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Otra Vez...Aviles: was there a better Latin guitar album?

Posted about 5 years ago

"Tus Pupilas"

If you're interested in traditional small-group Latin music, but weary of florid vocals, check out Oscar Aviles and his first album, Otra vez...Aviles, probably from the early or mid-60s. (It's available via PeruCD.com.) The Lima record store clerk in 1965 told me that Oscar Aviles was Peru's best guitarist as she convinced me to buy a 45 of his. After listening to it and, later, the above album it its LP incarnation, containing only instrumentals, I imagined him as Latin America's best guitarist. His early Odeon-label recordings feature him, thanks to double-tracking, playing nylon-stringed guitar duets with himself, accompanied by a conga player and a bongos player. The musical attack and timing is so tight, and mastery of every element so unassailable. The syncopation is so overwhelming that it hides the fact that many of his pieces are waltzes. The rest are polkas. He who rescues despised genres deserves our praise. Peruvians call this type of music coastal, creole, not the Andean music that norteamericanos usually associate with Peru. Who are his predecessors? In Peru has anything of interest about him been written?

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Comments (6)

  1. MilesTrane
    MilesTrane says wow. thanks for the post. psyched to check this out. this mog thing is costing me money :)
    Permalink posted 09/09/2006
  2. MilesTrane
    MilesTrane says ok so your first show was Joesephine Baker? could i talk you into posting your memories of that?
    Permalink posted 09/09/2006
  3. Spike
    Spike says My mother told me that she took me to a concert by Josephine Baker in San Francisco. I had no memory of it, so I must have been very young, or even more forgetful than I am now. My mother said that at one point in the show Josephine Baker asked for some kids to come up on stage. After a number of kids not like me came up (does that mean African-American?), she looked at me and asked me to come up, but I was not willing. Probably I was shy even then. I should have asked my mother for more details. Although my parents liked jazz from the mid-30s to the mid-60s, and old movies, they never mentioned Josephine Baker except this memory from my mother. About ten years ago a friend of mine who likes late-20s early-30s jazz gave me a CD of Josephine Baker's first recordings, from the late 20s, "Breezin' Along" (Legacy/Columbia CK 57740) ('95) and it's wonderful. Every once in a while she had to sing a high note and went into a brief breathy falsetto.
    Permalink posted 09/09/2006
  4. ivylander
    ivylander says I gotta hear this.
    Permalink posted 09/09/2006
  5. Benzart
    Benzart says

    Spike, sorry for digging up these old posts but they are why I'm here. This Oscar Aviles album is the first I've heard of him.  Might as well start with the best. You seem Right On again with your commentary. This is the Album I want.

    I can see you now being dragged op the stage steps kicking and screaming, good thing it didn't happen that way.

    Permalink posted 01/04/2009
  6. Spike
    Spike says

    Benzart, don't apologize!  You made my day by grokking this.  Before joining MOG, I felt like the only person on the planet, aside from a few old Peruvians, who knew about this amazing musician.  It's fun to spread the word.

    Permalink posted 01/04/2009

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