Buy Camino Cielo

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Classically trained flamenco/Mediterranean/jazz composer and guitarist Chris Fossek has developed a fascinating pan-cultural aesthetic for this, his premiere CD of original compositions and improvisations. Together with Los Angeles-based colleagues Kai Kurosawa electric bass, Nate Keezer percussion, Hugo Aguayo palmas and Peter Slocombe tenor saxophone Fossek offers nine diverse and magical works that speak to his superb musicianship, quietly passionate taste and profound respect for and interest in the culture, music and manner of his mentor, Balkan guitarist Miroslav Tadic.

A confident command of color, atmosphere, harmonic movement and compositional architecture - not to mention stunning technique - inform Fossek’s unique compositional voice. Recorded and mixed with care and discipline by the artist, the studio ambiance and purity of sound is remarkable on this disc.

As the CD’s title makes clear to all who have walked the trail along the summit of the Santa Ynez mountain chain behind Santa Barbara, where the cool and refreshing climate of the coastal side mixes happily with the warmer, drier climate rising from the floor of the Santa Ynez Valley side to create a hybrid that can only be experienced in that precious space and moment, Camino Cielo is a perfect metaphor for Chris Fossek’s muse.

Daniel Kepl | Performing Arts Review