Guitarists Nuno Bettencourt, Marty Friedman, Jorge Strunz, and Ardeshir Farah, Vietnamese zitherist Tri Nguyen, Walfredo Reyes Jr on drums, Bob Parr on bass and keyboards, and percussionists Efren Guzman ad Rafael Padilla join forces on ten tracks to create a thrilling assembly of Latin- inspired tunes composed by Russ Hewitt for his acoustic guitar in the CD Chasing Horizons.

Freely mixing, crossing over musical and geographic boundaries, Hewitt in the sterling company of nine key players, backed in a couple of the tracks by the All-Star Bucharest Orchestra, keeps the quintessentially Latin rhythms underpinning among many gems his inspired work in Allende, the lovely filigree guitar work of Ardeshir Farah in Cuban Cubalia Café, and the guajiro syncopations of Marty Friedman in the son montuno Vivir libre.

The album has many surprises – among them the use of unpredictable rhythms and modes, and in the case of Return to Simitai, the introduction of a Vietnamese zither, played with cross-cultural abandon by Tri Nguyen.

Track follows track in joyful succession with now and then a hint of sadness, as in Hewitt’s milonga Amor Perdido, in which the Bucharest All-Star Orchestra reminds us that Romania and Argentina and the United States can be linked by music in which minor modes played with feeling elicit intense longing and melancholy, no matter where either player or composer or listener come from.

Rafael de Acha © 2022

For further information on Russ Hewitt’s recordings go to:

Russ Hewitt

www. RussHewittMusic.com

214 680 2030