PREVIEW : Guitarist Laurindo Almeida Paved the Way

These days, we have become so inured to the Latin-tinged sound of the classical guitar that we are more likely to associate its music with car commercials than with the concert hall. But when Laurindo Almeida first came to United States from Brazil in 1947, the guitar was considered a simple instrument capable of producing only simple chords. Almeida was largely responsible for introducing Americans to the popular classical guitar repertoire.

Almeida helped to spark the big bossa nova craze of the ‘60s, too. More than eleven years before Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz recorded “Desafinado,” the album that kicked off the American bossa nova movement, Almeida collaborated with Bud Shank on a controversial jazz-samba album called “Brazilliance” that basically defined the bossa nova sound. “The music didn’t even have a name then,” Almeida says.

The United States has been good to Almeida. “I was very lucky,” he says. “Right away, I got my first job in America, in a Danny Kaye movie (‘A Song is Born’), where I got to work with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Ella Fitzgerald. My second job was with Stan Kenton, and that lasted three years.” Five Grammy Awards (and 19 nominations) later, Almeida lives with soprano Deltra (Dede) Eamon, his wife of 17 years, in a quiet Sherman Oaks neighborhood. But their life is far from sedate. Both are often on the road performing with various trios and orchestras (Almeida recently performed in a guitar jam at Carnegie Hall; Eamon was recently on tour in a Victor Borge production of “Carmen”), and they often perform together.

Saturday night, the pair will appear at Cal Lutheran University with the Conejo Symphony Orchestra in a concert titled “Four Bs--Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Brazil.” The concert will be conducted by the orchestra’s music director, Elmer Ramsey, who prodded Almeida into writing his first concerto.

“Elmer commissioned that piece five or six years ago,” Almeida says. But it almost didn’t get done. “I had just returned from a tour of Japan and had to get up at three in the morning to finish in time for the concert. Luckily, I had all the themes in my head.” Almeida’s Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra was recently released on compact disk by Concord Records.

The concert will feature a variety of musical styles--including Beethoven’s 6th Symphony, a Brazilian aria written by Heitor Villa-Lobos (and sung by Eamon) and the premiere of a work by Almeida based on Brazilian folk tunes.

Almeida’s catholic tastes are controversial among purists. But Almeida’s music is simply the result of his cultural influences--the classical piano music he first heard played by his mother, the samba rhythms of his native Brazil, and his exposure to jazz during his first years in America.

“I’m primarily a classical guitarist--all my Grammies are for that,” Almeida says. “But I don’t think you should have a barrier.”

“There’s no point in being a musical snob,” Eamon says. “You have to be flexible--Itzhak Perlman even does commercials.”

Almeida doesn’t worry about what his music should be labeled. “To me, there are only two kinds of music,” he says. “Bad and Good. I like the good.”

But, he admits, “some music hurts my ears. There’s only so much the eardrum can take.”

The Conejo Symphony Orchestra, with guest artists Laurindo Almeida and Deltra Eamon, perform Saturday, April 23 at 8 p.m. in the auditorium of Cal Lutheran University, Memorial Parkway, Thousand Oaks. Tickets are $10.50-$15 for adults, $8.50-$13.50 for students. For more information call (805) 495-7582.