JAZZ REVIEW : Guitarist Ciro Hurtado Is on Top of the World

Ciro Hurtado may have been born and raised in Peru but his music reflects citizenship in the global village.

His first set Friday night at the San Juan Capistrano Library, pulled almost entirely from his new ROM release “Tales From Home,” featured the coastal Afro-Peruvian rhythms he heard while growing up. But the guitarist and his sextet also utilized forms from other South and Central American countries, as well as influences from jazz and rock ‘n’ roll (Hurtado’s other band, Huayucaltia, stays closer to traditional South American music).

The resulting sound was, like most cross-cultural endeavors, brimming with life, rich in a variety of traditions. Hurtado took time between numbers to explain the different styles he incorporated, making the program even more rewarding.

A good example of this hybridization was Hurtado’s composition “Pollo Llanero,” a title he translated to mean “Free Range Chicken.” The piece, which moved ahead at a gallop, combines the Colombian pollo style with the Venezuelan form llanero , a term that suggests the country’s open plains.

Its theme, stated by Hurtado and on flute by Cindy Harding, led to variations by both musicians, with Harding’s flute skittering along like a hen scratching in the yard. Light, percussive rattle from Michito Sanchez complemented the effect.

The ensemble opened with “Tales of Chacera” (“Cuentos de Chacera”), establishing the mood of the tune with glistening synthesizer tones layered behind panpipes and the large, shoulder-hung drum known as the bombo.

Rock-inspired guitar chords and electric bass lines led to a melody stated by flute and guitar while Libby Harding set the pace on the small cuatro guitar. The tune ended on the kind of dynamic build one expects from jazz-fusion ensembles.

“Aguas”--inspired, Hurtado explained, by the rivers that rush out of the Peruvian mountains to the sea--took a more delicate approach, with sparser backing and passages from both Hardings on panpipes. Bassist Guillermo Guzman took a quiet approach during a short solo before Hurtado spun long lines and sharply strummed chords into the mix.

Throughout the performance, the guitarist demonstrated a distinctive, classically Spanish-flavored approach while favoring ascending lines and circular figures. There was little of the sort of flash one hears from, say, the guitar duo of Strunz and Farah.

Instead, Hurtado stuck to clean execution of the melody and brought simply stated, folksy lyricism to his improvisations, many of which disappeared into the upper register with a series of clicks on his strings.

The rhythm section showed the same competence, adapting to a variety of moods and beats. During Hurtado’s “In My Mind” (“En Mi Mente”), drummer Paul Tchonga provided a solid, rock-steady beat for Cindy Harding’s recorder lines. Percussionist Sanchez added a palette’s worth of colors to “Magic Mist” while keyboardist Gary Johnson added the synthesized sounds of French horn.

Hurtado’s most ambitious solo came during “Amanda,” a song named for his daughter. The introduction was warm and heartfelt but, as the tune developed, took on an assertive quality with lines that accelerated as they moved up the scale. A hard-rock chorus provided a nice contrast to a ballad-like feel.

That’s the kind of thing Hurtado does especially well--taking two (or more) disparate moods or styles and melding them into a cohesive statement.