“Imagine music inspired by hiking in a Guatemalan tropical forest in the shadow of a volcano, listening to flamenco while driving on a dusty road through the Spanish countryside…or boating across a crystalline-blue lake to a primitive village in Columbia.” That’s the challenge given us in the promotional material for Tomas Michaud’s recent album Beauty and Fire.
Truth is, you don’t have to imagine it…because Michaud has provided you with that exact record. His flamenco guitar, combined with the supportive keyboards of Don Turney, two bassists (David Margen or Kai Eckhardt), some percussion (provided by Thomas Perry, Celso Alberti, Brian Rice and Aharon Wheels Bolsta) and strings played by Lila Sklar and Michael Knapp, takes the listener to all these places and more.
This is some of the most relaxing music I’ve heard in months. I don’t normally listen to what you might call “relaxing music” since I prefer to be moved, challenged, sometimes attacked by music. I want it to move me, to surround me, to engage me. Music is life and I have a fear that by using it to create pastoral landscapes it will, if not die, then at least doze off for a while.
However cynical I was going into this collection of Beauty and Fire I soon became aware that with all the Beauty…Michaud also provided some Fire as well. There was always that volcano, in whose shadow we were hiking, or the energy of the flamenco during that drive. The ripples in the blue lake could turn to a storm.
His titles tell it all. “Embrace in the Mist,” “Tango in Paradise,” “Gypsy Heart” and “Night Into Day (After the Storm)”. Each piece tells its own story, Michaud’s nimble fingers stroking his guitar into life, the backing musicians supporting but never taking away from Michaud’s lead.
We all need a little beauty in our life, and it never hurts to heat things up…just a little bit.
(Starland Music, 2011)
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