Fred Fried and Core, Core Bacharach

I've covered quite a few Fred Fried albums here and in Cadence over the years. And today I am back with another one. Another good one.

Core Bacharach (Ballet Tree) is Fred's Core Trio running through some Burt Bacharach gems. Fred has good company, tight and articulate, in Michael Lavoie, bass, and Miki Matsuki, drums. They have plenty to do with the musical success of Core. But of course it is Fred Fried and his eight-string nylon acoustic that makes it all magical.

Fred comes through with those beautiful voicings and really artful rubato renditions of the familiar melodies--and his soloing makes you want to hear more. Thankfully there are 65 minutes of music on this disk so you get a goodly portion.

Maestro Fried has his own beautiful touch and articulation. He is certainly one of the masters of the nylon string these days.

This may be his very best. In any event you'll want to hear it, and I am confident that it will bring you much pleasure.

Fred Fried and Core, "Encore," Eight-String Guitarist Shines in New Trio Session

Fred Fried is a very accomplished guitarist, plays an eight-string nylon stringed acoustic, and gives us one of his very best outings to date on Encore (Ballet Tree). It's the second release by his trio Core, which includes Michael Lavoie on contrabass and Miki Matsuki, drums, both playing a subtle and important accompanying role.

The disk presents 67 well-balanced minutes of the Fried guitar universe, which includes eleven nicely put-together Fried-penned items and a whole lot of guitar. He has an original contemporary feel for harmonic underpinnings, some very sophisticated voicings and melodic straightforwardness in his writing-execution. As an improvising guitarist he excels in the chordal and arpeggiated style that comes in part from his quite apparent classical training (NOTE: I am NOT correct in this assumption. See Fred's illuminating comment below); but he also shows an increasingly subtle finesse on single-line runs, especially at slower tempos. There are some similarities with Ralph Towner's neo-classical guitar style and brightness of form, but only as a touching point for what Fried is up to here.

This album goes very far in giving you the Fried artistry as it stands today. And that is something to treasure. Recommended.