CD 9128-2 Recorded: October 29 & 30, 2000 at Hansa Studio, Bonn Engineer: Klaus Genuit Producer: Werner Aldinger

Charlie Mariano as, fl Quique Sinesi 7 string spanish guitar, charango, piccolo guitar Titles: 1 Berliner Tanguismos Part I (by Quique Sinesi) 5:18 2 Berliner Tanguismos Part II (by Quique Sinesi) 2:48 3 Berliner Tanguismos Part III (by Quique Sinesi) 5:37 4 Berliner Tanguismos Part IV (by Quique Sinesi) 4:32 5 The Lady (by Charlie Mariano) 7:17 6 Faluseando (by Quique Sinesi) 2:24 7 Zephyr (by Charlie Mariano) 7:19 8 Tarde De Lluvia En Köln (by Quique Sinesi) 5:42 9 Alta Paz (by Quique Sinesi) 4:32 10 If Only (by Charlie Mariano) 4:11 11 Tango Para Charlie (by Quique Sinesi) 6:53 12 Gone (by Charlie Mariano) 2:00 Quique Sinesi plays Oscar Trezzini guitars (Argentinia)

TANGO PARA CHARLIE

What you wanted
I felt, or felt I felt.
This was more than one.
Robert Creeley, "Two"

More than one is (obviously) two. Might be Four in One, as it so often is in jazz (Think Coltrane Think  Rollins). Might take five. (Think Armstrong Think Miles). Might even be eighteen (Think if you still can Ellington). But two is the closest we can get. The closest by far. Two can feel what the other wants. Two is the abstraction of more than one. Two is the most open more than one.
Jazz being the art of communication, two might be the closest we can get to a definition of its essence.  In the proliferation of duo recordings that filled the seventies and trickled on into the present, there have been few incorporating the guitar, and often these were guitar duets. Right now, only Joe Pass comes to  my mind as a guitarist working with other instruments in a duo setting (J. J. Johnson's trombone, Ella  Fitzgerald's voice, Jimmy Rowles' piano). But Pass is a good case in point: a strong solo guitarist who is  able to provide both a cushiony accompaniment and a free solo commentary even to a partner whose  instrument limits his ability to accompany.
Which brings us (at last!) to this recording. Enrique "Quique" Sinesi, who joins alto saxophonist Charlie  Mariano on these recordings, is a strong solo guitarist with a very distinctive musicality. His professional  life was determined by the music of his Argentine homeland, he began in Tango Nuevo groups with  bandoneonist Dino Saluzzi and Pablo Ziegler, the former pianist in Astor Piazzola's bands. His playing  stays deeply influenced by this music, but he has always remained open toward jazz. In 1998 he  performed before Jim Hall, who since then considers Sinesi one of his favorite guitarists.
On "Tango para Charlie" this solo wizard encounters the sublime melodic magic of one of the great  saxophonists in jazz. The wonder of Mariano has always been his stylistic openness, his ability to go from  Kenton to Karnataka, from Pierce to Pork Pie without compromising his personal voice, his "jazz" style.  So when Sinesi boards his 7-string Spanish guitar and sets up a tango groove employing the meanest  bass string on any side of the ocean, Mariano counters with cool and jazzy melodic lines that abstract the  groove toward that openness of the "two". With his supple scarcity Mariano opens up the closure that is  inherent in the solo/accompaniment that a guitar can provide. There is no closure here. With every sound  these two musicians make here, with every beat they share, they come closer together, moving like one  and yet keeping the openness of the two. An abstraction of more than one.
There is no closure in these two. They provide a dialogue that is more. Than one. The more than two. Of  music.
18 February 2001 Stephan Richter / writer, clarinetist