(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Artie Traum started out in the 1960s. With his brother Happy, he was first part of a folk-music duo that enlivened the stages of Greenwich Village during the great season of the “Greenwich Movement,” and then of a folk-rock band, the Children Of Paradise, who recorded only one album, Bear (MGM, 1967). Happy Traum was a friend of Dylan's, who in fact granted him a rare and still-famous interview after his 1967 motorcycle accident. In 1969, their first album as a duo was released and was hailed by critics as one of the genre's masterpieces. The duo continued to release albums of excellent quality throughout the 1970s, but by then the times had changed.

Having grown up listening to jazz and blues guitarists, from Jim Hall to B.B. King, Artie Traum soon felt the need to emancipate himself from the folk scene, and in the 1980s he debuted as a solo artist and, after a couple of respectable but unexceptional albums, Life On Earth (Rounder, 1974) and From The Heart (Rounder, 1980), hit his stride with Cayenne (Rounder, 1987), a collection of twelve brief watercolors for acoustic guitar. Artie had learned to play guitar from the great jazz guitarists, and that album revealed his ability to improvise. From then to the present, his style has become increasingly less folk-oriented and increasingly more jazz-oriented. His is atmospheric, impressionistic, deeply inward-looking jazz. His reputation as a superb guitarist has somewhat overshadowed the merits of the solo albums that followed, Letters From Joubee (Shanachie, 1993) and The View From Here (Shanachie, 1996).

He returned to playing with his brother for The Test Of Time (Roaring Stream, 1994).

Meeting With Remarkable Friends (Narada, 1998) features collaborations with figures such as Band and Tony Levin. The album is as varied as it is refined. It moves from the poignant Gypsy rhapsody of Catskill Thunder (with Jay Unger's violin) to the velvety bossa nova of Serpa, from the harmonic complexity of Long Journey to the dreamy melody of 14 Turtles (a duet with John Sebastian). Traum remembers the blues in Swing Shift (a virtuoso showcase for solo guitar) and Yankee Swamp (with the Band). The arrangements make use of harmonica, violin, mandolin...

Artie Traum died in 2008.

Cayenne (Rounder, 1987) is a collection of twelve atmospheric instrumentals for small ensemble. Brilliant interplay highlights the jazzy Cayenne and Snippy Man, while dreamy guitar explorations permeate Shambhala and Robbie's Mirage. The relaxed country-rock of Morning Flight and the syncopated Blue-jay Boogie homage the roots, and Catskill Thunder is all about melody.

Letters From Joubee (Shanachie, 1993) boasts lushier production, which emphasizes the guitar melody of She's Riding Again, although at times the excessive "electricity" detracts from the poetry of his compositions. It is mostly conventional fusion jazz. The notable exceptions are the guitar duet with David Torn of Blood Oranges and the piano-driven elegy of Modality

Se sei interessato a tradurre questo testo, contattami