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Lounge Lizard

Åke Parmerud

Programme notes
To Javier Álvarez, in memoriam

My first trip to Cuba was in 1983. That’s when I heard Latin American music for the first time, and things changed in my mind. Ever since I have been infatuated by the rhythms and grooves of Latin music.

Much later I heard a short piece by the Mexican composer Javier Álvarez titled Mambo à la Braque (1990). It was another first-time experience, here with music where someone dared to mix musical styles and aesthetics in a way I had not come across before. It was a source of inspiration that has followed me ever since.

However good his piece is I still missed some of the repeating feeling of playing (indeed: I have played in a salsa band) a given riff for an extended period of time, and Mambo à la Braque keeps breaking the groove, maybe to not go astray from the “modernistic” rules of constant change. So I felt the urge to make a piece inspired by that very special composition (that I played many times in concerts all over the world) and at least at times let the groove stay where it should.

Lounge Lizard is dedicated to the memory of Javier Álvarez, who passed away too early in 2023.

[i-25]


Lounge Lizard was realized in 2021 at the composer’s studio in Gothenburg (Sweden) and premiered on September 30, 2021 at the Mehrzwecksaal of the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien in Vienna (Austria) as part of the 4th Echoes Around Me festival produced by The Acousmatic Project.

Premiere

  • September 30, 2021, Echoes Around Me 2021: Parmerud, Ensemble Hybrid Voices, Armando Balice, Mehrzwecksaal — Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna (Austria)
  • Composer(s): Åke Parmerud
  • Year of composition: 2021
  • Duration: 4:28
  • Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISRC: CAD502510023