THE STRATHMORE GUITAR FESTIVAL 2010–2011 SEASON THE GUITAR FESTIVAL IS SPONSORED IN PART BY
Mar 16, 2016
THE STRATHMORE
GUITAR FESTIVAL
2010–2011 SEASON
THE GUITAR FESTIVAL IS SPONSORED IN PART BY
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GUITARBYTOMCOLE
Tom Cole is an editor at NPR and, for the past 33 years,
has hosted a weekly stringed instrument program called
“G-Strings,” for WPFW, 89.3 FM, in Washington.
Strathmore takes a season-long look at the most influential
musical instrument of the 20th century—along with its
cousins: the lute, Chinese pipa and mandolin. Strathmore’s
season-long Guitar Festival welcomes classical, jazz,
rock and experimental guitarists from across the
country and around the world. The Strathmore
Guitar Festival is produced by Shelley Brown
and Georgina Javor of Strathmore.
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IntroductionThe guitar is not a formal instrument—that’s why we love it and why it is one of the most popular
musical instruments in the world. You can cradle it in your
arms. There are no intermediary keys between you and the
sound, as there are with pianos or most woodwinds; no
bows to balance just so—just fingers touching strings. It’s
easy to get a pleasant sound out of a guitar, yet it’s really
hard to play well. You can play just about anything on
it—as this series illustrates—from the deepest folk music
to the most intricate classical pieces and jazz to Balinese
court-inspired music to country and western to loud rock.
The instrument itself is accessible and so seems to open
itself to all music. Yet as popular as the guitar is, it is also
something of a mystery. For no one really knows where
or when the guitar—in a form we might recognize as a
guitar—originated.
OriginsWhile the guitar today can be found in virtually every
corner of the world, it seems to have been born in Spain.
We say “seems” because scholars are simply not sure.
Is the guitar a distant relative of the Ancient Greek
kithara—as the name similarity might imply? Images of
an instrument with a guitar-shaped body can be seen in
Central Asian carvings that date back to the 4th and 3rd
centuries BCE. Actual instruments—with small guitar-
shaped bodies and long necks meant to support four
strings—survive from 3rd and 4th century CE Egypt.
Was some form of the guitar indigenous to Europe? Or
was it—or its ancestor(s)—imported? There were certainly
plucked string instruments in Renaissance Europe: citoles,
citterns, gitterns. And there were various lutes all over
the world by this time—both bowed and plucked. One
possible theory carries us back to Medieval times: that the
guitar evolved from the vihuela, which evolved from the
lute, which evolved from the oud—which was brought
to Spain by the conquering Moors. All of these early
instruments can share a somewhat similar tuning. And
interestingly, for such a populist instrument, the guitar and
its antecedents had a remarkable history of dissemination
through conquest and imperialism. It seems they could be
carried as easily as a sword.
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Lutes, Vihuelas, Early Guitars and a “Course” in TerminologyThe term lute applies to many, varied instruments dating
back centuries. The earliest examples had long and short
necks, often round with no frets (the ridges traversing the
neck of a modern guitar, for example, where the strings
are pressed down to create different notes), carrying two
strings. The bodies could be made of hollowed out gourds
or animal shells. They could be bowed or plucked. The
European lute, as we’ve said, is directly descended from
the Arabic oud (or ud—the word “lute” derives from the
Arabic, al-ud). Both have pear-shaped bodies, round backs
and anywhere from four to six “courses” of strings.
A “course” is the run of a string, or strings, from the
head at the top of the neck to the bridge on the table
(the flat part on top of the body of a stringed instrument
that resonates with the vibration of the strings to produce
sound). Think of the guitar most of us know: the standard
six-string guitar. It has six “courses” of single strings.
Now think of the 12-string guitar—the one folk and
blues musicians sometimes play. It too has six courses of
strings—but the strings are doubled: two strings running
down the neck close together, side by side, in six pairings...
or “courses.”
The European lute, the oud and the vihuela were strung
like a 12-string—often with the lower (bass) strings
doubled and the highest (treble) string in a single course.
The vihuela superceded the lute in Spain. Its body was
shaped like a guitar, only larger. Sometimes it had a flat
back; sometimes a round back, like a lute. It had six or
seven courses of strings. Some vihuelas were bowed; some
were plucked—by the 15th century the latter instrument
was called vihuela de mano.
And this, finally, leads us to the four-course Renaissance
guitar—the first instrument to really bear the name
“guitar.” It’s four courses of strings usually had the
lower three doubled and the treble as a single string. It
became more sophisticated by the 16th century and, most
importantly, the subject of literature that gives us some
actual description and documentation. It was smaller than
the guitar we know today and it often had an ornate
rosette in the center sound hole—like a lute. Its frets
were animal gut tied around the neck. It was tuned in a
variety of ways to suit both the specific instrument and the
kind of music being played. The Renaissance guitar was
used for solo pieces and as an accompaniment to vocals.
Composers started writing for it. Alonso Mudarra included
several pieces for guitar in a 1546 vihuela collection. The
four-course Renaissance guitar took off in France and
inspired a substantial number of compositions. Similar
instruments continue to be played today in Latin America.
In Europe, this style of guitar continued through the Baroque period. At the end of the 15th century another course of string(s)
was added. The tuning was not always straight forward
low-to-high—sometimes the lowest pitch(es) occurred in
the third course; sometimes the third course was tuned to
the upper octave. By the 17th century, such composers as
Gaspar Sanz, Robert de Visee and Ludovico Roncalli were
writing for the five-course guitar. Louis XIV studied it and
Francesco Corbetta dedicated an important collection to
him. Antonio Stradiveri made five-course guitars—two of
which are known to survive. Yet the Baroque guitar was
still very different from the guitars we know today.
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The Six-String Guitar in a Century of ChangeThe guitar began to change by the middle of the 18th
century. The five-course Baroque guitar began to drop
strings—replacing the courses of double strings with single
strings. Then somebody decided to add an extra course
(another mystery, it would seem). One of the earliest
known six-course instruments dates from 1759. By the
next year, records show six-course guitars outselling five
course Baroque guitars in Spain. These mostly seem to
have featured six courses of double strings. But in southern
France and in Italy, guitarists and luthiers began to favor six
single strings. The holdovers from the lute also began to
disappear—most notably the intricate rosette was replaced
by an open sound hole. Wooden tuning pegs gave way
to keys and metal gears. Fixed frets replaced the gut tied
around the neck.
One of the most accomplished players of this early six-
string era remains one of the greatest contributors to
the guitar’s repertoire: Fernando Sor. Sor was born in
Barcelona—the exact date is unknown but records show
he was baptized in 1778—to a family of soldiers. Luckily,
his father introduced him to music. By the time he was
11, Fernando was writing songs. He wound up in military
school anyway and when Napoleon invaded Spain, Sor
wrote nationalistic songs to be accompanied by guitar and
may have even fought against the French. But when Spain
fell, Sor took a post in the occupation government. When
the Spanish overthrew the French, Sor fled to Paris and
began a career as a traveling recitalist. By some accounts,
he was the best guitarist of his day. He traveled to England
and his talents are credited with single-handedly sparking
a revival of interest in the guitar there. While in London,
he not only continued to compose for the guitar but
also wrote the acclaimed ballet music, “Cendrillon,”
one of seven ballets he composed. He also wrote three
symphonies and two operas, as well as numerous works
for the guitar, one of the best-known being “Introduction
and Variations on a Theme of Mozart,” based on music
from “The Magic Flute.” He published his “Methode pour
la guitare” in 1830—a work that is still studied today.
Fernando Sor died in Paris in 1839.
While Sor was composing and dazzling audiences, two
other noted composers became enamored of the guitar.
Niccolo Pananini, the virtuoso violinist, set that instrument
aside briefly to take up the guitar, writing a number of solo
and ensemble works for it. Hector Berlioz was reportedly a
passable guitarist and observed something that holds true
today: “It is almost impossible to write well for the guitar
without being a player on the instrument.”
Meanwhile, in Italy, Mauro Giuliani was coming up. He
actually made his name as a performer in Vienna during
the first two decades of the 19th century. Like Sor, he was
FERNANDOSOR
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a virtuoso and earned acclaim in a city where Beethoven
and Rossini were celebrities. One of Giuliani’s daughters
was also an accomplished guitarist and they played recitals
together. Mauro Giuliani wrote some 150 works for the
guitar, including three concerti. He also published several
method books that continue to inform guitar students.
The instrument itself became more standardized around mid-century. A Spanish luthier named Antonio de Torres Jurado is
credited with coming up with a standard of 65 cm for the
length of the strings that vibrates and with developing a
bridge that remains pretty much unchanged (the bridge is
the part of the guitar that connects the strings to the top,
or table, of the guitar.
The last great guitarist/composer/teacher of the 19th
century was Francisco Tarrega—born in Villareal, Spain in
1852. An early illness left his eyesight impaired and one
of his only options back then to help his poor family was
music. Tarrega became an accomplished guitarist and
pianist. He also taught and two of his students became
respected guitarist/composers: Emilio Pujol and Miguel
Llobet. In addition to his own compositions—perhaps the
most famous being “Recuerdos de la Alhambra,” Tarrega
was responsible for another important page in the guitar’s
history: transcriptions. Berlioz once complained that the
major composers wrote little of value for the guitar (so
why didn’t he write more?). Tarrega’s solution was to use
his knowledge of the piano and adapt keyboard pieces
by Chopin, Beethoven and Mendelssohn for the guitar.
It helped fill out recital and concert programs with more
“substantial pieces” but it was no real substitute for music
written for the instrument.
By the end of the 19th century, the guitar was a popular
instrument, though it seems to have faded from the
concert stage in Europe. But it was everywhere else: it was
affordable; it was portable; and it didn’t take up as much
room as a piano. It was an adaptable ensemble instrument:
at the turn of the 20th century, orchestras made up of
guitars, mandolins, and other plucked string instruments
abounded in Europe and the U.S. The instrument that is
ubiquitous today began its ascendancy less than 150 years
ago. It would be looked down upon in “serious music”
circles until Andres Segovia hit the stage in the second
decade of the 20th century.
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The Guitar in North AmericaAs mentioned earlier, the guitar spread through conquest
and missionary zeal. The first guitars on this side of the
Atlantic arrived with the first Spanish soldiers, sailors,
settlers and priests. They were used for entertainment and,
more ominously, to try to separate indigenous peoples
from their traditional culture.
In this country, Ben Franklin plucked a stringed instrument
called an “English guitar,” but this was a wire-strung
instrument similar to a cittern which, in turn, looked
something like a stripped-down, flat-back lute. One of the
first references to what might have been a six-stringed
classical guitar dates from 1774.
By 1833, Christian Frederick Martin had emigrated to the
U.S. from Germany. By 1860 he was selling about 300
Martin guitars a year. By 1899, the company that made
Washburn guitars (Lyon and Healy) reported that it had
sold 20,000 of its guitars through Montgomery Ward—
many of them likely through mail order. Mail order was
key to the proliferation—and so was price. At the turn of
the last century, Sears, Roebuck and Company was selling
guitars for under $3.00.
Guitar concerts and recitals were also a popular form of
entertainment in the mid 1800’s. There were a number
of acclaimed concert performers in the U.S. Dolores de
Goni was born in Spain and came to this country from
London. She enjoyed a successful career as a recitalist and
she endorsed Martin guitars, as did John Coupa, another
concert guitarist who became Martin’s business partner.
Perhaps the most colorful performer was G.E. Bini, a
serious musician and guitar maker who also performed
regularly at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York.
Toward the end of the century, William Foden made his
name as “the Wizard of the Guitar.” He composed a
number of pieces for guitar that incorporate ragtime and
sentimental American popular song. He also taught and
wrote articles and instruction methods.
But concert programs took a back seat to minstrel shows
in the 1840’s and the guitar’s continued success in the U.S.
was stoked by amateurs. Its size and affordability made
it a popular alternative to the piano. At a time when the
inexorable gears of progress and the Industrial Revolution
threatened traditional values, music in the home was seen
as an indispensable antidote. In the Northeast, the primary
providers of this tonic were women. Their instrument
and style became known as “parlour guitar.” The music
was mostly accompaniment to popular songs and the
occasional simple solo piece.
In the South before the Civil War, the guitar was an
instrument for both men and women of the leisure class
and a link to the severed ties with European aristocracy.
It may well have been through white plantation families
that their slaves picked up the instrument. African slaves
were forbidden to play their own music. The vestiges of
the cultures from which they were ripped were basically
reduced to the songs they carried in their hearts and some
form of the stringed instrument that became the banjo.
They were allowed to learn the guitar to entertain their
“owners.”
In the Southeastern states the music that developed
among African American guitarists was a remarkable
blend of black and white. One of the best guitarists of the
1920’s recorded under the name Blind Blake. Very little is
known about him, though on a recording he said his first
name was Arthur. The intricate finger picking made Blind
Blake a revered and influential musician in the acoustic
blues tradition may have evolved from the way the banjo
is played—which, in turn, may have evolved from the way
the West African ngoni is plucked with the fingers. The
ngoni—which has a varying number of strings and is made
of an animal skin stretched across a hollowed-out calabash
gourd—is often cited as the direct ancestor of the banjo.
The Reverend Gary Davis, another brilliant guitarist, was
also an accomplished banjo player. But their syncopated,
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ragtime style may also have evolved from the music their
ancestors learned from white parlor guitarists and passed
down. Blake was born in Florida or Georgia; Davis was
born in South Carolina and this ragtime style stretched up
and down the East Coast to include Blind Boy Fuller and
later, John Jackson and Etta Baker. It came to be called
Piedmont or East Coast Blues.
The story of the Mississippi Delta blues that traveled up the
river to electrify Chicago is well-known. Its most famous
players include Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Son
House, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Elmore James. The
music is more strident than the East Coast blues—perhaps
because life was harsher. And the guitar playing—though
no less complex—seems to be more closely linked to
the singing: the guitar erupting in quick bursts between
verses and soloing after a chorus—as opposed to the
more instrumentally-focused East Coast playing, where
the singing sometimes seemed to accompany the guitar
playing (as in Blind Blake’s “Too Tight” or “West Coast
Blues,” both from 1926).
In New Orleans, as you might expect, things were a little
different. Though the Spanish were the first Europeans
to visit Louisiana—and likely brought some stringed
instrument or another with them—it was the French who
settled the region in the 17th century. Remember Louis
XIV was an amateur guitarist, so odds are that more than
a few of those Baroque guitars landed with the settlers.
Cultures seemed to mix more freely, with Caribbean
influences carried in by slaves and traders blending with
the indigenous culture of the different Indian tribes and
that of the European colonizers.
Out of this gumbo (forgive the cliché but it fits) came a
remarkable guitarist: Lonnie Johnson. He was born Alonzo
Johnson in Orleans Parrish in 1899 to a musical family—all
of whom died save one brother in the influenza epidemic
of 1918. Lonnie Johnson played all kinds of popular and
dance music on violin and guitar until he entered a blues
contest in 1925 in St. Louis, where he settled with his
surviving brother. The prize was a recording contract with
Okeh Records—one of the leading “race” labels at the
time (labels that recorded black music). In seven years, he
cut more than 100 sides for Okeh—solo discs and as an
accompanist. He had a smooth singing voice that would
yield a crossover hit in 1948 with the ballad, “Tomorrow
Night.” But his guitar playing was nothing short of
dazzling. He was accomplished on both six- and twelve-
string guitar and his solos had the complexity of jazz. Some
credit him with being the first to record a full-blown guitar
solo—the kind that characterizes every rock, blues or jazz
tune that features a guitar solo.
In 1929, Johnson teamed up with the pioneering white
jazz guitarist Eddie Lang to record some of the first jazz
guitar duets—setting a benchmark that guitarists have tried
to meet ever since. Johnson went on to record with Louis
Armstrong and Duke Ellington—but there was a problem:
How to make the guitar heard over the ensemble.
JEFLEEJOHNSONPERFORMSSOMEOFTHEMUSICOFLONNIEJOHNSON
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The Pursuit of VolumeMost of the music we’ve talked about so far has been
played and written by and for solo performers—in the
proper setting, it’s no problem for them to be heard. But
the guitar does not project the way violins or trumpets do.
Once an acoustic guitar is placed in a group with other instruments, it’s usually drowned out.Guitarists have struggled with this problem from the
earliest days of the instrument. They only began to
overcome it in the mid 1800’s with the introduction of
steel strings.
Up until then, guitar strings were most often made of
animal gut—usually sheep or goat. The bass strings usually
had silk cores wound with wire. Remember the cittern
and English guitar had wire strings but players and makers
probably favored gut for its warmer sound. But by the
end of the 19th century, the guitar was playing in string
bands and string orchestras. It had to compete with other
instruments, notably the much louder mandolin.
Steel strings helped. But they also put greater tension on
the guitar’s neck and top (table). The very construction of
the instrument had to change to accommodate them. This
presents us with another mystery. For even though we’re
well within the era of documented history, there seem to
have been so many luthiers experimenting that no one
knows for sure who designed and built the first “steel
string guitar.” Joseph Bohmann, a Chicago guitar maker,
beefed up the bracing under the table in the 1880’s.
August Larson (of the Larson Brothers) apparently filed the
first patent for a guitar built to steel string specifications in
1904. Around 1915, C.F. Martin came up with what would
be a prototype for its “Dreadnought” guitars (named for
a battleship, in apparent reference to its larger size)—for
another company! Martin didn’t start marketing its own
celebrated D-18 and D-28 models until 1931. These larger,
louder guitars became the foundations of hillbilly music
and blues.
But another kind of guitar was also under development
during this period. The arched-top guitar is an American
invention (though this too is up for some debate: in the
early 1820’s, European makers introduced a six-stringed
instrument tuned like a guitar but meant to be played with
a bow—called an arpeggione—that had a curved, carved
top). Orville Gibson experimented with carved-top guitars
and mandolins in the 1890’s but the instruments weren’t
commercially produced until the 1920’s. One of the first
and most famous of these is the Gibson L-5, designed by
the legendary luthier Lloyd Loar.
These instruments were designed to be played in dance
bands. Until then, the louder banjo provided rhythm for
these groups. But with the advent of the arched-top,
guitarists began to take over the rhythm role and even got
to solo. These were the beginnings of jazz guitar—Eddie
Lang played an L-5.
In Europe, Mario Maccaferri designed a flat-top guitar—
with a distinctive D-shaped sound hole and an added
sound chamber inside the body—for the French Selmer
company. It became the instrument of choice for the
remarkable guitarist Django Reinhardt. He was remarkable
not only for his unique impact on the American art form of
jazz, but also on how he made that impact. Reinhardt was
a Roma, the proper term for the derisive “gypsy,” born in
a caravan outside the Belgian town of Liberchies in 1910.
By the time he was 18, he was already a virtuoso guitarist
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and banjo player. Then he suffered a terrible accident.
Returning home late at night after a gig, he knocked over
a candle which ignited some celluloid flowers his wife had
made to sell at funerals. His caravan went up in flames and
he was badly burned saving his pregnant wife. Reinhardt
spent more than a year in treatment—his chances of
playing again were all but nil. Nevertheless, through
determined practice, he came up with a way to use the
two fingers on his fretting hand that weren’t burned and
went on to record the astoundingly fast and musical solos
that made him internationally famous.
His Maccaferri was the perfect foil for Stephane Grappelli’s
violin in the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. But even
Django began to experiment with the electric guitar in the
final years before his untimely death in 1953.
Before we go electric, there’s one more mechanical
modification luthiers tried to get more sound out of their
guitars: the resophonic or resonator guitar. The idea was
simple: rest the bridge that anchors the strings on the
small end of what is essentially a loudspeaker cone, with
the open end pointed into the body of the guitar. The
vibrations of the strings would vibrate the cone (in the
same way electrical impulses cause the speakers in your
stereo to vibrate) and amplify the sound. The “cone”
actually looked more like an inverted pie pan made out of
thin metal. Credit for inventing it goes to John Dopyera,
the son of a Czech violin maker. He and his brothers ran
the National String Instrument Corporation and the name
by which you may know this instrument comes from a
contraction of “Dopyera brothers:” Dobro. While the
instrument most often seen today in bluegrass bands
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has a wooden body with the metal cone inside, the early
Nationals were nickel-plated brass. They rang like bells and
were favored by such blues guitarists as Son House and
Tampa Red.
Now it’s time to address electricity and another guitar
mystery: who came up with the first electric guitar? Les
Paul claimed credit. Leo Fender claimed credit. So did
several others. The debate has raged for years.
It actually seems that Hawaiian musicians first pressed for
electrification because their guitars carried the melody in
Hawaiian dance orchestras. They also made some of the
first electric guitar recordings in the early 1930’s. We’re
talking here about the Hawaiian slide guitar that produced
the weeping waterfalls of tropical melody we’ve come to
associate with Hawaiian music from that period. There’s
another kind of Hawaiian guitar playing called “slack key,”
notable for its varied tunings that have produced some
of the most beautiful sounds to be conjured from the
instrument at the hands of such masters as Gabby Pahinui
and Ledward Kaapana.
As with earlier guitar innovations, there were likely a lot of
people experimenting with ways of electrifying the guitar
around the same time. George Beauchamp was one of
them. He was playing resonator guitar in a Hawaiian band
in Los Angeles in the late 1920’s. But the resonator still
didn’t produce enough volume, so he began to build his
own electric guitar out of two horseshoe magnets. He got
together with engineer Adolph Rickenbacker and in 1931,
they came up with their first electric guitar—the body was
made out of cast aluminum and looked like the name it
was given: The Frying Pan. Beauchamp filed for a patent
in 1931 but it wasn’t granted until 1937 and by then a
number of companies were selling electric guitars.
In 1936, Gibson introduced the ES 150, an electric arched
top. It bore a pickup (the device on the guitar top under
the strings that “picks up” the string vibrations and turns
them into electrical impulses) that came to be named for
the man who put the ES 150 in the spotlight: jazz guitar
pioneer Charlie Christian.
Floyd Smith is credited with recording the first electric jazz
guitar tune: “Floyd’s Guitar Blues” in 1939. Eddie Durham,
George Barnes, and Eldon Shamblin (with Bob Wills) had
all played swinging electric guitar on records before Charlie
Christian.
But Christian really seemed to understand the possibilities of the electric. He was born in Texas in 1916 but raised in Oklahoma City.
His father died when he was 12 but by then Charlie was
already playing guitar. By 1936, he was playing electric
throughout the mid-West. The story goes that pianist,
composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams heard Christian
and recommended him to the powerful record producer
John Hammond, Sr.—who in turn recommended Christian
to Benny Goodman. The first meeting between the two
musicians in 1939 did not go well, so Hammond decided
to sneak Christian onto the bandstand during a Goodman
show that night. The clarinetist and bandleader was not
pleased. He decided to mess with Christian and called
a tune he was sure the guitarist did not know: “Rose
Room.” But Christian had learned it as a very young man.
He reportedly took some twenty solos in a jam on the tune
that lasted more than half an hour. Christian was hired. In
just three years with Goodman, Christian made the electric
guitar a force to be acknowledged in jazz. And it was—
Christian won numerous polls and is credited as one of the
founding forces of bebop. And he did it all by the time he
was 25. Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis in 1942. He’s
buried in an unmarked Texas grave.
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WWII slowed electric guitar production but the
experimentation continued. Leo Fender, then a California
radio repairman, hooked up with a musician named Doc
Kauffman and, in 1943, they built their prototype electric
guitar. But it took them another seven years to figure out
how to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack.
They did it by figuring out a way to pair a simple design
with mass production. Their first model was the Esquire,
followed by the Broadcaster, then—drumroll please—
the iconic Telecaster, the first successful—and longest
continuously-produced—solid body electric guitar.
It became the signature sound of 1950’s country music
and one of its first and best players was Georgia born,
California based Jimmy Bryant, who made a number of
hot country jazz records for Capitol. James Burton used his
Tele to back up Elvis Presley. It was the sound of Muddy
Waters’ blues and Steve Cropper’s R&B with Booker T. and
the M.G.’s. Washington’s own Roy Buchanan and Danny
Gatton played indescribably beautiful and powerful music
with their Telecasters. And Joe Strummer pummeled his
Tele in the Clash.
The Telecaster was followed by the Stratocaster, whose
indisputable master was Jimi Hendrix. ‘Nuff said.
Gibson Guitars originally rejected a design for a solid body
electric submitted by none other than Les Paul. But, seeing
Fender’s success, the company relented and released an
instrument named for the ingenious musician and inventor
in 1952. The Gibson Les Paul was played brilliantly by its
creator, followed by the likes of Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page,
Duane Allman, Bob Marley, Pete Townsend, and Sister
Rosetta Tharpe.
Gibson produced other models that have put their stamp
on rock and blues. Rock would not be rock without the
musical ideas Chuck Berry voiced through his Gibsons,
most notably the double-cutaway ES-355. That was also
the guitar that, in the hands of B.B. King, became famous
around the world as “Lucille.”
Since the earliest days of the electric, there have been
almost as many variations and makers as there have
been professional players. It’s an understatement to say
that their efforts changed the sound of music in the 20th
century. But we’ll say it: the electric guitar CHANGED THE
SOUND OF MUSIC. But it didn’t drown out everything else
that was going on.
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The Guitar Takes a Trip Abroad and Back HomeA quieter revolution was taking place at the instigation of
Andres Segovia. The story goes that Segovia complained
at a party in the 1940’s about the difficulty of obtaining
his favorite gut strings in the U.S. A short time later, he
was presented with nylon strings made by DuPont. He
liked them OK. Then he was introduced to luthier Albert
Augustine. They worked together for three years and in
1949, Augustine came up with a design for nylon strings
that met with the maestro’s approval.
Segovia was a particular individual—he liked what he
liked and he didn’t hesitate to say what he didn’t like.
He was born in Linares, Spain, in 1893. He studied piano
and cello as a child but, it seems, fell in love with the
guitar—to the dismay of his parents. For, at the turn of
the 20th century, the guitar was not held in high regard
as a concert instrument—something with which Segovia
himself seemed to concur later in life when he claimed
to have rescued the guitar from flamenco (a fate from
which some people might say that the instrument did not
need to be rescued). Nevertheless, with the strength of
his convictions, Segovia was single-handedly responsible
for bringing the guitar back to the concert stage—and for
encouraging composers to write for it. Federico Moreno
Torroba, Joaquin Turina, and Joaquin Rodrigo all wrote
for him. Though, if he didn’t like what you wrote, he
wouldn’t play it. Another story goes that when Swiss-
born composer Frank Martin presented his “Quatre Pieces
Breves” to Segovia, the guitarist rejected them, leaving
Martin despondent. The work went on to be taken up by
Julian Bream.
The English guitarist covered the waterfront—performing
Renaissance music on the lute (helping to revive interest
in that instrument) and championing challenging modern
music: notably one of the great works written for the
guitar, “Nocturnal” by Benjamin Britten (a non-guitarist,
buy the way). Bream was born 40 years after Segovia.
His father was an amateur jazz guitarist who introduced
young Julian to the music of Django Reinhardt—Bream
named one of his dogs Jango. Bream made his recital
debut at the age of 13. After service in the British Army,
Bream became a session guitarist for films and the BBC.
This varied experience led to an ecumenical approach to
music. In addition to performing and recording the work of
such contemporary composers as Malcolm Arnold and Toru
Takemitsu, had an affinity for Spanish and Latin American
music. Bream officially retired from performing in 2002.
He had a lot of music from Latin America to inspire him,
written by guitarists and non-guitarists alike. Among the
most notable in the former category are the 5 Preludes
and 12 Etudes composed by Heitor Villa Lobos (who also
played cello, piano, and clarinet). The Brazilian composer
was born a year before his country abolished slavery. Until
then, European music held sway. By the time he started
composing, Villa Lobos was not alone in incorporating his
country’s folk music into his work, alongside inspiration
from the likes of Bach. His earliest compositions reportedly
grew out of guitar improvisations. Villa Lobos mined the
music of Brazil’s indigenous peoples as well as the African
influences brought by slaves. His country’s folk and popular
music can be heard in his “Suite Populaire Bresilienne.”
Villa Lobos was not alone in these explorations. In
Paraguay his contemporary, guitarist and composer Agustin
Barrios, also drew on his country’s folklore. Barrios was part
Guarani—a group of indigenous peoples from Paraguay,
Uruguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil. Barrios was a
fascinating character. In addition to composing, he wrote
poetry all his life. He could read five languages and remains
one of the youngest people ever admitted to university
in Paraguay. He would also perform in the clothes of
indigenous peoples, adding “Mangore” to the end of
his name—a word for the leader of a particular tribe. His
12
performances also became legendary for their virtuosity.
Barrios is considered one of the greatest Latin American
guitarists of the 20th century and his compositions reflect
his talent. Even Segovia liked “La Catedral!”
A 1932 Barrios concert in Caracas, Venezuela, so impressed
a young music student named Antonio Lauro that he
gave up piano and violin for the guitar. Like Villa Lobos
and Barrios, Lauro was interested in creating a national
music for his country. His compositions incorporate both
folk dances and parlor waltzes into swinging, syncopated
gems. In the early 1950’s, he was imprisoned by the
ruling junta for his belief in democracy. He composed his
“Suite Venezolana” while in prison. Lauro’s work has been
championed by his countryman, the great guitarist Alirio
Diaz and by Australian virtuoso John Williams.
Mexican Manuel Maria Ponce was not a guitarist, yet
he composed one of the most widely played works for
classical guitar of the 20th century: “Variations and Fugue
on ‘La Folia’” (1929). Ponce was born in 1882 and was
a prodigy on the piano, yet his works for the guitar are
substantial: “Sonatina meridional” and Concierto del
sur,” dedicated to Segovia. Ponce was also known as “the
creator of the modern Mexican song” for such works
as “Estrellita.” After meeting Ponce, Villa Lobos wrote,
“It gave me great joy to learn that in that distant part of
my continent there was another artist who was arming
himself with the resources of the folklore of his people in
the struggle for the future musical independence of his
country.”
Three contemporary guitarist-composers merit mention:
Brazilian-born brothers Sergio and Odair Assad are
stunning performers who are writing music that is being
taken up by other guitarists; and Quique Sinesi, from
Argentina, who plays a variety of stringed instruments and
straddles the worlds of jazz and classical music.
In popular music and jazz, Latin America is one of the
guitar’s most fertile fields. From the widely-played music of
Antonio Carlos Jobim; to the all-around greatness of Baden
Powell and Egberto Gismonti (both of them awe-inspiring
guitarists and composers); to the playing of Bola Sete
and Laurindo Almeida (whose 1950’s collaborations with
saxophonist Bud Shank are credited by some with inspiring
bossa nova when their recordings got back to Brazil). And
we should not forget Virginia-born Charlie Byrd, who went
to South America and brought its music back to us.
The Guitar Today—ConclusionGuitar is everywhere. In Mali, acoustic guitarists like D’Gary
rival the best in the world. In the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Mwenda Jean Bosco is a legend. The
instrument that was taken to the continent by Portuguese
sailors in the early 19th century has evolved along with its
counterparts elsewhere: from the Ghanaian Highlife of
the 1950’s to the electric playing of Congolese groups like
Tabu Ley Rochereau and his Orchestre African Fiesta and
Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo. The Indonesian kronkong
is a five-stringed instrument, also likely of Portuguese
descent as is Hawaii’s ukulele.
Plucked string instruments date back long before the guitar
was invented. The appeal of that feeling of strings under
fingers and the sounds they make is universal. It seems to
be part of our DNA. Yet what is it about the guitar that’s
allowed it to supersede all of these other instruments. Is it
just musical-genetic evolution?
Or is it… a mystery?
13
Guitar FestivalAsteria,soprano&luteduo
Thursday, September 23, 2010, 7:30PM
Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the
artists moderated by Robert Aubry Davis.
NOWEnsemble
Monday, September 27, 2010, 7:30PM
PaulGalbraith,classicalguitar
Thursday, October 7, 2010, 7:30PM
Lecture/Concert:HistoryofAmericanClassical&
PopularGuitarwithPhilMathieu
Monday, October 11, 2010, 11AM
JasonVieaux,classicalguitar
Thursday, October 14, 2010, 7:30PM
Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the artist.
GuitarMasters:EricJohnson,AndyMcKee&Peppino
D’Agostino
Friday, October 15, 2010, 8PM
ChuckBerryfeaturingDarylDavisBand
Friday, October 22, 2010, 8PM
BangonaCanAll-StarsPlaysSteveReich
Thursday, November 11, 2010, 8PM
Listen & Learn! FREE post-concert discussion with the
artists.
ThePunchBrothersfeaturingChrisThile
Friday, November 12, 2010, 8PM
AnEveningwithKrisKristofferson
Saturday, November 13, 2010, 8PM
AnaVidovic,guitar&AnastasiaPetanova,flute
Thursday, November 18, 2010, 7:30PM
JoeSatriani
TheWormholeTour
Wednesday, December 15, 2010, 8PM
JoeLovano&JohnScofield
Friday, January 28, 2011, 8PM
JefLeeJohnsonBand
Thursday, February 10, 2011, 7:30PM
Listen & Learn! FREE pre-concert lecture at 6:30PM by Seth
Kibel on the history of blues guitar including some of its
greatest performers.
TaipeiChineseOrchestra&WuMan,pipa
Tuesday, February 15, 2011, 7:30PM
StrathmorepresentsBluesattheCrossroads
featuring Big Head Todd & The Monsters,
David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Hubert Sumlin,
and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 8PM
DiscoverStrathmoreGuitarFestival
Monday, February 21, 2011, 11AM–4PM
AnEveningofJazz&JobimwithRonKearns&Paul
Wingo
Thursday, March 3, 2011, 8PM
TheDelMcCouryBand
Sunday, March 20, 2011, 7PM
TheLosAngelesElectric8
Thursday, April 29, 2011, 7:30PM
AaronGrad’sThe Father Book
Thursday, May 19, 2011, 7:30PM
FORTICKETSANDINFORMATION, VISIT WWW.STRATHMORE.ORGORCALL (301) 581-5100