Laguestra

Friday, 29 December 2006

Elsewhere on this site I will soon put up everything I know about Laguestra. He was born in Rotterdam, on march 29 1914, as Willy Langestraat. His passion for music showed in everything he did: playing countless instruments, composing, leading many bands and orchestra’s, collecting instruments, etc.
When I discovered his music (a 45 on a flea market), he was slipping into the black hole of history. Although he had quite a name in his days, none of his recordings were re-issued on CD and he had not released anything in 30 years. I thought he must be dead. But after I collected all the music and info that I could find, I discovered that he was still alive, and he was living not far from me. I wrote him some letters, including the cassettes with some radio programs, that I had made about him, and photocopies of the articles I had written about him. Unfortunately he probably never saw the mail, because he died soon after.
Together with Roland Vonk I am trying to get a CD released of some of Laguestra’s best work, but so far we have not found a record company for this project yet. Meanwhile Roland is unearthing all kind of never released material of Laguestra. Like this recording, discovered on a tape that Roland got from the man’s daughter. It was probably recorded in the late 50’s, while he was working on his Utopia LP (released in 1961). I filed it under the title Jungle Call.