Like Andrew York, David Qualey made good largely because of Windham Hill and the seemingly endless appetite in the 1980s and 1990s for New Age guitar and piano music. He scored a major hit on a Windham Hill Christmas album with an admittedly amazing guitar version of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Unlike the open and gregarious Andrew York, Qualey comes across as grumpy and cantankerous; he is particularly annoyed by guitarists taking liberties with his work, so I made sure to take plenty with this one, the very lively and uptempo piece “Santa Cruz,” a drop-D piece (here capo’d at the 2nd fret, just to annoy Qualey—or more truthfully, because my small hands can play the piece much better if there’s a capo on, making the stretches smaller).

“Santa Cruz” sounds to me very much like a piece that should be played on a steel string guitar, although Qualey plays only nylon string guitars—but when I retuned my Taylor and capo’d it I discovered to my horror that it has a serious intonation problem on the low E string. Normally you don’t play very high up the neck on that string, so I had never noticed it, but it’s almost 20 cents out of tune 12 frets up, enough to sound audibly bad. “Santa Cruz” makes use of another ostinato bass pattern played primarily on that string, and so you can hear it quite a bit. I’ve since recorded it on my Taylor as well, now that this problem is fixed. 

Everything related to Santa Cruz must also come with a painting of whales in space. My last year at Santa Cruz, the Yellow Pages came with a front cover of whales cavorting in space with sparkling holographic letters spelling out Santa Cruz. It’s a town that doesn’t shy away from embracing its own stereotype.