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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
The elegant gypsy version INTRODUCTION ARPS and PICADO was probably composed back in 1975 or 6. It is typical Al style. Rio Ancho was composed more or less at the same time. BUT entre dos Aguas was composed WAY before both of these, which is essientally the entire BODY or base of the improvisation of the rest of the recording on Elegant Gypsy. It is maybe hard to recognize because of the way they improvise and omit any identifying falsetas of the original. Also they don't do the 3rd section that ends Entre dos Aguas. PDL deserved co composer credit for that, but didn't get it and the heresy story goes that this caused the rift of the guitar trio back in 1982 before Passion Grace and Fire was recorded. Al was forced to pay PDL royalty for this, after which PDL told Mclaughlin that he would play FREE of charge on anything he wanted, a sort of gang up against Al. So the story goes. It seems to be the case as PDL avoided any duet projects with Al until the renunion in the 90's. Even then there was more animosity going on.
Here is the time line: 1973 Entre dos Aguas 1976 Rio Ancho (which contains the 2nd section of Entre dos Aguas as the ending after all). 1977 Mediterranean Sundance - a combo of Al's introduction and two sections of entre dos aguas: Al solos over the 1st section, Paco over the second then trade offs to the end which goes back to Al's theme. 1978- Paco and Ramon began performing versions of all 3 combined into one tune. 1979-Paco and Larry Coryell make a version that combines Al's intro with Entre Dos Aguas, all 3 sections. 1980-Al and Paco perform a version live that combines Al's intro with Paco's Rio Ancho, with a new extension to the harmony in Rio Ancho (adding the F chord, and D-C-B resolution not in the original version)....argueably the diffinative version as Both Paco and Al would continue to use this form with different group formations all the way up to their final performance together in 2010.
1991 Paco uses, essentially, the 1979 Larry Coryell version with his trio with JM Banderas and Cañizares.
1996 the trio reunion had unique version that included Mclaughlin playing parts of Rio Ancho and soloing, but basically the 1980 version standard.