Francisco Correa on Songs from Beyond

With his guitar in hand and a global vision in mind, Francisco Correa's versatile career has seen him explore music from around the world. From the canon of Western classical music to the material of Latin America, his acclaimed sound has proven he's just as much at home in the intimate settings of chamber ensembles as he is in the company of larger organisations such as the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia. 

But it's his latest project where the guitarist explores the work of British composer John W Duarte, particularly his arrangements of jazz standards, in his album Songs from Beyond. I spoke to Francisco about the legacy and impact of Duarte’s contribution to guitar music, the significance of the classical/jazz crossover, and the intricacy of performing these jazz standards outside of their assumed and traditional contexts.  

Tell us about the project. What drew you to these arrangements, and why did you decide to dedicate an entire album to them?

Well I’m a dual-citizen – British and Colombian. I’ve recorded albums designed to increase the visibility of Colombian music, and parallel to that I've been exploring British composers as well. The arranger John Duarte is definitely a composer that deserves to be highlighted, and his catalogue contains material that hasn't really been done. That’s another important facet about how I choose what to record: I try to find either material that hasn't been done, or things that would benefit from a fresh recording – something unique and that contributes to the general discourse of music. 

So with that in mind and looking for more British composers, I started talks with Christopher Duarte, the son of Jack Duarte. It’s a labour of love for him: compiling, recovering, recording, and commissioning artists to revise and record all the works by his dad. He sent me this pile of music which I started my way through, but then a couple months later he mentioned the jazz arrangements. That sold me right there. He sent me sixty-seven jazz arrangements in total, and as soon as I saw the names Jerome Kern and Cole Porter I just connected with repertoire that I personally really love. I mean, who doesn't like those songs? Making my way through them I just found that they're such fantastic arrangements, and it fit perfectly with my vision and the things I want to do with my recording path. So that was the starting point.

It sounds like that collaboration and relationship with Christopher Duarte was important. Was he involved much in the process of this album? 

Oh totally, he was very supportive. Whilst I was looking into the arrangements, Chris asked me to revise a few things as I was checking the spellings on the notes, expression marks and guitar fingerings etc. and we ended up publishing the thirteen Cole Porter arrangements with Faber Music back in February. That was a constant back and forth with Chris pretty much every day for a few months until that was published, and at the same time Chris was asking which ones I was going to record. I took some time deciding – there's just so much choice, and they're all great, but finally I ended up doing nine of the Porters that have now been published. Jerome Kern I absolutely love, plus there are a few that Chris put forward and were included. 

There’s an arrangement of ‘Body and Soul’ by Johnny Green which has a special history because it was a commission of Laurindo Almeida, a hugely influential figure of Bossa Nova and Brazilian guitar music. Many decades ago, there was a conversation that John Duarte had with Almeida in the 50s, and Laurindo commissioned that very arrangement. We don't really know if he ever got to play it in public: there are the letters with the correspondence, and then the arrangement was produced. It's beautifully crafted and technically so well done that it just had to be included, and Chris’ input was so integral for that. 

There are four duets too on the album that Jack wrote for two guitars. Sometimes it was just because he wanted to play something with his students, so some aren’t massively technically demanding but they are beautiful pieces of music. I invited another guitar player to join me instead of overdubbing myself and that’s where Daniela Rossi came in. She’s an Argentinian guitarist based in the UK, and so we recorded those four duos together.

Did playing alongside Daniela Rossi introduce a different sound to the album?

In this case, it was absolutely perfect. We haven't played together before, so it was a case of just a few rehearsals before the album and then we were recording and listening to the takes. There are moments where you're not sure if there is one guitar or two because the sounds are just so well matched in the timing and expression. We communicate so much that it just feels like it's flowing, so having that included was really special. I hope to do some more projects together because it just works.

Jazz standards can be interpreted in many ways. How did you balance staying true to Duarte’s arrangements while bringing your own voice to the music?

I find it a fascinating process because it takes me back to when I was living in Paris about seventeen or eighteen years ago now. I lived there for around eight years, and when I was there I was studying classical and jazz guitar, listening to a lot of new music coming in on the radio from Jamie Cullum and Diana Krall. I thought that they were great versions of the classics – and I think lots of people dismiss them because maybe they sound too poppy for purists, but I think they’re fresh and fun versions.

I was studying the classics, so I had in one ear in the Ella Fitzgerald versions, and the other ear in the Diana Krall one. So approaching my own music I’m not trying to imitate anything, but I’m often inspired by phrases I like that may lean towards a certain interpretation, and I think it makes it cohesive. The songs have been done so many times in so many forms and shapes. Not really on solo guitar though, which is what makes this album so brilliant.

How do you see the significance of Duarte’s work in the broader context of guitar music, especially bridging jazz and classical traditions?

It's another part of my work, trying to draw audiences from different spectrums. As a tiny sidetrack, I'm doing a trio show – just two guitars and a flute player/singer doing classical Spanish music. But that’s evolved to include a fair bit of acting and comedy in between the music, so it’s like a combination of a concert and a play. My hope with that work is to bring the people that like the theatre across to discover something new.

We have the same battle with guitar: I don’t like to say that I'm a classical guitarist or a jazz guitarist – I just want to play beautiful music and get people to love the guitar again, because unfortunately I think it’s sort of gone out of fashion. The way it's working in education settings, the kids are starting to learn the nylon string guitar just because you have to do the basics, and then in one year they go and get their first electric guitar. It's just dismissed as this little stepping stone, and a vast ocean of music and genres that you can play on a nylon ends up being ignored.

If I manage to get people that are perhaps more familiar with jazz to get into the classical side, or the other way around, I think that's a great way to tempt them to look into more music. We can get sort of pigeonholed into a mindset where we only like this or that - if we don't know much about another style it’s easier to just say ‘I don’t like it’. I hope that this album, and in general all the work I'm doing, is going to offer more musical richness and different experiences, to expose people to more music.

Tell us about the title of the album. Why Songs from Beyond?

I think the title is really interesting because the title has three layers to it. Reflecting on how those jazz standards went from the dance hall, through musicals and movies, and through to now – it's beyond time in that sense. Another layer is just the heritage, or the work that Jack Duarte did for approximately forty years. He passed away around twenty years ago, and those arrangements were primarily done between the 50s and the 80s. So just taking them and bringing them back feels like it matches the title and links back to that legacy he’s left behind. And the third meaning is the crossing beyond the jazz genre and leaning towards the classical. The title means a lot to me, because it represents a multitude of things that I constantly reflect on within the album. 

Can you share any particular challenges or surprises you encountered when working on this album, especially with pieces that were previously unknown?

Well, the arrangements aren’t easy! A lot of them are quite challenging in various different ways. One of the biggest challenges are the songs where I have to be super careful with the melody and the different voicings. I’m effectively trying to sing through the guitar whilst having the backing underneath, so keeping those levels present but not letting it overpower the melody all within just six strings of one guitar can be quite tricky. Now I’ve had a little more distance from the recording back in December, I'm feeling quite pleased with how it came out. The time after the recording is usually quite hard for me because for about a month afterwards, I can't appreciate the music. I reflect on what I don’t like and what I’d redo… but you can't just keep retaking for years – you’ll never get anything out. At some point, you just have to embrace the imperfections, and I'm happy with the result.

What do you hope that listeners will take away from the album?

Well, I think it’s touching on what we were talking about before: it’s opening listeners up to new ranges of musical styles. But I suppose those songs were, or have been, performed in larger settings. Yes, they can be put into the context of a small band in a jazz club, but the classical guitar is so intimate that it feels on another level. You can have a big band just blasting their way through with all these songs, and that sounds great, or just a singer with a small quartet, but even smaller than that is the classical guitar. I think you have that sense of communication with the audience, and hopefully they’ll enjoy that intimacy and immediacy of the classical guitar, and that six-string sound.

Looking ahead, do you plan to explore any other projects?

Oh gosh, yes, loads is coming up. I have a crazy busy performance schedule with about fifteen to twenty performances before the end of the year, and 2026 is filling up quite nicely. Performance-wise, I always have three or four programmes on the go. I have my solo stuff, as well as a duo project around South American and Colombian music. It’s a cross-genre between classical music and folk, but all presented in a really high-quality way. I feel really strongly about that, as folk can often be perceived as not so polished because people say it’s down to the style. Sometimes that can be true, but I don't want to fully subscribe to the fact that folk cannot be done to the highest performance level – folk is music, and it's as important and as beautiful as the top material of jazz or classical. It's just the same. I don't feel like there is one that deserves more attention than any other, so that's something I'm working with on this project. I have the trio project too that I mentioned earlier, which performing-wise is quite busy.

In terms of recording, there’s this album and the seventh album is already pretty much finished. So we're just waiting till next spring for the release of that one and doing the final touches on album art and things. But that album is there, so I'm just doing some pre-production for the next one. I have a recording date for that soon, and so it continues!

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