My 21st Concert

Recorded on Labor Day, Sep 7, 2009

Malagueña

By Bob Djurdjevic on Piano: A Labor Day Concert

HAIKU, Maui, Sep 7, 2009 - Sometimes, music seems like a tree.  A seed is planted.  You're not even aware it's inside of you.  The gestation length varies before it sprouts.  Then it grows into a seedling.  Maybe.  And if one is lucky, it eventually becomes a magnificent tree.

That's sort of what happened with this version of Malaguena.  My friends Irving from New York and Nick from Mexico City planted the seed a few weeks ago.  The gestation period took several weeks.  It started to sprout about two weeks ago.  And now, I recorded it on this Labor Day 2009 as a rapidly maturing seedling. 

Will it ever become a magnificent tree?  Who knows... check it out...

Malagueña (9:11 mins)

 Recorded on Sep 7, 2009, Labor Day

Here's what I wrote about Malguena to my friend Nick in Mexico City on Aug 24:

But something interesting did happen yesterday to do with Latin music. Remember how I told you that Malaguena didn’t “grab” me as much as Tico-Tico or some other Latin tunes?   Well, strike that.  She stalked me all day Sunday, and now has me in her clutches.

Yesterday morning, I was down in the gulch cutting some bamboo and adjusting water lines.  Suddenly, an unfamiliar Latin-sounding tune started to well up inside of me.  I kept humming and whistling it all morning.  Since I did not know what it was, I decided to try to look it up on my computer when I got back into the house. 

When I came in for breakfast, Chiquitita was playing THAT VERY TUNE (!).  So I rushed to it to see on the iPod what the song was called.  It was Malaguena!!! J  Can you believe it?

I then downloaded the Ernesto Lecuona sheet music just to see what key he is playing it in, so I could join him.  And it was amazing.  Even though this seemed like a fairly difficult piece, and it is, I started playing it with full cords, left and right hand, on about a second try.  Just like “Concierto de Aranjuez” last March.  Of course, like any work of art, it will take some time now to perfect my own version of it, without the sheet music.  Still, I don’t ever recall a piece of music that just sort of gushed out of me like that before.

I told Chiquitita that I can’t seem to shake off the Latin music.  I have been working on some Russian themes lately, which are almost ready to be recorded, and thought I had “cured myself” of the Latin music for now.  Evidently not so.  Malaguena would not let me go to Kalyinka. J

Guess a lesson to be learned from this is that music is like a tree or a plant.  It grows from a seed.  Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast.  Again, like different varieties of trees.  By the same metaphor, Malaguena was a bamboo.  Very fast!  J  I owe a debt of gratitude to you and to my Cuban-born friend Irving (a retired IBM executive) who first mentioned that piece to me, upon hearing my first version of Tico-Tico.

And that's all she wrote on this Labor Day 2009.

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Bob Djurdjevic

E-mail: bobdj@djurdjevic.com

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