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In the
Spotlight
The multi-cultural guitar of Tim
Sparks
Originally from an article in Akustik
Gitarre
German text by
Andreas Schulz
Translated and edited by Steve Elliott
"When you play guitar, you follow a
single path that goes round the whole
world. All musical cultures have stringed
instruments."
Tim Sparks is
something of a musical globetrotter. He
returns from his travels with a bag full
of musical souvenirs, which he then turns
into highly imaginative guitar
instrumentals. His latest journeys have
found him delving into Jewish music.
Sparks' early CD's
built his reputation as one of the world's
leading fingerstylists, afraid of nothing
and conqueror of new territories for the
acoustic guitar. His first solo CD, "The
Nutcracker Suite", included an
extraordinary adaptation of that famous
orchestral piece for classical guitar and
Sparks promptly won the 1993 National
Fingerpicking championship. The other
piece on the CD, "The Balkan Dreams Suite"
displays his affinity for the music of the
Middle East.
Sparks
consolidated his love for this music in
his next CD, "Guitar Bazaar", a work which
carried the subtitle, "Multi cultural
ideas for guitar." The basis for these
pieces were a collection of Hungarian folk
songs originally arranged by Bela Bartok.
Tim Sparks complemented this material with
Celtic, Oriental, Jazz and Blues figures.
His third album, "One String Leads To
Another" saw Sparks returning to his North
Carolina roots, although his ethno,
multi-cultural approach is not entirely
forgotten. The mood of this recording is
decidedly eclectic and moves between
country-tinged, bluesy offerings and
Balkan dance music. This apparent
mish-mash is always held together by
Sparks' dazzling virtuosity and
far-ranging musical imagination.
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Japanese Acoustic Guitar
Magazine
Acoustic
Guitar article
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Tim Sparks
World Champion
Vibrations Magazine
2003
La guitare de Tim Sparks est un
creuset multiethnique où devisent,
en toute convivialité, traditions
du monde entier.
A New York, la
diversité de l'offre culturelle
impose parfois à l'amateur de
musiques de choisir un concert parmi la
pléthore qui se donne le même
soir. Il n'y avait pas lieu de s'infliger
un tel dilemme lors de la venue en
décembre dernier de Tim Sparks au
Center for Jewish History. Etabli dans le
Minnesota, ce musicien trop rare fit
à cette occasion la preuve que
l'isolement n'est en rien symptomatique
d'une misanthropie que l'on dit commune
à tant de créateurs
retirés du monde. Du monde, la
guitare de Tim Sparks au contraire a
appris à articuler tous les
langages pour en proposer aujourd'hui une
traduction universelle d'une parfaite
lisibilité.
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About a Goy
City Pages
November 2002
Tim Sparks isn't a Folgers kind of a
guy--a fact that fills me with a certain
amount of dread. He's a globetrotter, a
guitar-wielding adventurer, an inveterate
hippie. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't
like coffee but has trouble saying no to
people he's just met. As I watch him
prepare some brew and search for the Lee
Press-Ons he uses to replace his picking
hand's battered nails, I begin to suspect
he's also a fan of the sort of thick,
exotic coffee that will require a lot of
sugar. Not the cheap, bland stuff I can
stomach. Tim Sparks offers to make enough
coffee for both of us. This isn't going
well.
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Klezmerized
Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine, May/June
2000
by Bruce
Muckala
NOTE: This includes additional
material that did not appear in the
Fingerstyle Guitar Magazine interview.
Guitarist Tim Sparks had a banner
year in 1999 with the release of two
exceptional solo guitar albums. Neshamah,
released in August on John Zorn's Tzadik
Records, and One String Leads To Another,
on Peter Finger's cutting-edge guitar
label, Acoustic Music Records, show Sparks
at his eclectic best. Both projects,
recorded within a span of six months,
display the technique, and world view of
music that have earned Tim an
international reputation as one the most
innovative guitarists working today.
When John Zorn
contacted Sparks to propose the Neshamah
project, after hearing cuts from Tim's
second CD, Guitar Bazaar, he knew he was
speaking to a singular artist who would be
able to deliver a unique solo guitar
record of traditional Jewish music. With a
worldwide reputation as a performing
artist and musical innovator himself, the
mission of Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture
series is to present new conceptions of
Jewish music by commissioning some of
today's most inventive
composer/performers. What Zorn got from
Sparks was a collection of soulful,
ethno-jazz interpretations of Jewish
melodies from around the globe. From Yemen
to Krakow, to the Balkans and Tin Pan
Alley, the music follows a thread through
space and time.
Sparks, a past
member of Rio Nido and Jewish folk group
Voices of the Sepharad, sounds truly world
class on this solo guitar showcase
illustrating Jewish music's influence
around the globe. But unlike the bouncy
dance pieces we associate with Jewish
weddings and Klezmer concerts, Sparks
reduces these complex classics to their
harmonic essence, allowing the depth and
melodic beauty to be felt in new ways
through his gently dazzling fingerstyle
technique.
One String
Leads to Another is the album that
guitar enthusiasts have been waiting for
from Sparks. After nearly a decade of
performing and recording ethnic music from
the Balkans to Brazil, (with some choice
classical cuts thrown in including
Tchiakovsky's entire Nutcracker Suite),
Sparks has finally come home, musically
speaking. While One String Leads to
Another is infused with the many
dimensions of Sparks' indefatigable music
excursions, you'll hear it rendered in
snatches along with the blues and
bluegrass of his childhood in the Piedmont
of North Carolina. Sparks is currently at
work on a follow-up CD for Tzadik Records.
He will be returning to Europe in the
spring. This interview took place in the
kitchen of his farmhouse, located on a
lake near Frazee, Minnesota.
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24 Hours
Magazine
April, 2000
by Doug Spencer
Tim Sparks
Neshamah
web: www.birdland.com.au
I'd never even heard OF Tim Sparks. Bill
Frisell has long been one of my favorite
guitarists. On this album's wrapper Bill
declares: "totally beautiful and inspiring
music. Tim Sparks is incredible, a
complete original". Once I had heard this
quietly phenomenal album I was in total
agreement with Bill, amazed that someone
so good could be so "invisible", and eager
to discover more. I now know that Leo
Kottke says "I'm Tim Sparks' biggest fan".
Like Leo, I particularly admire the way
Sparks uses his prodigious technique only
to truly musical ends. If Tim responds to
my email, "The Planet" will be more than
slightly pleased to present his other
recordings to Australian listeners (Lucky
Oceans is your genial host, presenting
"The Planet" on Radio National each
weekday afternoon from 2.15 to 4. It's
repeated much later each day, from 11.15
pm. Our website fully details everything
played:
abc.net.au/rn/music/planet/planet.htm
}
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Fingerstyle Grows
Up
Excerpt from Acoustic Guitar
10th Anniversary Collector's Edition
by Teja Gerken
Tim Sparks has created an instantly
recognizable style without relying on
unorthodox techniques or weird tunings.
Merging his classical and jazz backgrounds
and effortless chops with a keen interest
in Eastern European music, he stormed onto
the fingerstyle scene with his debut CD,
The Nutcracker Suite, which
featured his arrangement of Tchaikovsky's
classic as well as a collection of Balkan
folk songs. Spark's '95 release, Guitar
Bazaar, is a masterpiece of acoustic
world music.
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An Interview With Tim
Sparks
Acoustic Guitar
Review
http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com
The newsletter of The Acoustic Guitar
Workshop - home of acoustic blues tuition
online.
An Interview with Tim Sparks
by Steve Elliot
Right, now then, every once in a while a
guitarist comes along who steps from the
ruck and shines out with an intense light
that dazzles, delights and leaves an
indelible mark on anyone who hears them.
Blind Blake, Robert Johnson, Django
Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix (among others
of course) were in that mold. I believe
that on acoustic guitar at least, Tim
Sparks is of that rare breed. He certainly
lit my fire. Not only is he an exquisite
guitarist, with a sure and pure touch
whether playing with muscular intensity or
delicate finesse, but he is also an
extremely clever arranger.
Anyone who
attempts to arrange The Nutcracker Suite
for acoustic guitar must be either a nut
or a genius! Sparks is the latter. And
there seems to be virtually no guitar
style that he hasn't brought his
considerable talent to bear upon. Jazz,
Blues, Rock, Classical, Tim Sparks can do
them all. In recent years he has focused
much of his attention on the music of the
Balkans and Middle East. His latest album
"Neshamah" pays eloquent homage to the
quixotic beauty of Jewish music. Being a
bit of a flibberdi-gibbet, I rarely listen
to an album all the way through, but
Neshamah had me pinned in my seat from the
first note to the last. You can listen to
a Real Audio track from this album, and
one from his other just as tasty recent
album,"One String Leads To Another" on our
site at http://www.acousticguitarworkshop.com/previews.htm
In short, Tim
Sparks transmits something very special
through his
fingertips.
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String
Being
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Globe-trotting Minnesota guitarist Tim
Sparks releases two divergent solo CDs
by John Bream
Published Friday, November 19, 1999
Sparks' acoustic guitar fits in any
setting 'round the world
What was acoustic guitar ace TimSparks
doing the other night on KQRS Radio,
bastion of classic rock? After DJ Mei
Young called him a "super bad-ass guitar
player," he told a story about how, on a
recent tour in Amsterdam, he'd mistakenly
eaten a drug-laced "space cake" (he'd
asked for spice cake), inspiring a tune
called "The Amsterdam Cakewalk." That tale
brought yuks all around the KQ studio
during the weekly local-music program
"Homegrown." Then, without missing a beat,
the Minnesota guitarist plucked a quiet
but mesmerizing instrumental.
Sparks manages to
make his guitar fit in just about any
setting. He recently recorded an album of
traditional Jewish music in a
video-editing studio in Detroit Lakes,
Minn. Then he went to Germany to record an
album of twangy blues songs written in
Mexico. And last month he went to Japan to
perform tunes from both
CDs.
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Franco Morone and
Tim Sparks
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Marshall McLuhan predicted a global
village some decades back, and Italian
acoustic guitar ace Franco Morone is a
fine example of his theory. Morone plays
traditional Irish tunes on finger-style
guitar on his delectable new CD, "The
South Wind," issued by the respected
German label Acoustic Music Records.
Morone's debut
appearance at the renovated Cedar Cultural
Centre was set up by his costar for the
evening, Tim Sparks - a hometown frets
hero whose brilliant "Guitar Bazaar" CD
culled music from all over the planet,
turning heads especially with the
odd-metered songs of Bulgaria and
Macedonia. When these two six-string
wizards get together, listeners will be
able to take a sonic world tour without
leaving their chairs.
- Tom Surowicz/ Minneapolis writer
Copyright 1997 Star
Tribune.
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Mandala at the Dakota Bar
& Grill
Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 23, 1996
by Tom Surowicz, Twin Cities freelance
writer
Personnel:
Gary Berg - tenor saxophone
Dave Graf - trombone
Dave King - drums
Terrence Hughes - piano, synthesizer
Mary Ann O'Dougherty - vocals,
percussion
Tim O'Keefe - percussion, harmonica
Tim Sparks - guitar
Cully Swansen - bass
Background: O'Dougherty ran a jazz
nightclub in Recife, Brazil, for four
years starting in 1980. The house band was
called Mandala, and when she returned to
her native Minnesota, O'Dougherty kept the
name and the Brazilian music alive. Since
1985 she has led a local version of
Mandala, with myriad personnel
changes.
Core members of
the current unit are Hughes, Sparks and
Swansen. Jazz pianist Hughes released his
own CD, "East of the Sun, " a couple of
years ago. Sparks is a National
Fingerpicking Champion who has been heard
with Rio Nido and a host of world-music
groups. Up-and-coming bebopper Swansen
also works with the Brad Bellows Sextet
and Eddie Berger.
Berg and Graf, a
frequent Jack McDuff sideman, are two of
the Twin Cities' busiest jazz players.
O'Keefe was a charter member of Cats Under
the Stars, and he plays in Robayat and
other world-beat groups. King also drums
for rockers Rhea Valentine.
Concept: "We want to reflect the way
Brazilians do Brazilian music - their
style, their moods," O'Dougherty said. "We
are very interested in the original
Brazilian arrangements. So the charts you
hear on our new album are taken right off
the recordings from Brazil, going back go
the 1940s. . . . And our repertoire - the
choice of songs - is also very important
to me.
"Mandala does a
couple of tunes that are well-known in
America, of course, by {Antonio Carlos}
Jobim and Ary Barroso. But my intention
was to expose a number of songs that are
extremely well-known in Brazil, yet
virtually unheard up here."
Recordings: Mandala's debut album,
"Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of
Brazil") was issued this month by Deep
Blue/Igmod Records.
Review: This combo faithfully presents
timeless material by some of Brazil's most
fabled samba and bossa nova composers,
with a band book stretching back to the
late 1930s and including plenty of
contemporary tunes, too. These songs have
lots of crossover appeal for jazz fans,
but Mandala never sounds like a bunch of
jazz players glibly using the Brazilian
fare as a springboard for solos. Berg and
Graf get their swingin' bop licks in, but
Mandala's chief concern is to showcase
South American music in an authentic
tropical fashion.
In early
incarnations of the band, O'Dougherty's
phrasing sometimes seemed more studied
than natural. But these days, the St. Paul
elementary-school music teacher could pass
for a native of Bahia. Her vocals on the
"Watercolor of Brazil" CD sound warm and
effortless.
Copyright 1996 Star
Tribune.
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Have Guitar, Will
Travel
Tim Sparks, formerly of Rio Nido, lets his
fingers do the walking `round the wide
world of music
Minneapolis Star Tribune
April 16, 1995
by Jon Bream
Tim Sparks won the national guitar
finger-picking championship in 1993 in
Winfield, Kan., but he didn't make any
announcements back home in Minneapolis or
send out any press releases. He merely
added the information to his resume.
Guitar ace Leo
Kottke asked Sparks to give him lessons
about harmony a few years ago, but Sparks
didn't put that choice assignment on his
resume. Sparks, best known for his work in
the 1980s Twin Cities vintage jazz group
Rio Nido, maintains a resume primarily so
he can apply for grants to continue his
various guitar explorations: such projects
as transcribing Tchaikowksy's "Nutcracker
Suite" for guitar or immersing himself in
the fado folk-guitar culture in
Portugal.
Sparks' resume
ought to bill him as Minnesota's most
adventurous, unassuming, underappreciated
guitarist.
Listen to Kottke,
who resides in Guitar Player magazine's
Hall of Fame as well as in Wayzata: "His
stuff is very difficult to play, but it
doesn't sound difficult. I think that's
real musicianship. He's really one of the
best musicians I know."
Dean Magraw,
probably the Twin Cities' most in-demand
jazz guitarist, will share the Guthrie
Theater stage Saturday with Sparks and two
European guitarists. Like Sparks, Magraw
is fascinated by the music of other
cultures. And he knows how hard it is to
make a living as a guitarist.
"Given all the
economic and artistic pressures we face
when the Muzaky-type artists are
commercially successful, those who take
risks are often ignored," Magraw said.
"The people who have the most to say are
not the ones working. Tim tries to stay
true to the music and true to his heart
and true to his own feelings."
In a roundabout
way, Magraw has explained why we haven't
heard much from Sparks since Rio Nido
broke up in 1987. Sparks, 40, has been
woodshedding, studying the music of other
cultures by traveling abroad and by
playing around the Twin Cities in Persian,
Brazilian, Greek, French, Jewish and other
ethnic bands.
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