Toronto to visit various studios, and for his eventual conclusion that Zolis Audio Productions, where Peter was working, should be our choice.
“Parranda” was a catchy solo piece I had recorded on Encore in 1988, but now it was going to be accompanied by a full band, including light percussion. What fun to hear it expand into a new rhythmic version of its former self. “Bajo el Sol” (“Beneath the Sun”) was a piece I composed while on a Hawaiian holiday with Jack in July of 2000. I still have the scraps of stationery from our hotels on which I scribbled rough drafts of melodies that would later evolve into my Camino Latino repertoire.
My Peruvian-style piece, “Las Alturas,” was evocative of the high Andes, and I knew would be great fun to perform live using pizzicatos and double string trills that I was still able to execute.
“Ambos Mundos,” my tribute to Strunz and Farah, blended Latin and Persian-style rhythms and melodies, paying homage to Jorge Strunz’s Costa Rican background and Ardeshir Farah’s Iranian heritage. For the intro we used wind chimes and the old Kenora guitar that I had taken along when I had canoed the Missinaibi River in 1989 to perform in the historic Anglican church in Moose Factory. Using pizzicato to play its well-worn strings produced the touch of Middle Eastern flavour that I wanted for this piece. I used my fast-fingered left-hand runs up the fingerboard and was delighted that our different styles of fingernail and pick playing made for an exotic blend. To this day “Ambos Mundos,” remains one of my all-time favourite compositions. My right hand was not up to tackling complex classical compositions, but it was perfectly adequate for this style of playing.
Fortin composed several catchy numbers including “Frontera,” “Night in Yucatan,” “Torbellino,” and “Carretera Libre.” I hired Rick Lazar to add percussion and Ron Korb to play various flutes that he selected from his huge collection of international instruments. Back in L.A., I asked a Latin jazz guitar whiz kid from the San Fernando Valley, Luis Villegas, to perform with me on “Carretera Libre.” It turned out so well that I chose it as the opening cut on the album. Luis recorded his parts at his own studio, and I sat with him acting as producer and drawing out the best possible performance from his nimble fingers. It was then up to Peter and Richard to choose the most expressive parts and put all the tracks together like a complex audio puzzle.
Convincing Al Di Meola, a huge star in the jazz world, to perform on a fast-paced piece that Richard had written was a real coup. I named the piece “Torbellino” (“Whirlwind”), and Richard and Peter had to work extra-long hours into the night to edit the rather scrambled and messy guitar parts Al had recorded in his home in New Jersey. However, when all was finally pieced together along with my own playing, we were relieved to hear that it worked musically and, in fact, sounded quite amazing. I decided this piece was definitely worth the high fee he had charged me.
Steve Morse, the virtuoso rocker from Deep Purple, sent us his parts for use in Richard’s “Rumbo al Sur.” These tracks bordered on perfection! He even gave us choices of two different solos, each of which were well-thought-out compositions unto themselves. We decided to use both — what a monster player that man is!
When he came to perform in Los Angeles with his band, Deep Purple, Steve set aside a ticket for me, and I found myself in a mosh pit near the front of the stage. I suffered the head-splitting experience until I feared for my ears and retreated to the sidelines, but I met up with Steve backstage for drinks after the show. We hung out together for an hour on the tour bus with his band and posed for photos that Guitar Player magazine had requested. Even if our styles of playing are very different, we performers always love to exchange guitar tips. At that time Steve and I were both pretty much at the tops of our games; although I kept my focal dystonia struggles to myself.
Johannes Linstead, an Ontario-based nuevo flamenco–style player also jumped on board with my project, writing a fast-paced duet called “Zarzamora” that we could record together.
Next I drew on my rudimentary knowledge of Brazilian samba rhythms to compose “Samba para Dos” and enjoyed listening while another rising star on the guitar scene, Jesse Cook, laid down his tracks in his home studio. As we had both studied with Eli Kassner and belonged to the Toronto Guitar Society, there was a comforting shared history between us.
Oscar Lopez, a charming Chilean guitarist, agreed to write and record a new piece for me he called “Enlaces,” but unfortunately his piece and another infectious rhythmic number that I had arranged and recorded (called “Popcorn”) did not make the final cut. We felt that Oscar’s recording, done in Calgary, didn’t quite match the high standards of the other pieces, despite Richard and Peter’s valiant attempts to edit it, and we decided that “Popcorn” was stylistically unsuitable for this Latin-inspired album. The master recording of “Popcorn” would have to wait a few years before its day in the sun, when it would come out in the form of a remix by Peter Bond.
I asked an ambitious young Canadian guitarist of Greek heritage, Pavlo, to write me an original Greek-flavoured piece, and he obliged with “Café Kastoria,” which featured the appealing sound of the bouzouki. For this number I hired Kristine Bogyo to play on her million-dollar cello, but for some inexplicable reason her tuning was slightly off, so Peter had to blend it with sampled cello sounds to make it work with the other tracks.
Finally, by the end of 2001, after adding a soulful solo piece that I had composed called “Mexico Mi Amor,” we had fourteen original pieces. Only fellow musicians would understand what a labour of love this album had been and how many hundreds of studio and telephone hours I had been required to log.
• • •
Now that the album was due to be released by Fusion Music, with distribution by Universal, it was time to try to perform the pieces live … but how without a supporting band? Hiring Pavlo, who had formerly only been playing restaurants and bars on the Danforth, a focal point for Toronto’s Greek community, provided the perfect solution. Accompanying him were Gino Mirizio, Randy Rodrigues, and George Vasilakos — all good-natured, super-talented musicians who played drums, bass, and guitars, respectively. Pavlo and his band were able to back me up and add great variety to my program, so in preparation for live shows and the album release we began rehearsing in an old warehouse in Toronto. It has been gratifying over the years to witness Pavlo’s career take off and watch him develop an international following.
3
Divorce
My accommodating husband was supportive of my new project and, having enjoyed experiencing Canada before, he promised to come along on parts of the tour that my agent, Bernie Fiedler, was putting together. The concerts were split into two parts, so Jack and I were able to take a holiday with my parents in San Miguel de Allende, where I filmed music videos to “Bajo el Sol” and “Parranda,” the first using the empty bullring with a prancing white stallion and handsome Spanish rider circling around me in the burning midday sun.
I have long had a special relationship with San Miguel de Allende. For my parents, siblings, and me, the town had become a familiar second home ever since, thanks to my father’s sabbatical, my schoolteacher parents had packed up our trusty blue-and-white VW bus and driven us south to spend a year living there in 1967. We made annual pilgrimages to our beloved little town afterward and had frequently chosen it as a place for family reunions. Nestled in the mountains of central Mexico, this art colony changed our lives. In fact, I believe the music, art, and literature I discovered there played a significant role in developing my sense of romance. It was in San Miguel that I first started to learn Spanish and to fall in love with the soulful serenades and mariachi music that were part of daily life. It was there, under the star-sprinkled skies, that my sister, Vivien, and I kissed our Mexican boyfriends as teenagers. It was there that we rode horses in the mountains and danced to the local bands, often into the wee hours, safely in the company of our parents.
I adored being back in San Miguel, taking Jack to meet some of the town’s eccentric characters, having lunch with my friend, the renowned skater and artist Toller Cranston, chatting with former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s biographer, Joe Persico — a fan of my music and friend of my parents — and walking with Jack along the memory-filled cobblestoned streets of my adolescence, even though