Strunz & Farah is a guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 duo with an eclectic sound that have been described as a cross between world fusion

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

 and flamenco

Flamenco

Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....

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History

Jorge Strunz, born in Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

, and Ardeshir Farah

Ardeshir Farah

Ardeshir Farah is an Iranian musician and guitarist. He was born in Tehran. Farah is half of the guitar duo Strunz & Farah.Farah's work in Strunz & Farah earned him a Grammy Award in 1991. His works include jazz, rock and pop music. Influence of Iranian music is evident in his works. He is a...

, hailing from Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, met in the United States in 1979. Jorge Strunz was one of the founders of the Latin jazz band, Caldera (band)

Caldera (band)

Caldera was an American band, that combined jazz, funk and rock with a wide variety of Latin music. 1970s fusion explorers like Return to Forever and Weather Report influenced Caldera, but its members were also influenced by everything from Earth, Wind & Fire's soul/funk to Afro-Cuban salsa,...

. Caldera was a Latin band that combined jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 with a wide variety of Latin music. 1970s fusion

Fusion (music)

A fusion genre is music that combines two or more styles. For example, rock and roll originally developed as a fusion of blues, gospel and country music. The main characteristics of fusion genres are variations in tempo, rhythm, i a sometimes the use of long musical "journeys" that can be divided...

 explorers like Return to Forever

Return to Forever

Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...

 and Weather Report

Weather Report

Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter...

 influenced Caldera. The four albums they produced (none of which have been reissued on CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

) did not sell, and the band called it quits in 1979. However, most of Caldera's members kept busy long after its breakup. Strunz went on to form the guitar duo Strunz & Farah with Iranian

Iranian peoples

The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...

/Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

 guitarist Ardeshir Farah

Ardeshir Farah

Ardeshir Farah is an Iranian musician and guitarist. He was born in Tehran. Farah is half of the guitar duo Strunz & Farah.Farah's work in Strunz & Farah earned him a Grammy Award in 1991. His works include jazz, rock and pop music. Influence of Iranian music is evident in his works. He is a...

.

Having both played guitar professionally since their early teens, they soon teamed up and released their self-produced first album Mosaico in 1980, which started their own label, Selva Records. Soon they caught the attention of Richard Bock, an important figure in jazz radio, who helped the duo land a contract with jazz label Milestone

Milestone Records

Milestone Records is a United States based jazz record label, founded in 1966 by Orrin Keepnews and Dick Katz in New York City. The company was incorporated into Fantasy Records in 1972, since then it has been used for reissues as well as for new recordings....

.

Since then Strunz & Farah have played on numerous recordings together, releasing several albums as a duo and collaborating with the likes of Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...

 and L. Subramaniam

L. Subramaniam

Dr. Lakshminarayana Subramaniam is an acclaimed Indian violinist, composer and conductor, trained in the classical Carnatic music tradition and Western classical music, and renowned for his virtuoso playing techniques and compositions in orchestral fusion.-Early years:Subramaniam was born to V...

. Jorge Strunz was once recommended by friend Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez , is a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist and composer. He is considered by many to be one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre...

 as a replacement for Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...

 in The Guitar Trio

The Guitar Trio

The Guitar Trio is a reunion album by Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía and John McLaughlin, released in 1996 after 13 years without playing together...

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The duo also worked with Sting on the album The Living Sea: Soundtrack from the IMAX Film

The Living Sea: Soundtrack from the IMAX Film

The Living Sea: Soundtrack from the IMAX Film is the soundtrack album accompanying the IMAX film The Living Sea. The album was recorded by Sting and Steve Wood...

as session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

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Discography

• Mosaico - (1980)
• Frontera - (1984)
• Guitarras - (1985)
• Misterio - (1989, Sledgehammer Blues)
• Primal Magic - (1990)
• Americas - (1992)
• Heat Of The Sun - (1995)
• Live - (1997)
• Wild Muse - (1998)
• The Best Of: - (2000)
• Stringweave - (2001)
• Rio de Colores - (2003)
• In Performance - (2003); DVD
• Zona Torrida - (2004)
• Desert Guitars - (2005)
• Fantaseo - (2006)
• Jungle Guitars - (2006)
• Journey Around The Sun - (2011)