sound samples liner notes track listing printed music		N E S H A M A H Songs from the Jewish Diaspora "This is totally beautiful and inspiring music. Tim Sparks is incredible, a complete original. Every guitarist on the planet has got to hear this." - Bill Frisell Neshamah review in Italiano Follow this link for RootsWorld's review of Neshamah Neshamah review in Dirty Linen Magazine. Acoutic Guitar Magazine, Jan 2000 ... it is hard to imagine a musician better suited than Sparks to arrange and play this material on solo steel-string guitar... Some of the country-blues elements and string-bending techniques Sparks used in his latest originals found their way into the Jewish tunes, such as "Viva Orduena" and "Rabbi Yohaqnnan the Shoemaker's Melody," only strengthening the impression that Sparks is a player who makes anything he attempts his own. Teja Gerken 20th Century Guitar, Jan. 2000 Tim Sparks One String Leads to Another Neshamah Tim Sparks is not a mere guitarist; he's a musician. In fact, at times on these two new releases, he seems to transcend mere music and become a magician.     Sparks began playing guitar as a kid in Winston Salem, North Carolina, picking out melodies by ear on an ancient Stella flattop. He received his first guitar at age 11 when encephalitis kept him out of school for a full year. He taught himself country blues as well as the gospel tunes his grandma played on piano in a Blue Ridge Mountains church. He later studied classical music with Jesus Silva and Andres Segovia. These diverse influences prepared him to win the 1993 National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship. Sparks had released two prior albums, 1994's The Nutcracker and 1996's Guitar Bazaar, winning him laudatory praise by luminaries such as Leo Kottke and Bill Frisell.     These two new releases expand Sparks' horizons in many directions at once. One String Leads to Another follows the tradition Sparks established in his earlier releases of blending rhythms, melodies, and tunings from numerous world sounds into a musical melting pot. A stellar cut from the album, "Pata Negra," was inspired by a Portuguese sojourn and named after a local prosciutto. The song riffs on northeastern Brazilian musical styles, a fitting and fascinating musical intersection with Portuguese Fado as Brazil was once Portugal's colony. Other cuts trade on similar world-wise connections, blending bluegrass, Turkish scales, Mexican melodies, Moroccan tunings, and especially Balkan sounds, one of Sparks' favorite influences.     Neshamah, on the other hand, focuses solely on Jewish musical traditions but circumnavigates the globe in its breadth through the Near and Middle East, Mediterranean, Europe, North Africa, and the Americas. Sparks comments in his liner notes that in his experience, no other musical genre, except Gypsy music, "is found in such far-flung regions while retaining a core harmonic vocabulary."     This is a truly stunning album created with vision. Sparks melds elements of flamenco, Middle-Eastern oud, Tchaikovsky and Bartok, as well as good old American jazz. The tone he draws from his well-traveled 1954 Martin 00-17 is otherworldly, so warm and deep that at times you feel as though you can reach out and grasp the melody as it floats by.     You owe it to yourself to listen to these two albums. -MD "Neshamah" Akustik Gitarre Mal ehrlich: Ist es vorstellbar, Klezmer-Musik, traditionelle judische Musik mit ihrer wild-melancholishen Mehrstimmigkeit, gitarristisch im Alliengang zu spielen? Wie sind schreiend anmutende Klarinettenglissandi und das sich jeglicher Notierung verweigernde Wimmern der Fiedeln ohne Effektgerate mittels einer akustischen Gitarre in den Griff zu bekommen? Keine Frage, dass es dazu eines Meistergitarristen bedarf. Tim Sparks ist bekanntlich ein solcher und inspiriert vom Temp-Jazzer und Propagandisten der Radical Jewish Culture Movements John Zorn hat er sich an das Wagnis gemacht, ,,Songs From The Jewish Diaspora" einzuspielen. 15 Lieder, jeweils zwishcen zwei und knapp funf Minuten lang, gespielt auf seiner 1954er Martin 00-17, mit John-Pearse-Saiten und B-Bands-Pickups. Und Sparks gibt sich horbar Muhe. Selbst ihm, dem geubten Gitarristen, fallen einige Fingersatze horbar schwer, und das immer wieder zu horende storende Slurren auf dem Griffbrett ist leider kein Stilmittel, das sein Solospiel mit Effekten anreichern soll; viel mehr lasst es den Kampt des Gitarristen mit Akkordfolgen horen, die so eingangig eben nicht sind. Denn Sparks hat sich viel vorgenommen: Das Repertoire entstammt grofstenteils der klassischen judischen Musik des fruhen 20. Jahrhunderts, mit Akkord- und Harmoniefolgen, die, so Sparks, nicht nur ungewohnt sind, sondern zudem eine Vergindun zwiischen dem High und Low der Kulturen darstellen sollen. Des Weiteren mischt er hier noch einen Triller dazu, dort ein leichtes Vibrato, da noch ein kleines, aber feines Jazz- oder Blueslick. Und naturlich eine Prise Bartok und viele Anklange an nohostliche Oud- und Saz- Spielweisen. Das volle Programm. Nur die Rhythmik und auch die Melancholie bleiben etwas auben vor bei seinem letztendlich bravourosen, aber noch angelernt klingenden Versuch, judische Musik bis auf den Kern ihrer Melodik zu entschalen. Faszinierend und sicherlich noch einen zweiten Versuch wert. - Adrian Wolfen Akustik Gitarre 4/00 Amazon.com Editor's Pick best of 1999 You'd never guess that in presenting a slice of "radical Jewish culture," John Zorn would produce an album as exquisitely beautiful as guitarist Tim Sparks's Neshamah. Collecting traditional Jewish melodies from throughout Eastern Europe and the Middle East, this collection mixes the architecture of the melodies with Sparks's fast fingerwork, corralling the latter into discreet enough bits to create a constant sense of movement and drama. Given the prevalence of full bands in much Balkan and Klezmer music, Sparks's solo renditions have an awe-inducing power. He cherishes not only each note, even when they're coming with flashing speed, but he equally indulges each bent-string twist and turn. --Andrew Bartlett Tim Sparks "Neshamah" When John Zorn heard Tim Sparks' solo acoustic guitar versions of the music of Bela Bartok, Zorn was completely blown away. Introduced to Sparks from finger style acoustic guitar great Duck Baker, Zorn challenged Sparks to do a solo cd of klezmer tunes from around the world and this is the result. Tim mentions the thread that runs through all of this music that comes from eastern Europe, the middle-east, the Mediterranean, north Africa and the Americas. All pieces are quite beautiful, delicate yet engaging as Tim embellishes each piece with his a variety of jazz, classical and traditional styles. There is not an uninspired or anything less than engaging piece on each of the 15 tracks. It is rare for something so beautiful to also be so intricate and filled with immense technique. A must for all lovers of that pure acoustic guitar sound! - David Beardsley In the world of independent instrumental music, you can't get much hipper than recording for Tzadik Records of New York, the progressive music label headed by sax maverick and new-music firebrand John Zorn. 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. Jim Meyer, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 3, 1999 Siegajac po ta plyte nie mialem pojecia, kim jest Tim Sparks. Jedyna rekomendacja byla wypowiedz Billa Frisella: "Jest to calkowicie piekna i inspirujaca muzyka, Tim Sparks jest niesamowity, zupelnie oryginalny. Kazdy gitarzysta musi to uslyszec". Co by nie powiedziec, w Tzadiku nie wychodza tez plyty banalne. Mialem w pamieci piekny, wydany w tej samej serii "radykalnej kultury zydowskiej" album Anthonyego Colemana "Sephardic Tinge" - liczylem na równie niezwykla muzyke. I nie zawiodlem sie. "Neshamah" wypelnia 15 tradycyjnych melodii zydowskich kompozytorów, zaaranzowanych i wykonanych przez jednego czlowieka, na jednym instrumencie: gitarze akustycznej. Jak sie okazuje, Tim Sparks jest wirtuozem tego instrumentu, nagradzanym nawet, calkowicie oddanym muzyce. Lata cale spedzil na podrózach i studiach muzyki etnicznej u jej lokalnych mistrzów. Nabral bieglosci w interpretacji muzyki balkanskiej, perskiej, portugalskiej, brazylijskiej, meksykanskiej, arabskiej, zydowskiej. Ale zajmowal sie nie tylko "folkiem", stal sie szerzej znany za sprawa transkrypcji i debiutanckiego nagrania "Dziadka do orzechów" Czajkowskiego na gitare (!). Jego specjalnoscia sa nieparzyste rytmy a najwiekszym atutem technicznym prawa reka, Sparks gra bowiem uzywajac wszystkich jej palców. Juz od pierwszego utworu trudno uwierzyc, ze slucha sie tylko jednego muzyka... ciag dalszy: http://www.emd.pl/emd/pl4/artists/s/ sparks_tim/disc/tsne.htm - Artur Nowak [arno at emd dot pl] www.emd.pl Tim Sparks "Neshamah" (Tzadik/Karbon) "Neshamah" sollte jeder Gitarrist gehört haben, lobte Jazz-Grösse Bill Frisell das Soloalbum Tim Sparks. Und man möchte anfügen, dass überhaupt jeder dieses Album gehört haben sollte. Auf eine wunderbare musikalischen Reise durch den Balkan der Jahrhundertwende (zum 20. Jahrhundert) nehmen uns die mal verklärten, mal leidenschaftlichen Klänge einer einzigen Gitarre mit, die klingt, als würde ein ganzes Orchester spielen. Fröhlicher Klezmer leuchtet in den Stücken, zigeunerische Leidenschaft brennt und ottomanische Verspieltheit gibt den Kompositionen immer wieder eine unerwartete Wende. - Andy Wemer http://www.sonicnet.de/cdreviews/ 0300/kritiken9_d.shtml
		where to order home top