One of Paquito's legacies dug out of the hard drive on his laptop is this totally cool track he was putting together in the days leading to his death.
The vocal audio track can be found here. He had talked about this song in our last email of March 18, 2005 (two days before he was killed). A fragment of the email describes it as so:
Let's see what else....
Oh yeah, I'm back in the swing of music creation, and I am very happy w/ whats coming out.
Just the other day I put together a track where I grace w/ actual vocals that I recorded of my-self. It was quite the task, due to the massive lack of studio goodness out here in the barracks. lol. But I went outside w/ my mic, and did my best.
Man, I can NOT wait to get out and get my hands in all of this.
As far as my art goes, I haven't put my self to good use b/c it's hard to find motivation for it, but I have been embarrassing the ways of the sponge, and have been absorbing all possible ideas around me.
All I need now is to get out and apply all of my sparks of genius.
Finally, here is the finish product:
sweetRelease.mp3
Gina Cavallaro, our family friend and reporter for the Army Times recently participated on one of NPR's shows. An audio stream for the "On Point" program for Memorial Day can be found here.
dear paco,
i am still so sorry for you loss, but as i have listened to the voice of paquito and his music, i am saddened for the loss of the world of a talented young man. what a lovely bittersweet blessing to have found that song on his laptop... i cant imagine the comfort of hearing his voice.
i love the photo you posted of the butterfly in the humvee a few days ago. i have a question about it for you... but need to ask you privately in an email, so if you get a chance, please email me at the above addy...
god bless you and your family always...
connie
Posted by: Connie in MD at May 31, 2005 09:31 PMThis was the last song Frank and I were planning on making a collaboration version. He said that he would have the vocals up on his server in a couple of days since the connection was sluggish at that time. Then a week later I got the news from Mirela. It was the last time I conversed with him. I thought I'd never get to execute our last musical plans. Thank you for posting this.... -Bob
Posted by: Bob at June 1, 2005 06:20 PM