Monday, January 11, 2010

Laurindo Almeida - Virtuoso Guitar (1977)



This extraordinary Brazilian guitarist, composer, and arranger was introduced to music by his mother, a concert pianist who gave him his first lessons. Like his sister, however, he would eventually choose the guitar as his primary instrument. As a teenager, Almeida witnessed, and participated in, a great deal of civil unrest; the experience galvanized him and fueled a lifelong passion for the politics of his native country. At age 19, he became a performer aboard the Brazilian ocean liner Cuyaba, which enabled him to travel to Europe, hear the legendary Django Reinhardt in Paris, and experience a great deal of foreign culture.

In Brazil, he formed a guitar duo named Cordas Quentes with Garoto, who he met at Radio Mayrink Veiga in Rio de Janeiro. In 1947, he went on tour with singer and actress Carmen Miranda's band. This led him to Hollywood, where he performed on film soundtracks and appeared in concerts with violinist Elizabeth Waldo; he also composed the first of his more than 800 scores for movies and television series. He was to win Oscars for his soundtracks to The Old Man and the Sea (1958) and The Magic Pear Tree (1970). He soon joined the innovative Stan Kenton Orchestra and became a featured soloist. After three years, he established permanent residence in Los Angeles and began an astonishingly prolific recording career that was to earn him ten Grammy awards.

Almeida's palette of stylistic and emotional expression was wide-ranging. His early '50s Brazilliance albums with Bud Shank helped establish the bossa nova style in the States several years before the craze hit. He also recorded and toured with the Modern Jazz Quartet and was equally at home with classical and modern concert music, such as Gnattali's Concerto de Copacabana and the Guitar Concerto of Villa-Lobos. ~ "Blue Gene" Tyranny, All Music Guide




About the Recording


Virtuoso Guitar is a very rare 1977 US 4-track limited edition 'Supercut' direct to disc 45RPM audiophile LP recorded live directly to the master lacquer & pressed on high quality vinyl, silvered embossed pasted picture sleeve. Fabulous sound quality and "there"-ness. Laurindo Almeida interprets classics such as Yesterday and also delves into more comptempory music blending in and creating a soundscape so effortless whatever the tune. And oh, the sound quality is simply astonishing, makes you really just sit and listen.

Track Listing:
1. Yesterday
2. Jazz-Tuno At The Mission
3. Late Last Night
4, 5, 6. Sonata For Guitar & Cello In Three Movements by Radames Gnattali

Year: 1977
Label: Crystal Clear Records CCS 8001
Style: Acoustic Jazz, Guitar
Audio: 24bit-96kHz Vinyl rip, FLAC
Size: 498 MB

7 comments:

d3lta said...

http://rapidshare.com/files/333727229/laur_alm_virt_guit.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/333710204/laur_alm_virt_guit.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/333709759/laur_alm_virt_guit.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/333693343/laur_alm_virt_guit.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/333693342/laur_alm_virt_guit.part5.rar

pass: b3bop

Anonymous said...

Although the set of files seems to unpack without error, they don't play properly (just a lot of static-like noise) and my FLAC Frontend converter wouldn't accept them either for conversion to WAV files. I tried another converter to try them in both WAV and MP3, but in both cases, the resulting files only contained silence. I've not had this problem with your previous FLAC files, so I'm puzzled. Is this possibly a new version of the FLAC format or some such thing. Thank you for any suggestions. -Davide Davidos

d3lta said...

Hey Davide, as explained on description this is a 24bit-96khz LP rip ('regular' CD rips are the standard Red Book 16bit-44.1khz ). There's no problem with the flacs whatsoever, you just need hardware capable to play 24-96 (most modern audio cards can do this). I'm afraid getting into more technical details is beyond the scope of this blog, the web has a wealth of info on the subject though, good luck ;-)

Anonymous said...

H, d3lta and thank you for the explanation: I've encountered this once before elsewhere, so now I know what to do. Sorry to have overlooked that detail in the description! I'm looking forward to hearing the album. Thanks again!

-Davide Davidos

Unknown said...

Thanks for this high quality recording. The 24-bit flac files play nicely on the VLC media player

d3lta said...

@renrew, VLC can play them for sure, but I prefer Foobar, much more customizable and geared towards audio whereas VLC mostly towards video (on windows platform).

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this rip. It'll be interesting to compare with my copy of the LP. I found a CD re-release (also apparently remastered from vinyl) and the takes are noticeably different - solos changed slightly, and phrasing - from the vinyl. Makes me wonder just how many different masters were cut during the recording sessions.