Maui-based Spanish musician Fernando Perez transport listeners on an intriguing voyage around the world on his recently released CD, “Mojo Roots Music”.

This very gifted guitarist employs a rare National resonator guitar, crafting a captivating collection of instrumental compositions that reflects influences from Hawai’i, Japan, Central and South America and Africa. Adept at playing many styles of music from classical and flamenco to jazz and Hawaiian, Perez has devoted years to studying traditional music from most major world cultures. These diverse strands are all distilled into the eloquent original music displayed on “Mojo Roots Music”.Living on Maui for three years, Perez, has fondness for the style of Hawaiian music played decades ago.

The soothing tropical sound of the opening track, “Kalani”, conjures archetypal images of gorgeous sunrises framed by gently swaying palm trees and the lulling wash of ocean waves. Other Hawaiian-themed instrumentals include “Ahi”, “Hawaiian dream” and the robust “Wiki Wiki”. Ranging further afield, Perez draws from Argentinean and Cuban influences on “Tango”, while on “Arabian”, he employs a rumba style he learned from Spanish gypsies. The one nonoriginal track, “Ame”, is a rendition of a traditional Japanese piece typically played on the koto.“I had to do a lot of tricks on the National to get the range of the Koto”, he explains. “The hardest part with all the music I doi s to really get the spirit of the music.

Switching from Argentinean tango to Japanese song requires a totally different state of mind.”All the songs on “Mojo Roots Music” are played on a distintive-sounding National resonator guitar. These metal-bodied guitars were firts created in the era of the Hawaiian and jazz bands, prior to electrical amplification.

All kind of musicians, Hawaiian, jazz and blues, wanted louder guitars to be heard alongside horns and to project out into music halls and night clubs. Hawaiian guitar legend Sol Hoopi’i championed the national in the islands. By 1929, three years after his first recordings with a National, 90 percent of Hawaiian recording artist used this type of guitar.

“Amongst acoustic instruments, it has one of the most dynamic ranges,” Perez reports. “You can get a lot of tones that are very appropiate for what I want to do.”Born in a small town in the north of Spain, Perez began studying classical guitar at seven. By his college years he was studying orchestration and composition in Madrid and Barcelona.

(continue...) A move to Los Angeles led to him to play with a bunch of artists like Ronnie Turner, the son of Ike and Tina Turner.”But I got to a point where a lot of important things where missing, the music was the same old thing and lacking spirit,” he recalls.

“I had to choose and take of a leap of faith and do what I really wanted to do and follow my beliefs. Since doing that, my life is way better.”While he currently has no regular venue on Maui for his solo work - “It’s not the kind of music you can play anywhere, like in a bar or a lobby of a hotel.”- he does perform old-timey Hawaiian music on Tuesday mornings at the Shops in Kapalua as part of the group Maui Calls with Kalani Smythe and Hula dancer Wainani Hyman.

Hopefully, more doors will open for this talented artist because his original music definitely deserves a public forum.

People tell him they experience a very peacefull feeling hearing his music.

“The music I do is very intimate, it comes from deep in my heart,” he concludes. “I really enjoy helping people forget about their lives and they can enjoy the experience of different sounds of different peoples."