De Montenegrijnse gitarist Miloš Karadaglić slaagt erin om op zijn zeventiende te mogen studeren aan de Royal Academy of Music in Londen. Zijn leraar verrast hem met een door Turo Takemitsu bewerkte versie van Yesterday. Karadaglić wordt geraakt door deze benadering en gaat songs van The Beatles met andere ogen bekijken. Na drie solide albums, waarbij Miloš Karadaglić heeft bewezen het klassieke repertoire goed te beheersen, stelt hij een album met Beatles songs samen. Op Yesterday na bevat dit album nieuwe arrangementen van Sergio Assad, die een andere interpretatie geven aan bijvoorbeeld Blackbird, Come Together, Eleanor Rigby en Let it be (gezongen door Gregory Porter). Een prachtig ingetogen album met bijdragen vanuit klassiek, jazz en pop. Het album is in dezelfde studio’s opgenomen der The Beatles aan hun songs werkten.
Blackbird: The Beatles Album
1. Yesterday (guitar solo)
2. All my loving (guitar solo)
3. Here, there and everywhere (guitar solo)
4. While my guitar gently weeps (guitar solo)
5. Blackbird (guitar solo)
6. Come together (guitar, double bass)
7. And I love her (guitar, double bass)
8. Something (guitar, double bass)
9. Eleanor Rigby (guitar, strings)
10. Here comes the sun (guitar, strings)
11. Fool on the hill (guitar, strings)
12. She's leaving home (feat. Tori Amos)
13. Michelle (feat. Steven Isserlis)
14. Lucy in the sky (feat. Anoushka Shankar)
15. Let it be (feat. Gregory Porter)
Miloš Karadaglić (guitar)
After having explored the core classical heritage of the guitar in his three previous albums, Miloš makes a thrilling new departure.
He performs dazzling and innovative new arrangements of classic songs by the Beatles, collaborating with celebrated artists from the pop, jazz, world music and classical fields, such as: Tori Amos, Gregory Porter (TBC), Anoushka Shankar, Sergio Assad, Christopher Austin and Steven Isserlis.
Songs include some of the most iconic Beatles hits including Blackbird, Come Together, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Eleanor Rigby & Fool on the Hill.
Miloš’s album has several fascinating links with the supergroup. It was recorded in the famous Studio 2 of the Abbey Road Studios (where the Beatles recorded almost all of their songs), using some of the original microphones from the group’s sessions, aiming to create the unique and distinctive sound of the album.
Presto interview - Miloš Karadaglić on Blackbird
by Katherine Cooper. 22nd January 2016
Following three acclaimed Deutsche Grammophon albums of core classical guitar repertoire, the Montenegrin guitarist Miloš Karadaglić has taken a rather unexpected direction for his latest disc on the 'Yellow Label' - Blackbird presents 15 Beatles songs (including Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, Michelle and All my loving) in bespoke arrangements for guitar (and in some cases special guests) by the Brazilian guitarist, composer and arranger Sérgio Assad.
Recorded (fittingly enough) at Abbey Road Studios last November, Blackbird features an eclectic range of collaborators including Tori Amos, Gregory Porter and Steven Isserlis; I spoke to Miloš last week about the genesis of the project, the experience of recording in the studios where these iconic songs were first set down, and the challenges of moving outside the classical 'comfort-zone'…
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Tell me a little about how you first encountered The Beatles - was this music part of your frame of reference growing up in Montenegro, or did it come later?
Growing up in Montenegro, I always knew of The Beatles. However, it wasn’t until I moved to London around 15 years ago that I encountered The Beatles’ music properly. I was studying at the Royal Academy of Music at the time and when I began discussing recital repertoire with my teacher at the Academy, he gave me a little tip to look at some arrangements of The Beatles songs that were done by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. This seemed funny to me, as I hadn’t really come to the Royal Academy of Music to study a pop song! But I opened the music and out of all the others, Yesterday was something that I completely fell in love with. I realised that this is such beautiful music and that my teacher was right - in a recital of all these big sonatas and suites, if I did one of those songs as an encore, people are going to LOVE it! So that’s how it all began. I then went on to learn the three other songs that Takemitsu had arranged and gradually, I was opening myself to this (for me at that time) completely new world…
After three albums of the core classical guitar rep, with which I inevitably needed to introduce myself to the audience, I knew that this fourth release was a chance to begin a new artistic chapter and try something different - The Beatles seemed a perfect choice. Their songs have been around for the last 50 years, they are stunning, they’ve stood the test of time and they are today loved as much as they were on Day One. I was very, very excited by that... Also, the guitar as an instrument sits very comfortably between the worlds of classical and mainstream, and that, like the music of The Beatles proves the point that music is music regardless of the genre.
You mention that your focus until now has been on core classical repertoire: did you find yourself exploring and embracing new non-classical techniques for this project?
I knew that with this project I had to be willing to open myself up to all the directions that were necessary to make this a successful recording. This meant working on a somewhat different, more immediate and direct sound, as well as working with people other than those from the classical world, which was inevitably going to challenge the way I think and feel. Throughout the project and through all those amazing collaborators I was so lucky to have on the album, I was encountering new things that I needed to try out, such as playing really jazzy passages, bending notes and getting a little bit more dirty... because, well, that’s the style of it! This was all extremely liberating - I just had the best time ever!
Did you consciously want to bring together classical and non-classical musicians when you started thinking about Blackbird, and how did that side of things take shape?
I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to collaborate with people I respect and love. It’s so much fun when you are out there, making music with each other - especially when they are colleagues, friends and people you respect as musicians, but also adore and feel completely free around in person. So to tell you the truth, I simply asked various friends to come on board when I was sure of where I was going with it all... And everyone said yes… I guess it's because we all love The Beatles!
The album's a mixture of solo tracks and arrangements for voice and guitar, or even guitar and small string ensemble - how did you come to decide that a particular track needed a vocal line, or strings, rather than working as a stand-alone?
It was quite a complicated building process... First of all, I decided 100% that ‘I want to record The Beatles’. But I also immediately knew that I wanted to do my thing with them because I simply didn't want to take the obvious route of recording the Takemitsu arrangements and the Brouwer arrangements. Don't get me wrong, those are great, but it's been done and they are already part of the classical guitar repertoire. So I called up Sergio Assad and started from scratch with him. We went through all the songs and chose the ones we knew would work and the ones which we weren't sure about... Yes, guitar IS a small orchestra, but this is a pop band with vocals, drums and everything else. The magic of that vocal line is the most important thing to sustain - I wasn’t willing to compromise there.
One evening I came back from a long tour, printed out all the music that Sergio sent me, sat on the floor at home, began looking at all the scores and playing. It was then when I started to understand more and more as to where all this was going. It became obvious that all the songs worked, but there are other layers that needed to be added to some of them. So that’s how it all evolved and that’s how I got my collaborators - by simply throwing those ideas up there, discussing them with everyone involved, trying them out, and then seeing if that’s the right thing to do or not. There were some surprises on the way, but we got there in the end!
Also being at the Abbey Road in that amazing studio and working with my producer, Jonathan Allen, was so valuable... We had an absolute mutual understanding of how we heard the tracks and how they needed to sound once they passed through the microphones… There were so many elements in all this and they are all equally valuable. This project is a true labour of love, and indeed, all you need IS love.
