LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

It was unamplified guitarist Charlie Byrd's 1961 State Department- sponsored tour of South America that provided the impetus for what would be one of the most enduring and influential albums of all time: Jazz Samba. That 1962 collaboration with the great tenor saxophonist Stan Getz put Brazil's bossa nova and Byrd on America's musical map. But Byrd had long been enraptured by the guitar music of the Spanish-and Portuguese-speaking worlds. In 1954 he had studied with the nonpareil Andres Segovia. This beautifully articulated recital, recorded in 1962 and '63 and ranging from solo pieces to tentets with cellos and French horn, amounts to a veritable Baedeker of Latin guitar music. The accent, though, is on the Brazilian composers who, with interpreters like Byrd, reawakened the world's melodic yearnings. The Duck (O Pato), Amor Flamengo, Azul Tiple, Canción di Argentina (Argentine Folksong), Manhã de Carnaval (Theme from Black Orpheus), Homage a Villa-Lobos, Bogotá (Pasillo Colombiano), Mexican Song No. 2, Mexican Song No. 1, Samba de Uma Nota Só, Galopera (Acualero Asuncena), Vals (Opus 8, No. 4), Outra Vez (Once More), Presente de Natal (Christmas Present), Insensatez (Insensitive), Three Note Samba, Samba da Minha Terra (Samba of My Country), Limehouse Blues, Saudade da Bahia (Longing for Bahia), Anna, Socegadamente (Softly), Chega de Saudade (No More Blues), Canção de Ninar para Carol (Lullaby for Carol)with Gene Byrd, Keter Betts, Bill Reichenbach, Buddy Deppenschmidt, and others