"I basically just sat for
24 hours and played the tune," he says. "It came
out differently every time, so I'm just glad it worked
out. Some of the
variations happened away from the guitar; just me thinking 'What am I going
to
do next?' "
While creativity and luck are part of the success of every good
fingerpicking arrangement,
Lugosch takes an analytical approach to unifying
different sections, themes and embellishments.
"All
my variations follow a sequence," he explains. "I might have two
variations that I like and instead
of making a entirely new third variation,
I'll borrow from the two I've already done to build the
third one so it
doesn't sound like a disparate set of licks. I think it adds cohesion to a
piece.
It's all diatonic - I am Mister Diatonic, I admit it, but I don't
care. I don't try to be fancy, I
just try to be to the point, and clean."
Mister Diatonic covers a considerable expanse of musical
ground on "Kind
Heroes." There are exceptional arrangements of fingerstyle classics such as
Pete
Seeger's "Living In The Country," which he plays with a jaunty, mambo
feel, and a smart rendition
of John Loudermilk's "Windy & Warm" with lots of
clever pull-offs, cross-picking and moving bass lines.
Lugosch's version of
Benny Goodman's "I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)" combines a
straightforward
reading of the melody and bridge with superb variations
reminiscent of pianists such as Teddy Wilson
and Fats Waller. He also turns
out a spirited performance of the Reverend Gary Davis' "I'll Be All
Right,"
another nod to one of his guitar heroes.
Lugosch's original instrumentals are no less intriguing.
"Primate House,"
"All I Wanna Do," and the title track abound with energy and rhythmic
intricacy,
where "Lingua Franca," and "Dissertation In The Park" though no
less complex, create a more pensive
mood. Completing the program are three
original songs reminiscent of another of his musical heroes,
Leo Kottke.
Lugosch's flinty baritone, and the rhythms, chord movements, and melodies of
"Tripping
On My Own Feet" and "Her Grace" bear a striking resemblance to
some of the Minnesota guitarist's work.
He was in the 9th grade the first
time he saw Kottke in concert in the late 1970s.
"I was in heaven,"
Lugosch says. "Leo Kottke was it. He just knocked me out
with the possibilities. I flourished with
the writing, trying to emulate
him."
Several years later Lugosch learned much of what he knows
about arranging
and composing from a jazz pianist named Ethel Ponz, who taught private
lessons
near Temple University where Lugosch was a voice major in 1980. He
says his studies with Ponz helped
him organize and flesh out his musical
ideas.
"What she taught me was that you have to be neat,
anally neat, when you
write," he says. "She took the mystery out of how to put something down on
paper.
What I dug about the piano was that if I heard a tune played on it,
no matter what key it was in I
could sit down and figure out how to do it.
It was linear to me, unlike the guitar where you hear
something and there's
five ways of doing it."
These days Lugosch shares his knowledge with guitarists
by teaching at
Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music and occasionally writing
instructional columns
for music magazines. In addition to recording and
periodic tours, Lugosch performs solo every Friday
evening at Villa Kula,
which he describes as "a true listening room."
"The whole front room is
dedicated to music," he says. "There's no smoking,
and there's not a television in the entire place.
I can't complain."
("Kind Heroes" and Lugosch's 1997 CD "Black Key Blues" are both available
directly
from Lugosch, who can be reached via e-mail at elugosch@forward.net.)
WHAT HE PLAYS
For
his recording of "St. Thomas" Lugosch played a 0-16 Martin New Yorker,
which was recorded with a matched
pair of Russian Okpava MC012 small
diaphragm condenser microphones.
"I had a custom made Martin
that I just could not stand," Lugosch says. "It
was never built right. It was quilted maple on the
sides and back, with
German silver spruce top. It was a 14-fret model with a slotted head, and
the
guitar could never tune, it sounded like crap, but it looked good. I had
a student, who wasn't so
much a student as he was a guitar trader. He would
sell and trade guitars, that's all he did. And
he got this little 0-16 New
Yorker - I had played old New Yorkers, with the slot head, and they're
really a folk guitar. But he got this from the custom shop about eight years
ago, with the low profile,
wider neck and the reverse adjustable truss rod.
He brought it into his lesson, and I played it and
was knocked out. From the
start I was thinking 'I want this guitar.' I was tongue-and-cheeking with
him and I said 'You wanna trade?' and his eyes bugged out because he was
smitten with the look of
my maple Martin. He agreed to do the trade, but I
suggested he could play my guitar until his next
lesson to make sure he'd be
happy with the deal. At his next lesson, I asked him if he wanted to make
the trade final - I had my fingers crossed - and he said 'I already sold
your guitar.' "
Lugosch
also owns a Kevin Ryan guitar that he uses along with the Martin New
Yorker in the studio and for
live gigs. Both guitars are outfitted with a
Fishman Rare Earth blender pickup, which he runs through
a Fishman preamp
into a Fostex SP11 MK2 powered monitor.
"I use it as a monitor when I do big gigs,
and for a small PA for smaller
gigs," Lugosch says of the Fostex. "It's unbelievable how good it sounds."
He also carries a Shure BG 5.1 omnidirectional battery powered condenser
microphone for use with bigger
systems.
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