Four of the world’s best guitar players will have their chops on full display Tuesday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College.
They’re not household names in the pop-culture world of guitar players, and if you don’t know who they are that’s OK; die-hard guitar players and heavy students of the instruments likely do. They’re not Jimmy Pages, Frank Zappas or Stevie Ray Vaughans, with regards to being recognized by people whose musical knowledge begins and ends at classic rock radio. However, what they do would have impressed the hell out of the aforementioned, as they are masters of their craft whose talent is well worthy of recognition.
Performing for International Guitar Night, this on the road guitar festival is an annual event with a rotating cast of musicians for each tour, put together as an effort to bring together innovative acoustic guitar players and serve as an educational as well as auditory experience.
Performing Tuesday are Latin and gypsy swing guitar player Lulo Reinhardt; classical player Thu Le; Hawaiian and slack key guitar player Jim “Kimo” West (who also plays with “Weird Al” Yankovic); and Italian guitar player Luca Stricagnoli. Stricagnoli refers to the combination of these musicians as a “cocktail,” a chance for anyone to broaden their musical palate.
“It’s a full immersion into the guitar world and a full immersion into cultural diversity,” Stricagnoli said. “It consists of four players from all around the world, meeting specially for the tour and performing from their repertoire alone, and then in combination, in duos, trios and finally as a quartet.”
If you go
WHAT: International Guitar Night with Luca Stricagnoli, Jim “Kimo” West, Thu Le and Lulo Reinhardt.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday..
WHERE: Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive.
TICKETS: $26/$45. Available online at https://bit.ly/3rRpx2z.
MORE INFORMATION: Call 247-7657 or visit www.durangoconcerts.com.
Stricagnoli is hip and aggressive player, someone not afraid to dip into the metal, rock and hip-hop canon, turning familiar pieces of music into blasts of percussive guitar wizardry. His music studies began when he was a kid, studying classical guitar. He put the guitar down for a time until he saw that the guitar could be strummed, picked and beat on like a drum.
“When I was 19, I saw some videos of people playing guitar in a percussive fashion, and I thought, ‘Oh wow, you can do this?’ I did not know you could play guitar that way,” he said. “That was the sparkle that got me to start playing guitar once again, and I used YouTube as a teacher. I started developing my own style from there.”
That style has resulted in Stricagnoli putting his own take on familiar cuts from The White Stripes to Coolio, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden or Eminem; he also covers soundtracks or spaghetti western film scores.
“I like it all as long as it’s played in an interesting way to what my taste is,” he said. “If I like the song, if I feel some strong emotion from it, if I shake my head or I’m feeling goosebumps, I will say ‘I need to play this’ and then I take the guitar and ideas come out.”
He’s also dipped into guitar design, creating guitars that work with his style, which included working with an Italian luthier on the design and build of a three-neck guitar that he’ll perform on at Tuesday’s show.
Forget a tie or loyalty to one genre, and trust that International Guitar Night has recruited some of the world’s best to help redefine how a guitar is played and presented. The purpose of this traveling guitar festival is to serve as an educational event for performer and patron alike.
“For me, it’s amazing to spend time with these guys, because also I get to learn a lot, you know?” Stricagnoli said. “I get to see the way they play and there’s always some new stuff that I did not know before, and so it’s a learning experience also.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
