Flight to Romance (album)

As the palne soars, we go over enormous plain regions, like the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela; or over huge jungle sections, like those of El Chaco or Mato Grosso. We admire the blue vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the winding line of the Atlantic coast; we identify the eternal Amazon, running perpendiculary to the Andes, and the soft and fertile immensity of the Argentine Pampa. Suddenly we perceive, far away down there, shrouded in clouds and as though presiding over all this mysterious greatness, the lofty Aconcagua, highest peak of the Andean range.

Here and there lie cities whose evocative names tell us of their history, their legend — or of the rich and active life of our day. They speak of the romantic enchantment they have known how to preserve throughout the centuries.

And so we enjoy the long twilights in which it seems that the sky has set itself afire and then is slowy covered by the black mantle of the night ... or the beautiful dawns in which the sun comes out as in a rapture of glory, brightening joyously all this fantastic variety of color, landscape, peoples.

Of course it is only natural that this infinite diversity of elements would influence the music of these lands of the South. In this album FLIGHT TO ROMANCE, Al Romero, as in a kaleidoscopic dream, offers and inspiring collection of impressions of various Latin American lands. His music conjures up dreams of serenades in the moonlight — guitars struming and accompaniment to a voice that sings to a fair lady's eyes — the voice that suddenly ceases and two rivals who, swinging blindly their machetes that flash in the night, fight for the favors of those bewitching eyes — men who know how to love ... men who know how to die for their love ... ! Or perhaps it is a sentimental scene with a flavor of the nineteenth century — the romantic century — followed by vibrating pictures of sun and color and mad rhythms that excite our imagination and make our blood run faster ...

We listen now to a Pasillo, Sombras, so typical of Colombia ... and then to a graceful Chilean Cueca ... or maybe to a Bailecito, Lamento, characteristically Bolivian ... or to a Sanjuanito, Ay Pobrecito, so truly Ecuadorian ... or to some pleasant Vals Criollo of Romero's homeland or a nostalgic impression of the Pampa — all creating a truly delightful musical mosaic which never tires us.