Visited the Bop Shop the other day, and thought I would spend some time to dig through the classical guitar and “world” sections. It turned out I did not check any classical guitar records at all, because there were already too many cool “world” records I would like to buy. Of the 4 records I purchased (out of 9 that I picked out originally), I was most enthused by this one – who can say no to a jazz record by Leo Brower (sic)?

I spent some time googling around to confirm there isn’t a musician with such a similar name to the maestro. Perhaps it’s a clever publicity trick for a musician to make some quick money? There’s gotta be something I don’t understand here…

It’s not the first time I saw the maestro’s name mispelled. And speaking of mispelling, I was one lucky bidder of the beautiful Casiotone CT 701 many years ago. I got this keyboard a lot cheaper than its usual price, because the seller mislabelled “701” as “710” on Ebay. I still have the keyboard (as one friend puts it, never sell any gear you own), and hope to use it in my future synth band.

Back to the album – everything aside from the misspelling is terrific – the lineup, musical selections, and arrangements. There are some classical guitar music being rearranged into a band format (such as Canario, Danza Caracaterística, La Catedral) , but this album from 1978 is just otherworldly. Every piece evolves unexpectedly, and I can’t really explain too much. Here is a documentary, with footages of the concert (this album must be the complete recording). Brouwer was shredding on Aranjuez, and conducting with his guitar in hand!

Here is a brief info about the album.