Checking out some guitar music, and I was captured by the above image – the portriat of Manuel Sarrablo y Clavero, by T.L. de Madrazo. The style was so cool!
Couldn’t find much on the internet. Tito Livio de Madrazo (1899-1979s) was a Spanish artist, whose works worth a lot. Here is a site with a few of his works. I have included four below (guitar related, of course).
Can anyone please shed some light on the life of T.L. de Madrazo?
(listening to Paul O’Dette’s live stream as I was writing this)
This obviously belongs to the category of funny album covers, and many have posted about this before. But I did find out quite a lot of fun facts through this album.
1. According to Jumez’s website, “ABC records may have had the rights to distribute the artist’s music, but a New York court ruled that the artist suffered a damage from this very “tasteful” cover. Jean-Pierre Jumez was awarded $ 140,000 in 1975.”
2. Jumez is still putting out new recordings today…! You can find the Fifteen Shades of Guitar on Youtube.
3. He also published a book, detailing his performances around the world. The first few chapters are free to read, and of course, free chapters stopped right where I wanted to read the most – his travels to Hong Kong.
4. Westminster Gold, the label that realeased this record has tons of hilarious record covers. Juliam Bream also has a record on this label (this will be a separate post)
5. The first track of the album is called “Jeux Interdits (anon. arr. Yepes/Jumez)” – which was Spanish Romance with added variations by Jumez. Apparently, as one of the most popular classical guitar tunes, the authorship of the piece led to much controversy…
What made David Russell decide to record a guitar/double bass album as his debut in 1978? Why not a solo album?
More info on the album here.
It was my first year in Rochester, and I had a chance to see David Russell up close – he was one of the guests of the guitar festival at Eastman. The other guest was Pepe Romero! Pretty big deal for m, as I had just began my classical guitar studies. I didn’t get to play in any of the master classes, but there are things I learned from those classes that I would still tell my students today. David Russell taught two classes and a total of 8 students. He was tireless and personable. I guess he still is. I would love to meet him in person one day.
Ken Luk 