(Translated from my Italian text by Gerrit Hilhorst)
Californian Craig Chaquico, the prodigy guitarist of Jefferson Starship, turned to new age music for acoustic guitar with
Acoustic Highway (Higher Octave, 1993).
Abandoning the din of the rock stage, Chaquico rediscovers the poetry of hearth and home, and the spell of natural landscapes.
Acoustic Highway
is an intimate work, brimming with passages of fado and flamenco, of gypsy songs and sentimental romance. His impassioned impressionism and quiet nostalgia culminate in the refrain of the title track, and the ringing arpeggios of Gypsy Nights (which purloins the "ringing" arpeggios from Led Zeppelins Stairway To Heaven). The most vivid images are those inspired by locations on the Bay of San Francisco, Mountain In The Mist and Land Of The Giants. The most moving moment is the fairy-tale like Angel Tears.
If here and there Chaquico lets himself be carried away by his own virtuosity, and not always to the benefit of the music, it is in tender sound poems like Return Of The Eagle that the guitarist extracts the most from his medium: it is there he lets the melody breathe, and grafts onto a driving rhythm his spectacular variations on a theme. The languor of Summers End and the hallucinations of Sunset Altar only serve to embellish a sound structure molded with meticulous precision out of the guitars dry timbres and exceedingly tight tempi.
On the subsequent Acoustic Planet (Higher Octave, 1994), with the jazzy piano of Ozzie Ahlers sharing the stage, Chaquico tends towards a joyous lyricism, like that of a child who has just discovered the wonders of nature. His trademark is the meticulous attention with which he performs the hypnotic acrobatics on the title track, and the ear-pleasing refrain on Just One World. With that step at once naïve and wise, the guitar expresses adventure in a labyrinth of nostalgia (Winterflame), mystery (Gathering Of The Tribes) and carefreeness (Anejo De Cabo).
Chaquico has at a stroke gained a pre-eminent position among composers of instrumental music, arriving at an opportune moment to offer change to a generation of new age guitarists who had begun to show signs of becoming stale.
(Original text by Piero Scaruffi)
A Thousand Pictures (Higher Octave, 1996) offers more domestic vignettes.
Shadow And Light (Higher Octave, 2002) abandons the dreamy acoustic
style of his two first solos, and embraces a bluesy jazz-rock style.
Midnight Noon (Higher Octave, 2004) weaves together electric and acoustic
guitars to sculpt shimmering jazz-rock textures.
Follow the Sun (2009) is another dignified collection of exotic and atmospheric music.
Chaquico also released Fire Red Moon (Blind Pig, 2012).
