Enthusiasms (5) - David Hidalgo

For the past several days I have been listening to three albums from the mid-to-late 1990s that centrally feature David Hidalgo, one of the principals in Los Lobos . The first two are by a quartet called Latin Playboys in which Hidalgo is joined by Louie Perez, Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom. The endeavor has been described aptly as "a twisted and avant-garde take on roots music" but in each case all compositions are by Hidalgo and his long-time Los Lobos-mate Perez. The tunes are edgy, dissonant, angular and pretty much off-kilter.

The third record is a duet between Hidalgo and Mike Halby. This one is much more of a blues record with arrangements that are so spare and languid that they verge at times on the altogether somnambulant. With one exception (a Jr. Parker cover), all the tunes are written by the two muscians. This is a wonderful record.

Unfortunately, neither of these side projects seems active at present. This is too bad because, while I really like Los Lobos, it seems that Hidalgo has considerably more up his sleeve than the latin inflected rock & roll of the larger band can easily accommodate.

P.S.: For previous "Enthusiasms" see [1] [2] [3] [4]