Les yeux noirs

No, this isn't Two Lovely Black Eyes this is the Russian Dark Eyes. If the phrase 'avec un plectre' makes you feel faint, move on to the next review, because Guitar Five opens with a plectrum tremolo. But it's ok: - we're soon back to proper hands-on pluckery. This is in swing time, and we have a bass line redolent of a big band, some dry jazz chords - think Hot Club de Paris - and on top, a moving three part harmony that defines and supports the tune. That's a bit of a simplification, because each of the top three parts has episodes of percussion or strumming silenced strings. I love the way verse one opens with a triplet turn - a really cheeky start. We run into verse two, in which the tune has a few extra twiddles and the shadowing parts fill some of the silences with their own twiddly bits. Verse three sees some slightly more heroic swung arpeggios from Guitar One while his partners move to percussion so that any mistake is definitely going to notice! This section is well-fingered, though the places where position shifts are needed are unmarked, leading to silly ambiguities that take time to resolve and mark up. That aside, it's very effective, and when the pace changes from swung quavers (2 per beat) to triplets (3 per beat). the open E string is used to take the heat off. Nice touch. Verse 4 sees a cat and mouse chase in Guitars Two and Three while Guitar One lets his left hand cool down by moving to right hand percussion. A reprise of verse one takes us to the coda that mirrors the opening and ends with a gloriously cheesy and entirely appropriate 'tag' in the style of the best big band endings. I'd put the complexity at somewhere round Grade 5, but it's definitely a mixed-ability piece with the bass-line being simpler and yet no less fun. I love it. Derek Hasted