Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 14, 1986)
Alone traveler dressed in an overcoat and a tip ped hat carries a guitar case into a dark and almost-vacant Oregon Electric Station. He’s barely noticed as he sets his case down and settles onto a bar stool. A train is heard roar ing outside in the distance. The bartender, who finishes mixing a drink for a young woman sit ting at the bur's end, approaches the newcomer. ... ..... _. "You got any music?" the stranger replies in monotone. "On Saturday nights," the woman interjects. The stranger, undaunted and relaxed, looks pen sively away as visions of a slow-moving train carrying his lover emerge. And amidst railroad-station steam, jazz guitarist I)uir Latarski strikes the beginning chords to his new locally-produced music video ‘ "Private Affair." now being aired on cable stations • nation-wide. • ' • The video focuses oh latarski as a traveling jazz musician, stranded overnight and looking for a place . to musically demonstrate the emotion he's feeling-for hip absent .girlfriend, Interspersed in this sort of .. musical.'reverie are. images of a crowded barroom, where Uitarski and fellow musicians are set playing in the company of liatarski’s lover; wh’o:a perched at a • '•front table, holding a yhllovy h)se; . • •“The video closes much the; way jt begins. Song •‘. completed., latarski- gathers his belongings and, before parting; moves tp pick uprhe.ye1.low rose lying • on the table once occupied by his girlfriendLv . ,. latarski says his new Venture’, which tiMik about, six months’to complete, marks a hew direction for o .Him as a. rehording artist.-He says the Video" was pro . duced in Eugene last sprang because ’it was "less ex pensive to-pull people.and machinery together,-fof a ..’ video here," and is played on about 12 different cable ' stations.across the country. . • ' • . "VVe're trying to*get the attention of .major recor ding companies .through - a ’ grassroots .mpyement . because I'm'not as weti.knpwn in other.pjacos in.ihe - country as I'd like, tojbe" latarski says,-?; . ■ The music, that accompanies the video; c*n-be ’ found on "a 12-inch'single., also'called "Private Af fair!", latarski. says° the music itself gdyesrlse to new horizons because he ’ s incorporat i ng VocaIs w 1th It for the first time; "Private Affair.’’ a high-energy jazz . piece, .runs about three. niinutes,and includes backup vocals from the Portland:based-Linn Sisters. The flip _ side features.the lead sing'ing’ of Calvin Walker on a . song called. "Poor Man!!' > • ,.. Like many Eugene, jazz musicians striving to gain greater recognition. latarski keeps busy looking for Ways, to expose his talent on a national scale He says the song "Poor Man" was jargely. the result of his playing and mixing all'the instruments arid rhythms in a friend's garage In Edgene! " "It was cheap because.of that,.", he says, "and also because I; got to do .all the engineering, putting things together." building. And I like to dp that. I like to be. »n charge of turning all’ the knobs. 1 can just remember that as a kid; ( always liked to build things Now i like to put things together musically " Because there are no major recording companies in Eugene^. latarski says"■ he'll, continue to diversify " w’hat: he. knows and can- do "with music until / .'.'something turns out to lie very worth while." V “I’ve gpt.lpts.of fishing lines out in the water." he saya!.".lf.something really bites! i'll have to seriously cut back on all’the other things I'm doing." From the looks of what the 32-year-old guitarist has going now. that could mean a lot. He's currently an adjunct faculty menjberat the University's School of Music, a member of the Performing Arts faculty at Lane Community College. and a private instructor to about 30 students. latarski says he's also often spon sored by the Oregon Arts Commission to tour outside the state. The National Young Audlonces program schedules him at elementary-school assemblies in Portland once a week. For example, latarski might take a song like "Old McDonald" and demonstrate to the children how it can be rewritten to include jazz rhythms. Then he invites them up on stage to scat sing to the improvised sounds. "You get these little kids up there, and they’re not afrr d to try anything." be says. "It’s really a gas." to do when I’m soloing and when I'm writing tunes.” Latarski admits he can play any style of guitar music, but says he’s found a niche in this funkish jazz style he picked up over the years. An example of his style can lie found on his "Haven” or "Lifeline” albums, which he says didn’t "bust any charts” but remain important to him. latarski has published several books on chord structuring and scale patterns for guitar as well. On the wall of his small home-recording studio hangs a framed letter from a guitar player in Poland who had requested a copy of l.atarski'8 ”Moveable Guitar Chords.” Longhours in-the' mcimling'stadia paid off for Kugene jazz guitarist lion iMtarski in the form of a high energy t2-irn:h single, ■'Private-Affair' .1..’ , ' .1 jitarski says he's also gelling a fair amount of work writing music for commercial" videos. . And recently.' he's been hired to compose aSO-miniitesong for an aerobics- video by. the American Gymnastics training center in Eugene v • : : Which'brings us to the question of how all this got'8tarteiJr ■' ' . '• hafurski first .picked up the guitar at age lO-when he. was living on a.small farm 40 miles outside of Detroit. He ssys he took many lassorts so that "I could read music pretty well by the time I was 12 Since then i haven't stopped playing the guitar for more than three days in niy; life:" In 1073. he decided to study in Eugene on a "whim." lie says he'd never been away from home for more than iwo weeks at a time before then but he “just decided, though, that it was time to go." latarski was most influenced by early Eric Clap ton and George Hitmson music, and now by some of P»t Metheny's-lyrics, lie says he was able to combine those influences into a style unique io the way he now plays. • . • \ ' "I jike George Benson because he's got such an incredible rhythmic kif^nsityespecially his earlier stuff." he says. "And"Pat Metheny 1 like because of his I’yrkis and his sense of melody. When I'm playing I really try tb'play with rhythmic intensity and sort of a funky edge. Metheny doesn't have that, but I like his lyricism. So I try, to combine funky lines and yet have good lyrica.! ideas. That's essentially what I'm trying Amidst all the business of squaring contracts for video commercials, writing guitar excercise books and teaching , lessons to... young guitarists. Latarski does find time ti> perform here and in Portland. The . Don l^iurski Croup. which he says is too intense for Oregon night-club audiences out to socialize, plays concerts mostly;in auditoriums, parks and "an occa sional wedding in the woods”. • ■ "People here drag a generator out to the worlds, and hire a band to play at their wedding out there." he says. ..V ' y His other grpup,- The Don Latarski, Quartet, features singer Jqe Borland and performs in places like |o Faderigb's and the Oregon Electric Station, latarski says that BO.pnrcerit of the quartet’s repertoire in cludes vocal music, and "people can talk then if they want to." "V . > Why dries l-atarski remain in Eugene, when there’s a gooti chance that he’d survive in a larger city with a larger recording industry? He says he’s entren ched in his work here and would leave under only one condition -^"guaranteed dollars.” "You have to do more than be a good musician in this world to make a living at doing music," he says. "Being a good musician just isn’t enough. You’ve got ta teach and do other things until you get a contract that’ll take you places." Story by Eric Eoloff Photos by Ross Martin ^ETHMOCEMTRICS EMU Food Service and the Cultural Forum Present The Beer Garden □TODAY□ Good Music & Cold Beer 4 - 7 pm in the EMU Fountain Court Food fit Mon-Alcoholic Beverages Available MAKE with your ALENTINE DOZEN LONG STEMMED ROSES *22.50 (shipped anywhere in USA $29.95) Q?ase (jarde^s Gree9tyodse5ales Klntrow 4 Cantannlal (acrota Iha lootbfldga at gala 3 Aulzan stadium) Mon Sal. S;3fr5:30; Sun. 12 5:00 Give Life. Give Plasma. 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