California Guitar Trio and the Magic Echoes of Acoustic Guitar in the Heart of Milan (2008)
Location: Milan / Teatro Leonardo Da Vinci
Date: Thursday, 05/15/2008
California Guitar Trio, a trio of acoustic guitars and so much more… Japan’s Hideyo Moriya, American Paul Richards and Belgian Bert Lams came out of nowhere, with no expectations at all, and earned huge reputation and respect among lovers of gourmet music with their intriguing, extravagant interpretations of classical music giants and legendary rock classics, not to mention their own wittily inspired body of work. It’s music that knows no templates, music that keeps exploring, venturing into fields of new dimensions, and as such never stops thrilling and surprising with its unique beauty.
California Guitar Trio aimed the bulk of their late-spring concerts at American soil, but they still found time for three European shows. And that’s not the only thing that makes them an attraction. Their concerts take on a special dimension and an extra stamp of uniqueness when one of the giants of bass guitar joins them on stage: the fantastic Tony Levin, a legend without equal, a fixture of Peter Gabriel’s studio and live crew, and a member of King Crimson.
California Guitar Trio played practically in the center of Milan, at the Leonardo Da Vinci theater to be exact. The show kicked off a few minutes past 9 p.m. Luckily, with no opening act. The trio and Tony Levin were welcomed with huge enthusiasm by a packed hall. To get the temperature up to the right level, they opened with a sped-up Melrose Avenue (“CGT + 2”, 2000). In this playfully dynamic piece with a real oriental flavor, the trio and Tony Levin had the audience swaying intensely in no time. Blockhead poured oil on the fire with its prominent figures of the main motif, where the boys immediately showed off one of their trademarks, instantly creating a harmonic interweaving of three guitars. The perfect contrast to the opener was the surf-tinged Unmei, where master Hideyo stepped into the spotlight, while Beethoven’s legacy gained wings from the dizzying speed of racing string harmonies, until in the end you no longer knew whether the guys were still at Beethoven or had already spun Flight of the Bumblebee out of him. Let’s stay in classical waters a little longer, with Bach and Prelude Circulation, when Tony Levin picks up his famous stick and Richards announces the next piece with: “Iguana rossa!” Red Iguana again filled the hall with an excellent dose of free-spirited experimentalism. The roots of their learning years under the watchful eye of Uncle Fripp and the baton of Tony’s stick turned the experience in the hall completely upside down. The slightly nervy lines of the first part gave way to cerebral “soundscape” collages. A one-of-a-kind dynamic of many different moods! The guys continued their run of original material with the brand-new Turn Of The Tide, and then with Eve and Andromeda they wove a soft, dreamy, subtle sonic curtain of patterns in the hall, where time stops and the experience carries you off to some completely new, undiscovered place.
Levin leaves the stage, and the guys go on to play one of their gentlest and at the same time most beautiful creations, tackling the opening track of the album “White Water” (2005), which Richards introduces as a piece named after a small town in Great Britain where they learned to play guitar with Robert Fripp. The Marsh is a true dedication from California Guitar Trio to this guitar guru, and Lams coaxed real feelings of childlike innocence and purity out of it with his softness. This truly special yet moving moment was soon replaced by an exceptionally arranged cover of the gunslinging The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (orig. Ennio Morricone), which drew roars of laughter from the hall right after Richards stepped on his wah-wah pedal for the first time.
The concert was heading toward its peak when the main theme of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells rang out. The crowd greeted the trio with a roar, and on stage they were first joined by Tyler Trotter on harmonica, then shortly after, in the dramatic closing section, of course by Tony Levin again. A great overture to the climax of the show, and there’s just no end to the wit poured into the arrangement in California Guitar Trio’s hands. What could possibly top this one-of-a-kind Oldfield classic? Maybe Echoes by Pink Floyd? Exactly. The trio crowned all its genius and uniqueness in reworking original arrangements by taking on a Pink Floyd classic from their album “The Meddle” (1971). Lams led the double harmonies that belong to the vocals in the original, while Richards took absolute primacy at this point, bringing David Gilmour’s guitar to life with a slide and special effects. Until you see it, it’s hard to believe what can be created with just three guitars. An extraordinary psychedelic mix with a real, bona fide rock accent was sadly the closing number of the show. The audience was so thrilled that it greeted the trio and Levin with a standing ovation and loud cheers.
The encore went as expected. First a surf assault with Misirlou, the music from the film “Pulp Fiction”, then the epic, atmospheric beauty Punta Patri, which once again underlines the exceptional musical expression of this trio, their polish, their tightness, and the great power and magnetism of their constant stage presence. Slowly and cunningly, through harmonies of transcendence, the trio weaves the whole solemnity of the captured moment, creating a kind of hypnotic atmosphere of cerebral rapture, not to say mental absence, from which the hall simply refused to wake up for a few moments.
An hour and a half of unforgettable musical adventure, led by this trio’s witty take on the musical experience, with bassist Tony Levin leaving his unforgettable mark on it, was over in a flash. Tony Levin kept building on and rounding out the sound. The man is so experienced and so seasoned with every trick in the book that he almost routinely brought a moment of wit and his own jazz experimentation into the trio’s performance and sound. Levin also played his own solo piece with the trio, the killer Relentless, which would surely appeal to all fans of present-day King Crimson.
You might think it’s crazy what I was doing in Milan, since Nirvana, The Doors, The Beatles, let alone Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin haven’t risen from the grave, but I can say with confidence that after charging your batteries like this, you don’t regret a single minute or a single mile driven, on your life’s path of constant learning. Learning by soaking up the boundless beauty of what we simply call freedom. And that freedom is music, its generator, its sun. One way or another.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Set list for California Guitar Trio & Tony Levin:
1. Melrose Avenue
2. Blockhead
3. Unmei
4. Prelude Circulation
5. Red Iguana
6. Turn Of The Tide
7. Cathedral Peak
8. Eve
9. Andromeda
10. The Marsh
11. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
12. Tubular Bells
13. Echoes
—encore—
14. Misirlou
15. Punta Patri
