For a
jazz guitarist, a trio setting -- uniting the featured instrumentalist with the
support of just a bassist and a drummer -- is risky. Dispensing with, say, a
piano to provide harmonic underpinning or a horn with which to share solo
space, a guitarist becomes exposed. It takes a confident leader and an airtight
rhythm team to pull off such a project. On his new recording, Variations, the
San Francisco-based guitarist George Cotsirilos confirms that his now
well-established trio is up to the task and then some. Variations also asserts
that the promise of the trio's previous recordings has come to eminently
satisfying fruition.
Uniting
with bassist Robb Fischer and drummer Ron Marabuto, as he did on the earlier
albums, Past Present and On The Rebop, Cotsirilos proves through his effortless
mastery that there's still plenty of life in the mainstream guitar tradition. A
fluent bop-oriented stylist who mates a sparkling tone with fleet fingered
lines, harmonic ingenuity, melodic acuity and a gift for letting space have its
own say, Cotsirilos also takes keen advantage of a gift that sets him apart:
his ease on both the electric and acoustic guitars.
Where
Cotsirilos's command of the electric instrument is given free range on such
robust original tunes as the boppish "A Walk for Ethel," the earthy
"I Know You Know" and "Blues For The J Man," the lyrical
"Chimera," and the sprightly strutting "Madrugadora," his
delicate yet bracing acoustic guitar work on Ivan Lins's "Doce
Presenca," Fisher's "Sambrosia" and a solo rendition of the
standard, "But Beautiful" is equally immediate and affecting.
"I
aimed for three things when making Variations," says Cotsirilos.
"First, I wanted to capture the deeper communication that's been
progressively building between the members of the trio. We are now truly the
sum of three equal parts."
"Second,
I wanted to express more diversity in terms of instrumental color. It was
important to feature both the electric and acoustic guitars and to set off the
group performances with a solo setting. Dynamics and tempo were also kept in
mind: soft versus loud, slow versus fast -- the trio is comfortable with these
variables and I wanted to have them as part of our core sound."
"Lastly,
I wanted to take advantage of the space that a trio provides. Not to have to
fill it up all the time, as can be the natural approach, but to let the open
space speak for itself - let it provide opportunities. You have to be very
comfortable with each other in a small group setting to feel that each member can
contribute as much or as little as they want to in a given performance, and we
have reached that point."
In
bassist Robb Fisher (whom Cotsirilos worked with in the popular San Francisco
Nighthawks band, which also included the famed Bay-area drummer Eddie Marshall
and pianist Paul Nagel) and drummer Ron Marabuto, Cotsirilos has bonded with
sympathetic players whose near telepathic union has only sharpened in their
seven year tenure as a unit.
A native
of Chicago - hence his strong affinity for the blues - George Cotsirilos has
become a leading musical fixture of the Sam Francisco music scene. Included
among the varied artists he's worked with are Pharaoh Sanders, Etta James,
Chuck Israels, Jane Olivor, Mel Martin, and the R&B band, The Whispers. He is
a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and has studied
classical guitar at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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