Tony Savarino’s latest instrumental album Guitararino not only plays on his name. The musical themes here play upon many themes from many genres. Savarino is part scholar mining deep reservoirs of genre and history and part master technician, playing each genre with a depth of musical knowledge and skill. This guitarist combines his fantastic gifts to come up with something that is a lot of fun to listen to while it impresses with many fine touches and nuances. This album is the final in a trilogy that began with Guitaring and continued with Guitaresque. After listening to this current album, listeners will probably be hankering for those two recordings.
Savarino jumps right in with some tasty, rippling rockabilly roots licks on opening track “Fort Point Boogie.” Aside from these snappy notes, Kevin Barry lays out an entire melodic line on lap steel, his phrasing makes it sound like his guitar is crying out its lonesome notes. He, like Savarino, doesn’t just play well and respect the genre, he injects so much personality into his music that you feel like you’re listening to another person express himself in vivid emotional language.
Savarino moves into “Gratitude” with a down tempo appreciation of all of the beautiful, emotive colors and tones he can get out of each of his notes. He creates a lush visual of something mellow, something moving at its own pace. You can picture a man walking through a park, contemplating all of the natural beauty before his eyes. There is just a striking amount of emotive context in this musician’s free fall of gentle notes. Occasionally, he injects a tighter interval of high notes to make the listener feel even more of what he’s expressing. This is true musicianship, folks, a man who can say what’s on his mind and what’s in his heart with a masterful control of tender, expressive notes.
Track three is something of a treat for Boston Bruins fans. Savarino plays on his guitar, “Nutty,” which was the music played on Channel 38 just before the game started. Originally recorded by The Ventures, it was their arrangement of The Nutcracker. Here, Savarino goes to town adding a bit of edge to the melodic line with a more complex take on the arrangement.
“Polka dots & Moonbeams” finds Savarino playing in a quiet, contemplative mode. His notes are still plenty flinty, as he accents them well. Yet, he expresses himself, in a considerate fashion, letting each note find its mark in the piece, expressing its own singular feeling with color and tone. There’s also some sweet note bending going on as it rides out. Original composer Jimmy Van Heusen would have been pleased.
Combining jazz and metal, Savarino shows a more aggressive and a more technical aspect on “Yngwie Van Caravan.” Here, the guitarist offers a variety of wild, kaleidoscopic takes on his main melodic phrase. At time, Savarino presses out a fiery interval of spiraling, dizzying notes. Other times, he sustains a note long enough to make it become a siren call, something that beckons the listener into his composition. He goes toe to toe with Rusty Scott’s aggressive swaths of organ madness, playing his guitar needle-sharp and dizzyingly high in response to each of Scott’s organ melody salvoes.
“Sunny” revolves around a warm vibe born out of its Latin groove. Savarino’s lead guitar phrase is loaded with peppy touches, upbeat flourishes, like a happy man with a bounce in his step. Listeners cannot help but be in a good mood after they listen to this. Each note sounds like what a smile might sound like if one could convert smiles to sound. Non stop, jazzy, free, fluid notes dance around the beat until they step gracefully to the side so flutist Andrew Hickman can offer a slightly different accent to the main melody line, providing sweet contrast. Vibraphonist Phil Neighbors chimes in with an appealing light take on the sweet theme of this composition. Being treated to three clever and distinct melody makers is another reason to adore this Savarino arrangement.
“Human Jungle” entwines itself around the listener’s consciousness with its leafy low end notes and eerily sharp guitar notes. A listener can easily picture a man with a machete trying to cut his way through the rain forest. The music is appealingly thick, with a hint of possible danger in Savarino’s ringing high notes. Much is owed to upright bass player Joe McMahon. The low end master makes his bass notes skulk around like a preying animal looking for a meal to pounce upon. This piece would even work as a soundtrack to a spy or mystery film. Its dark connotations inform the listener that some serious matter is about to go down.
Savarino offers a bit of rockabilly, slightly informed by cowboy music from the 1930s, on “The Ballad Of Myles Connor.” Savarino loads it with high stepping guitar licks and tasty, crunchy chords. Listeners will dig the ever so snappy, well-accented notes he picks off. The song builds toward an anxious climax through an adept manipulation of colors, tones, and dynamics. What an ear for sound Savarino possesses.
Savarino’s take on The Rolling Stones classic “As Tears Go By” emphasizes all of the inherent beauty in that number. Savarino shows what’s really going on, musically, in that piece, and his exploration pays off, giving the listener a touching, emotive, display of melody.
“Under The Double Edge” touches upon idioms from western swing, and in a good way. You can hear Savarino keeping every note in his melodic line moving around that western beat. His tight ensemble playing with his rhythm section never precludes him from veering into fanciful, almost giddy, melodic lines that cry out, “Hey, I’m from Texas.”
One of the most hauntingly beautiful numbers on this album, “India,” contains an element of exotic mystery. It connotes a feeling of being in a foreign land. Written by the Psychedelic Furs, this arrangement may keep one guessing how Savarino is creating the exotic tones in his sonic landscape with only his guitar. According to the credits, he’s only playing guitar and bass with a drummer and a percussionist. Yet, there’s a synthesizer like hum that doesn’t sound like a guitar. Tender guitar notes elsewhere go by like a warm summer breeze. Mike Levesque’s cymbal work spreads an alluring washy sound over this work while Savarino creates his textures with gently picked notes that ring out and land in just the right places.
Savarino closes out his album with “Done Yet,” a tune that sounds live because it was recorded with a heckler making obnoxious yet humorous remarks through out. This piece is a down-tempo groove, easeful melodic phrasing, notes pouring fourth, sometimes emulating the organ phrase, other times singing out the notes in a higher pitched joy ride. The musicians manage to close out their album with class while the heckler, Boston bah accent intact, rushes them to the end of their set.
Other musicians making this album a smashing success are Sean McLaughlin, Joe McMahon, Tom West, Scott Anderson, and special guest Chris Cote. Producer Barry Marshall has them all sounding nice and shiny. Savarino is clearly a top notch musician. He is also an interesting artist to follow. This third CD in his trilogy is only one of his many projects. With technique this masterful and an imagination prone to going where no guitarist has gone before, Savarino will surely be remembered as one of Boston’s best guitarists.
