Nostalgia Trails
Montreal born and bred guitarist Tino Izzo may be the best guitarist you've never heard of. His anonymity might be due to his lack of touring exposure. Or perhaps it's because his music crosses so many stylistic borders, from flamenco to jazz to rock. It could owe to the generic artwork on his albums throughout the 1990s. Izzo now appears to be making a push towards the mainstream. His wildly eclectic Nostalgia Trails (Chacra Music) introduces listeners to key tracks from three previous albums (two released under the pseudonym "One"), plus a few new tracks, including a crazed trip-hop flavored, densely percussive steel-guitar jam on the Beatles' normally staid "And I Love Her." The stylistic mix is apparent from the first few tracks. The crisp, Spanish-flavored plucking over pitter-patter percussion on "Bogota Nights" shows off Izzo's lovelorn side, while the sizzling, steel-string driven instrumental ballad "The New Adventures of Johnny Guitar" will bring Neal Schon's best Higher Octave work to mind. "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe" is a simple, folksy ballad that showcases Izzo's best talent -as a composer. Sometimes Izzo's song titles are deceiving: "Samba Del Viento" seems to promise a lively Latin romp but is instead a mournful ballad with a steel guitar dripping down upon moody synth-created atmospherics.--- Jonathan Widran, JAZZIZ MagazineCopyright © 2000, Milor Entertainment, Inc.--From Jazziz