"STRAIJER~HURTADO"

Marimba and double bass in Jazz, Ethnic and Improvised Music
Horacio Straijer marimba, pcn;
Mono Hurtado double bass, keyboards
with guests  Track 1&7 Quique Sinesi gtr. 8 Eduardo Avila charango.
9 Fernando Barragan sikus, rondadores. 11 George Haslam bari sax. 
Recorded in Plaza Studios Buenos Aires 1995.
SLAMCD 503 

TRACKS:
1   Desde abajo (chacarera)                4m 16s
2   Leguero (malambo)                       2   09
3   So what                                        3   27
4   Some day my prince will come      3   40
5   T.M. (to Thelonious Monk)          3   20
6   Pueblo sin nombre                       3   53
7   Vuelta de Rocha                          2   43
8   Little Hay Road  (Cueca)              2   48
9   Un salto al vacio (huayno)             5   50
10  Paseante                                     3   24
11  Orilla del cielo                             5   22

CADENCE, July 1996
Blending Argentinian folkloric music with a dollop of lilting, Latin jazz, and a dash of Miles and Monk, this is a pleasant release featuring the spare sound of resonant bass and ringing marimba in a set of warm laconic improvisations. The clear, even recording captures each of the players equally in the mix, complementing their collective approach to the music. They deliver credibly performances on both the jazz standards and their originals, with Hurtado nailing the pulse of the music while sharing the melodic duties with Straijer's fleet mallet work. The bass player has a dark, full arco tone, featured to good effect on "Pueblo Sin Nombre", a brooding improvisation that spins off from a simple vamp into hovering atmospheric harmonics. The addition of charango, a small Andean double-stringed guitar, on the lilting "Little Hay Road" and panpipes on "Un Salto al Vacio" add textural spice to the music, particularly the latter piece with its staggering, flowing melodies passed between bass, marimba and pipes. The pieces that succeed the least are "Pasiante" and "TM", which suffer from overproduction, as the two layer overdubs, losing the immediacy of the other pieces. The final cut offers an interesting contrast, adding bari player George Haslam for a short collective improvisation. Baritone and bass hint and prod at fragments of folk-like melodies, while Straijer peppers the interplay with shakers and rattles. Though this release is a bit uneven, its best moments display Straijer and Hurtado's synthesis of "Jazz, ethnic and improvised music" (as they state in the title) into a natural integrated fusion. MICHAEL ROSENSTEIN