Natalie Cressman and Ian Faquini: The Tandem Takes on Guinga
Photo: Eric Crawford
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“What I love about Guinga’s music is that it’s rich in so many different ways, but no matter how complex it might get, there’s this feeling and emotion that can pull you in,” trombonist Natalie Cressman says of the material by the Brazilian legend that she interprets with guitar player Ian Faquini, on their aptly titled new album GUINGA. “No matter if you’re a Brazilian native or someone who knows nothing about Brazilian music, there’s always something touching to find in it.”
“Whenever he’s playing, whether it’s in a small group or a big group, someone’s going to cry,” Faquini adds. “His music is sophisticated, complex and intelligent but, at the same time, it’s so beautiful and touches the soul. It’s rare to have all those characteristics together.”
Faquini, who moved from Brasília, Brazil to Berkeley, Calif., at the age of 8, credits Guinga with shaping his musical mindset. When he was 15, he attended a session at the California Brazil Camp where Guinga was a faculty member. Faquini recalls, “I wasn’t really expecting anything from his class. Then I heard him play, and it just completely changed my life. He’s a composer who’s been recorded by hundreds of people, including some pretty big names, but he’s also an incredible guitar player. The way he taught was so different. I would get really bored with some teachers in various contexts and the first thing he said was, ‘I’m not a teacher.’ He would never explain anything—he would just show and I would learn. It was always mysterious, just as his music is mysterious. It really intrigued me and I loved it.”
Guinga, who was born Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar, grew up in Rio de Janeiro and first received recognition for his songwriting in 1967, while in his late teens, via the Festival Internacional da Canção (International Festival of Song). For many years, he also balanced a life as a dentist before focusing exclusively on his music, by which point he was already working with renowned Brazilian artists such as Clara Nunes, Beth Carvalho, Alaíde Costa and João Nogueira.
Faquini’s passion for Guinga’s artistry continued to animate him during his high-school years and beyond. He attended the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley and joined the faculty after graduating, while also recording music that often drew on Guinga’s inspiration and incorporated the sounds and styles of their mutual homeland.
Cressman also first encountered Guinga in a class at the California Brazil Camp. By then, she was in her mid-20s and a touring veteran with Trey Anastasio and other artists, yet eager to expand her musical horizons. “Sitting in Guinga’s class every morning was one of the more magical parts of the experience,” she says. “He would share his songs super casually, one after the other. Sometimes, we’d talk about what the inspiration was or break down what he was thinking about as he was writing it, and sometimes we’d learn one. That all opened the doorway into this very magical world. It’s what’s made Ian become this great guitarist and composer. I got hit with the same inspiration, just a little bit later.” Faquini was also in that class and Cressman remembers, “Ian and I were sitting near each other, playing through some of Guinga’s music and realizing that the sound of our two instruments together was really nice. So we have Guinga to thank in a way for this whole trip that we’re on. His music kind of brought us together as a duo.”
That initial meeting led to a personal and professional union. In 2019, the couple recorded their first album, Setting Rays of Summer, followed by Auburn Whisper in 2022 and a Christmas EP this past year.
Trombone and guitar tandems are quite rare. J.J. Johnson and Joe Pass teamed up on occasion, as did Bob Brookmayer and Jim Hall. Still, Cressman says, “One thing that’s really interesting is that the instruments have a very similar range. My lowest note is the lowest string of the guitar, and the very highest note I can play is toward the top of the guitar range. So that offers up these different combinations besides just Ian playing chords and me playing melody. Sometimes I can play a bassline and he has the melody. Sometimes we’re kind of calling and answering each other. Sometimes I can be in the middle of my range and he can be playing a bass below me and a melody above me. So we’re in a similar sonic zone, and that offers these interesting combinations where we can switch roles. But also the warmth of the resonance of the acoustic nylon-string guitar brings a sweetness out of what I’m doing on the trombone. Trying to blend into his sound brought out these subtle parts of the trombone that don’t work in every setting.”
As for their decision to create GUINGA, which also finds the album’s namesake contributing guitar and vocals on a few tracks, Faquini explains, “We’d been thinking about it for a while. I have some songs with him that he wrote lyrics to, and we wanted a chance to record them with him. Hopefully, there will be plenty of chances to do this, but you never know. Then we started thinking about the rest of the repertoire. Rather than some sort of a weird mix, we said, ‘We love Guinga songs. Let’s only do Guinga songs.’”
“Our previous record, Auburn Whisper, was so layered and big and expansive. It was kind of nice to go back to how we started, which was a lot of pieces that were just for guitar and trombone,” offers Cressman. “We wanted to get back to that and also take advantage of Guinga being at the camp and pull him away for a couple days to get into the studio with him. So it’s not just a tribute album; it’s a collaborative album.”
The record spans Guinga’s career, capturing the many moods and hues of his material.
“There are a lot of composers in Brazil that stick to one tradition,” Faquini observes. “But Guinga really encompasses the whole spectrum of the Brazilian soul.”
“I think there’s something for everyone on this album,” Cressman asserts. “Music geeks will hear some of the crazy harmonies and the musical complexity that it has, but the melody is always this guiding principle. The songs often feel like a mixture of sad and happy or loving and forlorn. A lot of times, popular music will kind of hit you over the head with the main emotion of the song and there’s usually only one. But, with Guinga’s writing, there’s so much different stuff going on and so many different ways that you can interpret what the music means. That’s why I love digging in and trying to get at the heart of it.”
