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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
}
Only "Neshamah" is
readily available in Australia, but I'd
just love to hear his others. They include
solo guitar renditions of Bela Bartok,
some traditional Balkan pieces and his own
compositions which draw on sources from
the blues to Brazil. He's reportedly an
excellent player of the oud and has
recently been studying the guitarra
portuguesa...
Many of those
elements are audible on this set of
fingerstyle, steel-string acoustic guitar
solos. Recorded at John Zorn's invitation,
"Neshamah" is subtitled "Songs From the
Jewish Diaspora". Tim is a brilliant,
subtly audacious arranger and improvising
player. Nothing sounds forced or gimmicky,
but his interpetations are quietly
breathtaking in their eclecticism and
assurance. The songs come from diverse
sources - from Yemen through to Tin Pan
Alley - and the palette is expanded
further by Tim. He typically treats a
song's core with respect, whilst
gracefully bringing to it various of his
diverse enthusiasms. In his tracknote to
"Kad Jawajuni" Tim says he's
simultaneously trying to distil the spirit
of the Israeli singer from whom he learned
the Yemeni song, whilst deploying a rhythm
from northeastern Brazil and having both
Africa and the Indian Ocean in mind. That
may read like the proverbial dog's
breakfast, but the piece sounds absolutely
beautiful.
Tim's at least the
peer of Leo, of Bill... of just about any
other creative guitarist one cares to
mention. He never plays a superfluous
note, but sometimes he'll certainly leave
just about anybody wondering "how on earth
is he doing all that?" He's also a master
of the exquisite use of just a few notes.
Listen to the second half of the album's
final cut (but listen to its more
obviously intricate first half, first!}.
It's a poignant Ladino song of farewell,
one which many Australians have heard Mara
Kiek sing {as "Tu Madre"}. A few years ago
- in Sarajevo - it was sung to each other
by evacuees and those who stayed. Even
with no knowledge of the song or its
history, surely any sensitive listener
would be moved by the way Tim's guitar
"sings" it.
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