Tribute to Garoto
Lawrence Duckles | Oakland, CA United States | 09/09/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Garoto (a slang term for "guy" in Portuguese) was the stage name of Annibal Augusto Sardinha (1915-1955), a talented Brazilian guitarist and composer whose music was a precursor to bossa nova. The guitarist on this recording is Rafael Rabello, a brilliant guitarist, also Brazilian, who died at 35, and the pianist and arranger is Radames Gnattali (who died in 1993, I think) a Brazilian composer and pianist who wrote both classical works and music for television.
This recording is something of a mish-mash. Rabello and Gnattali combine very well on the Garoto tunes they do, but there's only five of them and the rest of the recording is a concerto for guitar and orchestra by Gnattali obviously recorded at a different time and place with different equipment. The piece is rather self -consciously "classical" in form and it makes a peculiar pairing with the Garoto pieces. "The Complete Guitar Works of Garoto" with Paolo Bellinati is a much better bet."