Folias Flute and Guitar Duo

"There’s really a lot to like here for enthusiasts of tango, blues, and jazz. Performances are suave and full of energy."

My reaction to Tango and Snow convinces me even more that I’m not so averse to the tango as I am to the tango done up in black tie and tails. I’m much happier with tangos done by modest performing forces, tangos that remember their dancehall roots. These tango-inspired pieces for flute, alto flute, or piccolo and guitar are piquant, virtuosic, with lots of flutter-tonguing, double-tonguing, and quick melodic switchbacks for the flute, drumming and strumming for the guitar. They make for attractive, engaging listening, even if you’re more taken with the lively rhythms and bravura playing than by the melodies, of which there are often mere snippets, more in the nature of riffs on the tango. Such a number is the first, “Tango Destroyer,” and last, “Whiplash Rides.” Some of the slower numbers, however, spin out longer, more memorable melodies over a changing accompaniment much as Piazzola often does in his work. Of these pieces, “Adequate Condition Blues” is memorable for melding tango and blues. The title piece, “Tango and Snow,” also blends the usual driving ostinatos and syncopations with a cooler vibe, to interesting effect.

According to flutist Carmen Maret, this piece is close to Piazzzola’s own style “with its fast-slow-fast form, cadenzas, and chromatic bass line in the slow section.” “The Lemon Smugglers” is a milonga, the syncopated dance that was forerunner to the tango and of which Piazzola wrote a number (such as the two specimens that Duo AcCello plays on their disc).

Andrew Bergeron’s suite “Through the Rain,” made up of five short pieces, covers a varied sonic landscape, from the “Sound of Rain,” which is almost all musical sound effects, through the swooping “Downpour and Release,” to the mesmeric “After the Rain.” There’s really a lot to like here for enthusiasts of tango, blues, and jazz. Performances are suave and full of energy, the sound recording especially fine—only the rather short playing time is a mark against this disc.

TrackList:
Carmen Maret: Tango Destrroyer
Maret: Adequate Conditions Blues
Andrew Bergeron/Carmen Maret: Algonquin Vals
Bergeron: Tango and Snow
Bergeron: Full Long Nights Moon
Bergeron: Through the Rain
Maret: Pajaro Rojo Santo
Maret: The Lemon Smugglers
Maret: Cumparsita Cats
Maret: Whiplash Rides - Audiophile Audition Review

"Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron are facile players…They draw on tango rhythms and melodies sometimes; at other times they write with a scenic sensitivity…mysterious… charming…evocative."

Carmen Maret and Andrew Bergeron, together known as Folias, here showcase their talents and interests, which include tango
(Maret is a dancer as well as a musician and a scholar of all things tango), composition, and improvisation. Titled “Waterway,”
Blue Griffin 175 is essentially an extended suite inspired by Lake Superior and its environs. “Marufo Vega” mixes well known
Piazzolla and Villa-Lobos pieces with less familiar ones by other Latin composers, and includes Bergeron’s and Maret’s Despoblado
Suite. The self-titled “Folias” is, with the addition of Bergerons’ Three Metamorphoses, mostly devoted to tangos. Maret
and Bergeron are facile players with a fine feeling for Latin music. Their compositions are tonal with a simple, direct melodic
appeal—a few “sophisticated” harmonies and lines surface, but they don’t veer into atonality. They draw on tango rhythms and
melodies sometimes; at other times they write with a scenic sensitivity, as when they flowingly capture the sense of being afloat on
Lake Superior. Birdcalls, insistent and raucous rather than sweetly twittering, can be heard, and I had the impression that longvanished
Native Americans weren’t too far away. While they often write complex parts for both players, they just as frequently
present Maret’s improvisations supported by energetic strumming. This imparts a casual flavor, as if the two musicians, who enjoy
the great outdoors, took up their instruments for a spontaneous jam session around a campfire, bent on entertaining themselves as
well as any local inhabitants, animal, mineral, or vegetable. “And the Cacti Go Wild!” is the third movement of the Despoblado
Suite, which humorously captures the audience’s delirious response. “Desert Rain”—the first part of the Suite—uses harmonics,
arpeggios, and flute patterns to paint a delicate tone picture; the gentle beginning intensifies as the rain falls faster.
Maret plays flute, alto flute, and piccolo, and Folias’s arrangements of some tango staples—Milonga de mis amores, Oblivion, and
Libertango, among others—colorfully employ saxophone, tabla, and pipe organ. The tabla seasons the familiar tunes with exotic
spice, and Soledad’s pipe organ (played by producer/Blue Griffin founder Sergei Kvitko, recently profiled in Fanfare 32:2) carries
religious associations that mesh surprisingly well with tango’s earthy soul. The saxophone’s full midrange tone adds a sensual
touch. My one mild criticism is that despite the players’ obvious affinity for the genre, the improvisations don’t always serve
the music. I felt this particularly in Milonga de mis amores: the improvisations, while fun to hear, stretch the fabric so that the
composer’s originally taut organization suffers. It’s already perfectly written and doesn’t need “improvement.” It’s an exceptional
composition of its type, musically analogous to the dips, hesitations, and quick lower leg shakes of virtuoso tango dancing.
However, proving that there’s no accounting for taste, I unreservedly enjoyed the ingenious rearrangement of Villa-Lobos’s Étude
No. 1 for guitar in which tabla ornaments the moto-perpetuo rhythm while the flute plays melodies suggested by the guitar’s shifting
harmonies. In addition, the subtle rhythmic stresses in Bergeron’s playing align the piece with tango in ways I wouldn’t have
imagined. Continuing the tango theme, Piazzolla’s Libertango thrillingly unites seductive lyricism and irresistible momentum. A
former hit for singer Grace Jones, it also featured in Sally Potter’s film, The Tango Lesson, with Yo-Yo Ma’s passionate cello taking
the lead. Folias plays Piazzolla’s History of Tango with full appreciation of its fluctuating moods, now effervescent, now sadly
wistful, its humor laced with irony. The Piazzolla pieces—Libertango, Oblivion, and History of Tango—could serve as a capsule
course to introduce him to those who haven’t yet discovered his tango-drenched voice.
As mentioned, “Folias” (the CD, not the group) is mostly devoted to tango, but Bergeron’s Three Metamorphoses forsakes Latin
Americanism for lullaby sweetness (“The Child”), peaceful melodiousness temporarily disrupted by vigorous strumming (“The
Lion”), and aggressive concentration tinged with an abstract Middle Eastern presence (“The Camel”). Both “The Lion” and “The
Child” include vaguely Baroque guitar figurations, but the melodies are definitely not from that era. I was initially puzzled at the
ferocity of “The Camel” compared to the benign calm of “The Lion,” but the inset notes explain that Bergeron is referring to three
characters from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “The camel takes the world on his back, a self-punishing outlook on life; the
lion makes the world his domain; and the child abandons these realms saying ‘yes - Fanfare Magazine

"daring in self written music...

by TODD GORMAN
for American Record Guide
Jan/Feb 2012

Folias Duo—Blue Griffin 229—47 minutes

This is a set of pieces written either by the flutist, Carmen Maret, or the guitarist, Andrew Bergeron; one was co-written. Sources of inspiration are Latin American influences and the outdoors, hence the title combining the two. Besides the obvious, Piazzolla, this music is informed by the tangos of Juan d’Arienzo and Angel Villoldo, the playing of Cuban pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and singers Mercedes Sosa and Susana Baca. The overall effect is a creative, post-Piazzolla exploration of the tango territory in an expanded sense. This release belongs next to the Cavatina Duo’s Piazzolla album (Bridge 9330; Nov/Dec 2010); if you don’t already have it, you need to get both!

Although the lower range of the flute is not avoided, these flute parts inherit the convention of using the instrument’s top octave and a half, up to the very highest notes. In Latin American combos, where the flute could easily be overpowered by other instruments, this was the range that offered the most carrying power. I winced a couple times at the risk of extreme high notes, but they were executed perfectly and with confidence, which is the only way to pull them off. The opening track, ‘Tango Destroyer’, poses a different problem for the flutist as a moto perpetuo toccata with almost nowhere to breathe. Again, despite my rising anxiety the flutist kept going, making it to the end. This highly capable flute playing and degree of daring in self written music reminded me of the flutist-composers Gary Schocker and Rhonda Larson.

The five-movement suite Through the Rain by guitarist Andrew Bergeron reminds me of Sunleif Rasmussen’s work Dancing Raindrops (last issue). It portrays a storm using extended techniques in the flute and scordatura and drumming in the guitar (the tuning is E-B-C#-G-A#-E). The dramatic opening of IV, ‘Down-pour and Release’, cedes to microtonal trills as the storm settles down. The final movement, ‘After the Rain’, uses the soothing sound of alto flute juxtaposed with much higher tremolo “dripping” notes in the guitar.

For some reason, the ‘Adequate Conditions Blues’ is an excuse for showers of a different sort: showers of notes from the flute. This so-called blues has the most virtuosic noodling this side of the Woodwind Quintet in C (c.1830) by oboist-composer Henri Brod. The 5/4 introduction to Full Long Nights Moon, is a nice touch of originality in what could otherwise be a more banal New-Age excursion.

Overall, I did find quite a bit to enjoy in both the dance-inspired and nature-inspired pieces. The pickup is fairly close but not too close, and the sound is clear and dry without sterility. There is more resonance on one track with piccolo, ‘The Sound of Rain’. Maret plays Pearl flutes, and plays them well. She has a solid, no nonsense sound and plays with virtually no vibrato. Her sound is a degree removed from the very tight style of playing among flute players from Cuba south. Bergeron plays classical and flamenco guitars with a great range of energy and sensitivity. - American Record Guide

“Joined at the Hip: Carmen Maret’s passion for tango and dance merged with Andrew Bergeron’s penchant for guitar and original music in 2002? - Grand Rapids Magazine