Sunday, October 13, 2013

DEDOS DUROS Revisited


In the last recoding session for Odeon Oscar Alemán y su Orquesta de Jazz recorded four tunes on 17. June 1957, among these was the choro 'Dedos duros' composed by Alemán himself and excellently performed as a two-part guitarsolo with accompaniment by the string section of the orchestra. 'Dedos duros' meaning hard fingered in English is a challenging piece for guitar, but is performed convincingly by Alemán - probably with tounge-in-cheek and a sore left hand afterwards. The tune was released on the Odeon 74343 78 rpm disc  and has been re-issued on several CD compilations of Alemán recordings. One of the CD re-issues of 'Dedos duros' has been uploaded as an audio-video on YouTube and is inserted below


This Alemán composition seems to be a touchstone for other guitarists as well, a short example is found among several other on YouTube - enjoy this home video performance of 'Dedos duros' by Las Guitarras Del Tiempo guitar duo


To end this small revisit of a great Alemán composition and in memory of the fact that on the 14. October this year, 33 years have passed since the Maestro left us - here's another example of a recently uploaded video version of 'Dedos duros' performed by the Gitanìa quartet in concert


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MY JAZZ LINKS: Oscar Aleman

Jo