Guitar Bazaar is the second solo recording by Tim Sparks

Tim Sparks

Tim Sparks is an American acoustic guitar player, singer, arranger and composer.- Biography:Raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he was given his first guitar when a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year...

 on the Acoustic Music Records label, released in 1995.

History

After a journey to Hungary, Yugoslavia and Bosnia in the late 1980s, Sparks began an interest in Eastern European music. He began playing in various world music groups and immersed himself in various styles. He has described Guitar Bazaar as a fusion of Middle Eastern and American roots music. The album includes arrangements of Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

's Romanian Dances. It was this album that John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

 heard that led to Sparks' recording of his series of albums for Tzadik Records

Tzadik Records

Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...

.

Reception

Guitar Player

Guitar Player

Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...

wrote in their review, "If you're getting complacent about your acoustic fingerpicking, you'd better hear Tim Sparks' new CD... There's nothing forced or studied about his playing or compositions: his intense, on-the-edge attack speaks of many nights wailing around campfires in places most of us have never heard of."

Track listing

All compositions by Tim Sparks.

1. "Bach-n-Aliya" – 5:08
2. "The Rain Beggar" – 6:21
3. "Guitar Bazaar" – 3:17
4. "Sleeping Giant" – 9:15
5. "Chasing the Dragon" – 4:40
6. "Rumanian Folk Dances" – 5:19
7. "It's Greek to Me" – 5:28
8. "Sailing to Byzantium" – 4:32
9. "Dr. Smedvig's Berzerka" – 3:40

Personnel

• Tim Sparks - acoustic guitar
• Tim O'Keefe - frame drum, harmonica, doumbec
• Jim Price - violin
• Mark Stillman - accordion
• Yanaris Asimakes - bouzouki

Production notes

• Produced by Tim Sparks and Jay M. Fleming
• Executive producer - Peter Finger
• Engineered by Jay Fleming