SLAMCD311 George Haslam – Argentine Adventures Part 3: Travels With My Tarogato

‘Travels with my Tarogato’ sees George Haslam back in Buenos Aires with some old pals – Mono Hurtado, Ruben Ferrero etc. plus new talent such as Marcelo Jeremias and Fabian Tejada. Another voice to be heard is the Argentine soprano saxophonist Pablo Ledesma.

For this third volume Haslam leaves his baritone sax and concentrates on his second instrument, the Hungarian tarogato – a sort of wooden soprano sax. The CD comprises 3 tracks in duo with Hurtado, a beautiful trio with Jeremias on keyboards and Tejada on Udu drums, a duo with percussionist Monito Viera and an extended quintet improvisation with Ledesma, Ferrero, Hurtado and drummer Luis de la Torre.

George Haslam (tarogato) plus various Argentinean musicians recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 1998.

“If civilization has collapsed by the time this appears in print, re-erecting two of the essential pillars of creative music – improvisation and exploration – will clearly be high on the agenda. George Haslam will surely be the man to get word do, as he could probably do it single-handedly. Unless, of course, you were thinking of some other Englishman who would cheerfully lug a Hungarian instrument to Buenos Aires to perform some resolutely meta-cultural improvised music…given the contrast between this music and the more predictable improvising gatherings we’re used to, the whole enterprise is well worth presenting in this reportage-like fashion, especially as the chances of these musicians appearing soon at the club near you are probably slight. Then again, George is probably working on that, too, in which case I’ll be there.” – Roger Thomas, Jazz Review

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