Personnel: Tim Sparks (guitar); Greg Cohen (guitar, bass instrument, double bass); Cyro Baptista (percussion).
Audio Mixer: Marc Urselli.
Recording information: Eastside Sound Studios, New York, NY (02/18/2009).
Authors: Tim Sparks; Cyro Baptista.
Arrangers: Greg Cohen ; Tim Sparks; Cyro Baptista.
Acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Tim Sparks has always set himself apart from the pack of his peers. Rather than rely strictly on playing blues or age-old folk and bluegrass tunes, or even following in the well-worn paths of John Fahey, Peter Lang, and Robbie Basho, Sparks has followed his muse down into the corridors of musical and cultural history. While no one can dent the influence of great jazzmen on his playing, one can hear the sounds of saxophonists, pianists, and of course the sounds of Yiddish folk and popular music, klezmer among them. Seven years on from the release of AT THE REBBE'S TABLE, his 2002 album with bassist Greg Cohen and percussionist Cyro Baptista, the trio reunites for LITTLE PRINCESS, an album consisting entirely works by klezmer composer Naftule Brandwein.
Virtually every one of these ten cuts is an example of how intuitive, sophisticated, and creative Sparks is, not only as a player and interpreter, but as an arranger so canny that the listener would think all of these songs were written in the current era. That said, Sparks never, ever compromises the sophistication or humor Brandwein put into his compositions. He reveres them deeply, and strives to make them live on as part of a lineage that has no use for musty audio museums, but would rather portray the music as a living, breathing, sassy, sexy thing that swaggers rather than stands still in the passage of time. A brilliant work and the best Sparks outing to date.
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