Music Reviews

Rue Two

In the words of Tom Wheeler, Consulting Editor, Guitar Player:
Latarski takes his time to set up his melodies, which makes the tunes ultimately more memorable than those too-typical endless jamfests. When he does solo, it's always provocative and worth repeated listenings. He can syncopate with ease and shift in and out of various grooves, his modified Gibson ES-165 and his funky little bargain-basement Supro amplifier lending just the right amount of sweaty rudeness to his otherwise jazzy tone.

Don's solos (and those of his guest guitarists) sparkle with spontaneity and immediacy; there's no sense of that cut-and-paste, fit-it-in-the-mix approach that on so many records shifts the focus from the players to the engineers. Here the emphasis is on soul, tone, and groove.

As they cruise along Rue Two, Don Latarski and friends take detours through funk, barn-dance country jazz, Delta blues, Texas shuffle, laid-back New Orleans-style rhythm & groove, blistering rockabilly, all the way to what Don calls "urban voodoo." Despite the versatility, Latarski says, "It's all blues to me."

Deep Play

While many musicians with such prodigious gifts would find the temptation to showboat irresistible, on Deep Play the song and the groove always come first. This kind of performance requires musicianship of the highest order and, on occasion, some high-wire, without-a-net guitar. Even when whompin' on the whammy or bending strings almost to the breaking point, he's ever mindful of the intrigue of a remark left unspoken, the way a deft sketch engages the eye in amanner that a detailed painting cannot, the seductive mystery of spaces between notes. Less is more.
Taken from the liner notes by Tom Wheeler-former editor of Guitar Player magazine