Curandero - Arás

This is one of my all time favorite albums.  Top five for sure, a definite desert island disc.  Here's the story:

I have been a fan of Béla Fleck since I was in high school.  I borrowed a tape of something from my buddy Rob, and on the back side was the Flecktones album UFOTofu.  Funny that I have no idea what was on the A-side of the tape I borrowed, but anyway...  I started collecting all the Flecktones albums and that morphed into collecting every single thing Béla had recorded.  I still do this, by the way: not guest appearances mind you, just albums that he was a key ingredient of.  So, I was a junior in college and a friend of mine picked up this disc that I just had to hear this bass player on, and oh by the way Béla Fleck is on it too.  I was a huge fan of Victor Wooten at the time, and I just couldn't be bothered with some bassist he thought was as good as Victor.  I went out and bought a CD I thought was this one (Tabula Rasā, which I'll write about sometime soon) and never gave it a second thought.

After I graduated I finally came across this CD at Cutler's Music in New Haven, CT.  I had NO IDEA this would blow my mind the way it did.  I come back to this album time and time again... hell, I'm listening to it now and I'm all sucked in again.  Curandero is Miguel Espinoza on guitar and Ty Burhoe on tabla.  These guys put out two CDs together: Curandero in 1995 with special guest Kirwan Brown on bass, and Arás in 1996, with special guests Béla Fleck on banjo, Kai Eckhardt on bass, and the Ars Nova Singers.

The album opens with the title track, Arás.  When I first heard the opening tabla riffs, all I could think is that this guy plays all the things I want to hear a tabla do.  The first time I ever heard The Beatles' Within You Without You I couldn't get over the drums with the bendy notes, and Ty Burhoe not only has excellent tone, but he bends the shit out of those tablas.  The guitar intro is relatively innocuous, but everything kicks into gear around the :51 second mark.  Kai enters with his fretless, and things start to ramp up.  The thing you need to understand is that this album is a slow listen.  The compositions take their time, and the statements are made mostly with subtleties.  The Ars Nova Singers' vocals are all wordless oohs and aahs, and really add to the mood without distracting the focus from the instruments.

River has a more immediate groove, but is another very moody piece.  The musicianship on these performances is outstanding; they all handle the difficult changes so effortlessly that until you really dig in as a listener, you don't realize how hard this must have been to play.

Segue is one of my favorites, and the first tune to showcase Béla.  Funk with flamenco guitar, banjo and tabla?!?!?!  They make it work without being cheesy or trying too hard.  The interplay between the flamenco guitar finger picking and the banjo is out of control.  With Kai slapping the bass silly and the tabla hitting all those excellent bendy notes, how can you not dig this?

Embrujada is another beautifully moody piece, with an amazing break from 1:59 - 2:33, ending in a stunning run on both banjo and guitar.  Ty Burhoe switches to frame drum on this tune, and it just goes to show that in spite of the absolutely ridiculous amount of chops on this record these guys can still be lyrical and musical.  It's not about technique, it's about the tune, as it should be.

Here is the show stopper: Man Of The Shadows.  This 11 1/2 minute epic is a showcase performance for all players.  The liner notes talk about how this tune is set in a rhythmic cycle of 9, divided 7+7+5, 7+5+5.  What?!?!  Yet another example of commanding musicianship that never gets in the way of the music, it only enhances it.  How the hell so you learn this stuff?  How do you write this stuff?  Just amazing in every way.

Brenda is Kai's solo piece and honestly, if you've never heard of this guy, you have to check him out.  The last ten years or so he spent playing with Garaj Mahal (who just recently disbanded) and he is an absolute monster.  Flirtatious is a little calmer and user friendly, and a nice break from the incredibly intense first half of the disc.  Sueños Inquietos is a solo guitar piece, and Once Upon A Time is Béla's miniature solo.  Not bad, just so short it's more of a novelty than a full track.  Enshalla is a duet for Espinoza and Burhoe, but honestly, by the time I get to this track I'm pretty spent.  The trip from track 1 to track 4 got me going and I basically shot my wad by Man Of The Shadows.

It's frustrating that projects like this only have a short life before they implode, and I guess Curandero had one solid album and one amazing album in them before said implosion.  I'm not sure what ever became of Miguel Espinoza, but I know Ty Burhoe showed up on an album called Sky by Bill Douglas, featuring Kai Eckhardt on bass and Steve Smith (Journey/Vital Information) on drums.

One last side note: after being a huge fan of Victor Wooten, I was able to take lessons from him for a hot minute.  Many years later, I also got to take some lessons with Kai Eckhardt.  When I told him that this was one of my favorite albums, he laughed and I asked why.  He said that he crammed for two weeks to learn this material and it was so hard that he was really nervous when he showed up for the session.  It just goes to show that even the most unbelievable musicians are still human.  Until next time....