PEDRO ROSSI SOBRE VALLADARES

Rossi about Valladares

Ingeniously irreverent, affectionately indulgent, deeply rooted, the work of Rolando Valladares (Tucumán 1918-2008) is part of the stealthy and essential collection that holds the best spirit of the tradition of Argentine folk music. Like the elaborate forms of anonymity, Valladares’ work has been speaking for itself for a long time, with its own language that among the temptations of modernity knew how to listen to the vidala to make it its expressive core.

Towards that universe goes Pedro Rossi in this work, careful, above of all, not to fall into certain forms of artistic parasitism. He is not encouraged by the ambitions to claim a name. Or to pay a tribute. Much less the presumption to ‘fix’ a music. In many ways extreme – but never violent – the guitarist makes music on Valladares music. With a personal and polished guitar language, Rossi reflects on Valladares, until he stands on the threshold of silence to listen to him.

Because more than to the music of Valladares, in his search, the guitarist sticks to the aura that emerges from it. To what resonates behind the signs, names and songs. To find that which makes Valladares unique, Rossi returns to fundamental sources buried in the farrago of the old and interested Eurocentric interference, often satisfied with listening and translating the oral tradition in terms of rhythm, melody and harmony. It is not the music of Valladares, but Valladares singing it what Rossi listens to. In that morose and captivating identity of the phrasing of Valladares, his way of saying, his accent, and in the particular idea of ​​time on which
the phrasing is leans back. There Rossi begins to imagine a possible sound.

A voice in its wake, singing to itself. The listening stripped of a frank and curious talent. That is the principle of Sobre Valladares. In what this crossing produces is the originality of a work that encourages dialogue with the sensitive, over the laborious grammar of traditions.

Santiago Giordano