On El Viejo Caminante (The Old Wanderer) two guitars surround the bandoneon of Dino Saluzzi. The Argentinian master turned 90 in May 2025, a few weeks before the album appeared. He plays with his son José María Saluzzi and the Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young, in a programme of originals by all three, a song by Karin Krog and two American standards. Saluzzi hears it as music from different times and places that touches on tango, Argentinian folk music and jazz without settling in any of them.
The project began in 2022, when Young travelled to Argentina for a series of concerts with José. Dino heard them play in Buenos Aires and invited the guitarist back the following year. The trio recorded in April 2023 at the Saluzzi Music Studio, the family's own studio in Buenos Aires, with Lobo Zepol and Nestor Diaz as engineers. Diaz mixed the album in February 2025 at La Montaña Studio in Madrid, and Manfred Eicher was executive producer. José plays classical guitar, Young electric and acoustic steel-string guitar, and the contrast between nylon and steel shapes the sound. "They have different sounds, different visions, but when it comes to the artistic output there is something beautiful happening," Dino says.
The opening La Ciudad de los Aires Buenos, by José, lets the bandoneon lay a ground over which the two guitarists draw their lines in real time. Mi Hijo y Yo, written by father and son together, is a duet in which José's muted touch defers to Dino's lead. Young contributes three pieces, among them Dino Is Here, written for these sessions, which moves between a sprightly tango feel and quieter reflection. The standards, Someday My Prince Will Come and My One and Only Love, are recast in the trio's own unhurried manner.
Reviewing it in Jazz Journal, Michael Tucker called it "a tempered, exquisite and most intimate recital" and noted how its 71 minutes unfold without strain. He placed it in a long ECM history that includes Saluzzi's work with the Rosamunde String Quartet on Kultrum and, most recently, the solo album Albores. Stephen Graham in Marlbank gave it five stars, adding: "A lot of this album is 5 star (second thoughts: it's all 5-star)."
This is the CD edition, ECM 2802, first released on 11 July 2025.
