‘Cantando' by Manos Puestas

Manos Puestas fans may be a little frustrated with us in that although we featured their track "Entre Dos Aguas" on ‘Hot Music Live Presents Volume Thirteen' (as a tribute to Matt Hernandez), we've not written about them much in the magazine: it took until this summer for a live review and now we can address the issue of one of a release as their new album, the appropriately named ‘Cantando' is out.

A ten track treat featuring "Sweet Sue", "Little Suede Shoes", "Autumn Leaves", "Fuentiduende", "All Of Me", "Georgia on My Mind", "After You've Gone", "Manha De Carnival", "Take The ‘A' Train" and "Cosa Azul", I'm afraid I don't have the compositional credits but I'm working on the assumption that some, if not all the songs which are instantly familiar are originals.

The trio (Matt Sullivan, Jon Lewis and Matt Watson) are pretty flexible in terms of lineups: live variants  also include  duo and quartet formats. This is reflected in their musical interests and expertise: groping for a label (if I must) leads just to "World Music" (local readers will remember Jon in Le Cod Afrique) and a voyage through their music will take you to Spain, Africa and Latin America (to name a few) and encompass jazz and manouche. Which is fine by me and certainly keeps albums like ‘Cantando' fresh as the content is so eclectic.

So far so good in that I can identify the musical styles. Where I start to flounder is describing the other obvious characteristic of the band: their excellence. These are virtuoso players and this helps explain the fact that they play across a national & international context, such is the demand to hear them play. I respect their skills but really don't have the technical vocabulary for them. What may be more important though is the lightness with which they carry their brilliance. Some players in these fields really do project a sense of their superiority and feelings of entitlement to praise (they don't get that in my articles I can assure you). Manos Puestas in contrast project a more modest presence & appear to be playing this music because they love doing so & any expertise comes from playing with love & playing a lot. Frankly I think audiences can tell the difference & respond accordingly.

So what of these particular tracks?

Given the commercial pressures of the business from which they make their living, as much as I'm sure they enjoy writing their own material, covers must be part of their sets. I do however raise my hat to them for taking on some of these classics: not only has the ground been well travelled over before (to say nothing of the status of the originating versions) but in many cases you don't have to travel far to hear multiple turgid MOR renditions by less talented players which as far as I do not only are inherently depressing but reduce the currency of the song for me.

The trio's answer (or answers) seem to embrace both that lightness which dispels the plodding earnestness of the duller bands and a sense of respect which also nevertheless manages to incorporate the confidence to play with the time honoured & time expired arrangements.

The quintessential example here is taking the Duke Ellington classic and without his orchestra to call on, strip it right back to a Django Reinhardt arrangement: just about retaining the central melody but shorn of so many other instruments, leaving space for the guitar parts to have a ball. If I said this was the most refreshing version of "Take The ‘A' Train" I'd heard in many of a year, I certainly would not be exaggerating. Equally "Autumn Leaves" is revived by means of the gossamer touch in a similar rescue mission.

Regular readers will possibly sense the direction I'm going here: my preference for musicians who utilise space in playing and favour less over more. I'd also like to praise the singing: far too often the sort of artists I've mentioned above whom I'm not keen on also try to cover up the morbidity of the playing with lurid vocals: showboating & generally going far too far: drawing attention away from the song. Here, the singing is again modest and discreet: tasteful in fact.

If these reference points helped me to find areas I felt confident enough to discuss with you, I'm pleased since it helps me get around the technical ones. From here it's also easy to extend this essential philosophy of Manos Puestas to cover the other songs, especially the ones where I don't have an existing comparison to draw on.

Some artists might try and cover diverse styles to chase demographics (I strongly fear that not only do their labels push them but that there are now algorithms which define album content). Here, in contrast, I get the picture of musicians with wide ranging interests who have tried hard to capture some of them in only ten tracks.

I feel I can tell an album made with love & that ‘Cantando' is one such.