Flabbergasted Vibes

Sérgio Sampaio - Eu Quero Botar Meu Bloco Na Rua (1973)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:46:00 +0000

Sérgio Sampaio
Eu Quero é Botar Meu Bloco na Rua

1973 - Philips (6349 057)

Sérgio Sampaio - vocals, acoustic guitar
Renato Piau - Acoustic and electric guitar
José Roberto Bertrami - piano and Moog
Alexandre Malheiros - bass
Ivan “Mamão” Conti - drums
Wilson das Neves - drums
Conjunto Creme Craker - percussion

Produced by Raul Seixas

Album cover by Aldo Luiz

SIDE ONE: 01. Leros e Leros e Boleros / 02. Filme de Terror / 03. Cala a Boca, Zebedeu / 04. Pobre Meu Pai / 05. Labirintos Negros / 06. Eu Sou Aquele que Disse

SIDE TWO: 01. Viajei de Trem / 02. Não Tenha Medo, não / 03. Dona Maria de Lourdes / 04. Odete / 05. Eu Quero É Botar Meu Bloco na Rua / 06. Raulzito Seixas

I know I am prone to hyperbole on this blog, but if any album deserves its hype, it's this one.

Sérgio Sampiao is one of Brazilian music's "malditos", a chimerical, iconoclastic figurewho was as impossible to categorize as he was to ignore. A look at the album cover with it's B-movie drive-in theater design with the letters of Sampaio's name dripping blood (probably ketchup, naturally), or his truly bizarre stage presence in the performance of the title track from this album in the film Phono 73, might have been enough to make the gatekeepers of 'serious' music dismiss Sampaio without even giving him a serious listen (as gatekeepers are inclined to do). But the truth is that although Sampaio's records sold very little and he's remained a cult figure in the margins, for a certain generation of music fans the song "Eu Quero Botar Meu Bloco Na Rua" is tattooed in the collective memory as a counter-cultural anthem during the worst years of the dictatorship. Written in the style of a slowed-down Carnaval marchinha, you would be hard-pressed to find a more evocative, multivalent snapshot of 1973, of desperation and survival under the violently repressive regime and the terror of a police state as well as exhaustion with the struggle against it. To quote my friend Tchêras about this song, "In plain view of the dictatorship, this song was a huge smash hit, with everyone singing along at the top of their lungs and switching the phrase in the lyrics 'botar pra gemer' for 'botar pra fuder.' " A fine example of the kind of subversive 'hidden transcripts' that were increasingly common in popular song lyrics in the early 70s, the transposition of these two idiomatic expressions are heavy with sexual, hedonistic and social connotations, as if the Black American blues phrases of "screamin/moanin/rollin/tumblin' were transformed into a metaphor for overturning the order of things. Not necessarily in the 'temporary inversion of hierarchy that only serves to reinforce the superstructure' sense blathered about extensively by Roberto DaMatta, but a rupture with hierarchy that has no intention of returning to the status quo because the participants no longer recognize its legitimacy.

But all this exegetical interpretation runs the risk of ruining the poetry of this record; by trying to make the implicit meanings into explicit social critique, we miss the whole point.

Sampiao was a master of the vignette, creating musical dramas or novellas that play out in three to five minutes, pregnant with metaphors and vivid imagery. But he wasn't just a brilliant lyricist. Beginning in the 1960s, the whole world over had no shortage of brilliant lyricists who wrote boring music. Sampaio's gifts for melody and for using his voice to maximum effect are impeccable. (Although his guitar playing may have been technically rudimentary - he once said in an interview "I play guitar like a person who doesn't know the erogenous zones makes love to a woman..." This album was produced by Raul Seixas, with whom Sampiao participated on a kind of underground 'supergroup' called "Sessão das Dez" a few years earlier, credited to the Sociedade de Grã-Ordem Kavernista (comprised of Sérgio and Raul, Edy Star, and Mirium Batucada). But while that album is saturated in lysergic irony and chaos, this album is focused and coherent. You can hear where Sampaio's compositional style and vocal delivery had a profound influence on the early records by Seixas, who would take it's nuance and delicacy and inject it with his oversized Dionysian personality and the cryptic pseudo-mystical ramblings of Paulo Coelho's lyrics. "Eu quero botar meu bloco na rua" certainly has it's moments of psychedelia, like the spaced-out "Viajei De Trem" and production flourishes scattered throughout, but it's always in the service of a very precise, sophisticated vision. There isn't a superfluous or self-indulgent note anywhere on this album. The orchestrations of strings, horns, harps and Moogs and are flawlessly mixed and never overdone. Seixas surely deserves some credit for this, as he employed some of these same production ideas on his own albums from this period (check out that opening horn riff of "Labarintos Negros" and tell me it doesn't sound like like pure Raul). Musically and lyrically Sérgio could straddle the humorous, melodramatic, and deadly serious and often leave you wondering which is which. There are no bad songs on this album but some gems shine particularly bright. "Filme de terror" (leave the children with the neighbors!), the idiosyncratic sambas "Cala a Boca Zebedeu" and "Odete," and the aforementioned "Viajei de trem" and the title cut. Over the last week I've been playing the beautiful track "Eu Sou Aquele Que Disse" over and over. It's as close to a love song as you'll get on this album.

This record is strangely and shamefully out of print. Original vinyl copies are hard to come by, 1980s repressings are out there but usually overpriced, and the last time (maybe the only time?) it was released on CD was this Samba & Soul series. Ricardo Garcia usually does a very nice mastering work, but he really outdid himself on this one. A mastering engineer's job often involves having to crank out a large volume of work in short space of time and I sometimes imagine the engineer being on autopilot, keeping themselves alert with coffee and maybe only half listening to an album as they tweak and adjust their settings. Not so with this album - it sounds to me like Garcia and project director Charles Gavin had a special affection for this album and probably spent a bit more time on it. The one glaring exception is the track "Da Maria de Lourdes," which has had a heavy noise filter applied to it that mangles the higher frequencies. You should be able to hear this without any kind of fancy playback equipment, but if you pop on a pair of headphones you'll really hear it. It's too bad because it's a blemish on what is otherwise a very gratifying remaster. And kudos to them for reprinting the entire lyrics featured on the inner sleeve of the LP.

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Poly e Seu Conjunto - Saia Vermelha (1963)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 00:03:00 +0000

Poly e Seu Conjunto Saia Vermelha
1963 / 1976 Continental

SIDE ONE

SUKIYAKI (Ei Rohusuke, Nakamura Hachidai)
BONANZA (Jay Livingston, Ray Evans)
NÃO ME DIGA ADEUS (Paquito, L. Soberano, J.C. da Silva)
É BOM PARAR (Ruben Soares)
LAMENTO BORINCANO (Rafael Hernandez)
BIBELOT (Poly)

SIDE TWO

LA POLLERA COLORA (SAIA VERMELHA) (Juan Madera, W. Choperena)
THAT HAPPY FEELING (Vento do Mar) (Warren)
El Suco Suco (Tarateño Rojas)
EL MANISERO (Moises Simons)
PARA VIGO ME VOY (Ernesto Lecuona)
THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU (OS OLHOS DO TEXAS ESTÃO SOBRE VOCE) (traditional)
Here is an album from Poly e Seu Conjunto, Saia Vermelha, probably from 1963. I say "probably" because the copy in front of me is a reissue on the Continental/Phonodisc label from 1976, and discographical info on Poly (sometimes spelled "Poli") is hard to find - but two tracks off this LP were released as the A and B side of a single in '63, so it's safe bet. I speculated as to whether this might be a collection of material actually assembled in the mid-70s, but the brief liner notes and the fact that these songs sound as if they were recorded all around the same time and with the same musicians makes me stay with that bet of early '60s.

Poly himself is somewhat enigmatic: a multi-instrumentalist, he was best known for his electric guitar and in particular, his LAP STEEL guitar work. A great deal of his recorded output preceded the arrival of rock and roll on Brazilian shores, years before the iê-iê-iê and jovem guarda movements would turn the use his preferred instrument into a lightning-rod for bitter polemic about cultural authenticity and Brazilian identity. Not having anything to go on, I can't really speculate how his music was received by the Brazilian listening public, but I will hazard a guess that his work was astutely ignored by the music critics. His body of work from the 1950s and 60s demonstrates a stylistic willingness to record anything and everything that was on the hit parade charts of the day, from the popular Brazilian genres of samba-canção, música sertaneja, baião, boleros and 'fox'. Which would make his records unremarkable amongst hundreds of others, except for the fact that his all-instrumental recordings often featured the lap steel - known as the "Hawaian guitar" in those days. I find myself making comparisons of Poly as some kind of Brazilian mix of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys and Les Paul's early records when he was experimenting with recording his guitar at different tape speeds. By the time the songs on Saia Vermelha were being recorded, Poly had also embraced early rock and roll (with a distinctly 'surf' edge), genres popular in Latin America like cumbia and rumba, and hit songs from Bolivia (El Suco Suco), Cuba (Para Vigo Me Voy), or Puerto Rico (Lamento Borincano). But the 78-rpm single which is duplicated at the outset of this Long Player sort of says all you need to know about this transnational genre-hopping musical musical chameleon/opportunist - one side featured the Japanese hit "Sukiyaki" which to this day is the only Japanese-language song to crack the U.S. top forty, and the flip side featured the theme to the TV show 'Bonanza.' His accompaniment throughout this disparate repertoire is usually comprised of some combination of string bass, piano, cavaquinho, acoustic guitar, accordion, and percussion.

Apparently Poly also worked for a time at Universal Pictures' Brazilian studios as part of their orchestra, and this quite likely influenced his choice of songs. At least that's the case for the last tune on here, known to most North Americans as "I've Been Working On The Railroad" but which is given the title of "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You", with the subcredit "as heard in the film "Assim Caminha a Humanidade.") This struck me as so odd that I had to look this up, and learned that this was the name of the Brazilian release of the Hollywood film Giant (Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean) and that a song by the title "The Eyes of Texas" exists as the alma mater of the University of Texas at Austin, sung to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." The best stuff here is when Poly is on the lap steel / Hawaiian guitar. In fact when he's NOT on the steel guitar, the material can be kind of forgettable. Here are two of the stand-out tracks:

Não Me Diga Adeus

and Lamento Borincano

I'm not crazy about the audio quality of this rip and I just may redo the whole thing someday. I've had three copies of this vinyl at one time or another and I can't even be entirely certain which one I used for the source. While editing this I found myself getting annoyed, thinking that my stylus should have been cleaned better or something - however it's quite likely likely that that the distortions are on the original record, since these 70s repressings on Phonodisc are sort of notoriously inconsistent, not to mention that at least portions of this LP were sourced from 78's to begin with...

(Process) Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply, cork ringmat); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 96khz; Click Repair light settings; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced (for 16-bit). Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag&Rename.

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Charles Earland - Intensity (1972)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:31:00 +0000

Charles Earland
INTENSITY
Released 1972 on Prestige
OJC Release 1999 (OJCCD-1021-2)

Happy 'Cause I'm Goin' Home
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Cause I Love Her
Morgan
---------
Lowdown
Speedball

Charles Earland: organ
Lee Morgan, Virgil Jones, Victor Paz, Jon Faddis: trumpet, flugelhorn
Dick Griffin, Clifford Adams: tenor trombone
Jack Jeffers: bass trombone
Billy Harper: tenor sax
William Thorpe: baritone sax
Hubert Laws: flute, piccolo
John Fourie, Greg Miller, Maynard Parker: guitar
Billy Cobham: drums
Sonny Morgan: congas

Recorded February 17, 1972 at Englewood Cliffs, NJ, by Rudy Van Gelder

This is sort of a lazy post - I haven't posted in a while, and I'm not going to say much about this record because I agree pretty much entirely with Doug Payne's take on it. I'll just mention that I kind of like the "needless fuzz guitar", and that the Goffin/King Shirelle's hit "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" gets a righteous soul-jazz treatment. Also I'd like to give some applause to Billy Harper on sax, whose own Black Saint albums are essential listening.

By
DOUGLAS PAYNE,
Published: August 1, 1999

For 1972's Intensity, Charles Earland's fifth of ten Prestige discs, the Mighty Burner seemed to be aiming toward something a little different than his usual collection of soulful tenor-organ jams. The presence of two songs from the rock group Chicago and a small trumpet-dominated horn section indicate that jazz-rock was the goal. The result, the LP's four original tracks plus two tracks from the same date originally released as part of Charles III, is one of his very best.

Unfortunately, though, Intensity has the notorious reputation as the last recording trumpeter Lee Morgan participated in (done two days before his girlfriend shot him to death). But Morgan is perhaps the least notable aspect of what makes the record work well. His playing here - and elsewhere at the time - sounds rather indifferent, sometimes sloppy and far less stellar than the glowing commentary he offered up on a string of excellent Blue Note records throughout the 1960s (evident on his own lackluster "Speedball," also included here).

What does stand out is Earland's strong performances, especially on two lesser known Chicago tunes ("Happy Cause I Love You" and a "Lowdown" that is not Boz Scaggs's more famous hit, as the disc's liners imply). Both are punctuated for effect with a needless fuzz guitar. But it doesn't detract from the attractive energy the Earland-Laws-Morgan triumvirate achieves.

Earland also contributes two of his own above average originals: the wonderfully melodic medium tempo swinger, "Cause I Love Her," and the cooking "Morgan" (named after the fact of death, but neither a Morgan feature nor specifically dedicated to him).

One notices, too, the interesting sound spectrum engineer Rudy Van Gelder achieves here. The occasional trumpet punctuation (arranged by Earland and the underrated trumpeter Virgil Jones) shimmers, even though its glory-hallelujah harshness seems a bit overheated. But the combo tracks are superbly captured. Compare the sound here to any one of Laws's Van Gelder engineered CTI dates. Then listen to any one of Morgan's Van Gelder engineered Blue Note dates. The difference is remarkable. Unfortunately, though, Billy Cobham's exceptionally vibrant drumming sounds as muffled and in-the-next-room as too many Van Gelder sessions did during that time.

The Prestige records Earland made between 1969 and 1974 remain his finest work. Intensity certainly ranks among the best, capturing a fine player at the very top of his game and easily recommended to those who seek meaningful organ jazz and of equal appeal to fans of the ever-diverse Hubert Laws.

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Noriel Vilela - Eis o "Ôme" (1969)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:50:00 +0000

EIS O ''ÔME''
Noriel Vilela
Released 1969 on Continental CLP 11565
Reissue 2011 EMI/COPA 0095

1 Promessado
(Carlos Pedro)
2 Saravando Xangô
(Avarése, Edenal Rodrigues)
3 Só o Ôme
(Edenal Rodrigues)
4 Meu caboclo não deixa
(Avarése, Edenal Rodrigues)
5 Pra Iemanjá levar
(Delcio Carvalho)
6 Samba das águas
(Josan de Mattos)
7 Eu tá vendo no copo
(Avarése, Edenal Rodrigues)
8 Acredito sim
(Avarése, Edenal Rodrigues)
9 Peço licença
(Avarése)
10 Cacundê, cacundá
(José de Souza, Orlando)
11 Acocha malungo
(Sidney Martins)
12 Saudosa Bahia
(Noriel Vilela, Sidney Martins)

------------------------------

Here's a genuine relic. The sole album from the somewhat mysterious Noriel Vilela. It seems that not a whole lot is known about him. He had a basso profundo voice. He sang with a vocal group in the early 60s, Nilo Amaro e Seus Cantores de Ebáno, whose American doo-wop and gospel-influenced songs featured a huge all-black chorus where he sang alongside three baritones. The group only recorded one 78 and one long-player that I know of, and it was Noriel's memorable bass voice that carried their biggest hit, "Leva o sodade," where he sang lead on two verses.

After the Cantores de Ebáno kind of dropped out of circulation in the mid to late 60s, Noriel attended to his family and his job as a machinist, until being encouraged to approach Continental Records about recording his own album.

The result couldn't be more different than the music of Nilo Amaro. The album is a nonstop upbeat blast of sambalança , samba-rock, and sometimes just plain samba. Accompaniment of funky sixties organ, drums, brass and woodwinds, and an occasional electric guitar that gets a solo on the finale. Smartly there is some baritone sax and bass clarinet to play off of Noriel's voice. And the lyrics of pretty much every tune treat themes tied to the syncretistic Umbanda religion of Brazil. Devotional prayers to the orishás Xango and Iamanja never swung so hard as they do here. The title track is loaded with the mystique of crossroads vows, cocks crowing at midnight, and getting your problems resolved with, um, a little help from your friends. It's a scorcher of a tune. Then there is the fairly straightforward sambas of "Meu caboclo não deixa" and "Acredito sim," which is a simple but effective proclamation of faith in an often stigmatized religion. Which brings me to another interesting thing about this record. In the late 60s and throughout the 70s there was something of a niche market for umbanda records. All the ones I've come across were on small labels or specialized subsidiaries of larger labels. They tended to feature mostly batuques, traditional or stylized recordings intended for ceremonial contexts even if listened to for leisure on a hi-fi. There were exceptions, like the album I borrowed from a friend that has a swinging cover of "Jesus Cristo" by Roberto Carlos. But mostly it's ritualized, ceremonial music, and not shot through with swinging pop elements like this album from Noriel Vilela. Of course, the genre of samba has a rich symbiotic relationship with the terreiros of Afrobrazilian religious traditions, and references both subtle and explicit can be found throughout the history that music's sung poetry. But this album isn't straight up samba. In fact it seems more aimed at the discotheques than the botequins. So although the title cut may have been a hit, there was probably a limit as to just how far a record like this could penetrate the mainstream, and it almost surely was regarded as something akin to novelty-music or kitsch by the snobbish gatekeepers of MPB at the time.

Perhaps it's telling that Noriel's biggest hit had nothing whatsoever to do with umbanda. It was also not even on this LP. Released only as a single, his rendition of Tennesee Ernie Ford's hit "Sixteen Tons" was a smash and has become something of a cult hit over the years. Here it is on Youtube

16 Toneladas

As you can hear, it's pretty badass. The lyrics also have nothing to do with the original from Ernest Ford (via Merle Travis), but are just a celebration of how groovy and badass their samba and sambalança is.. If the producers of these reissues had any sense it would have been included here. Probably a complication with publishing rights or the desire not to pay them by the record execs.

Because Noriel has nothing to say on the subject. He died young in 1974, apparently from an allergic reaction to anesthetic at a dentist's office. His recording career seemed to already have been at a standstill by then, but I'd like to think that if he'd lived longer he would at least have been cast in the role of a singing frog in an animated film. At least, that's often the bizarre image that pops into my head. An animated frog singing about umbanda. O
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Bezerra da Silva - O Samba Malandro de Bezerra da Silva (2005)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:11:00 +0000

O Samba Malando de Bezerra da Silva
4-CD Boxset
Released 2005 Sony-BMG/RCA (82876691992)

Disc 1 - Eu Sou Favela

1 Eu Sou Favela See All 5
2 Se Nao Fosse a Ajuda da Rapaziada
3 Saudacao As Favelas
4 Produto Do Morro
5 Candidato Cao Cao
6 Partideiro Sem No Na Garganta
7 E Esse ai que E O Homem
8 Quando O Morcego Doar Sangue
9 Vitimas da Sociedade
10 Pena de Morte
11 Vida de Operario
12 Assombracao de Barraco
13 Violencia Gera Violencia
14 Compositores de Verdade

Disc 2 - Malando É Malandro, Mané É Mané

1 Malandro Rife
2 Defunto Caguete
3 Bicho Feroz
4 Os Federais Estao Te Filmando
5 E O Bicho E O Bicho
6 Grampeado Com Muita Moral
7 No Hora da Dura
8 Defunto Grampeado
9 As 40 Dps
10 Fofoqueiro E a Imagem Do Cao
11 Meu Bom Juiz
12 Eu Nao Sou Santo
13 Preconceito de Cor
14 Ela Cagueta Com O Dedao Do Pe

Disc 3 - Cocada Preta e Branca no Terreiro

1 Malandragem Da Um Tempo
2 Sao Murungar
3 Semente
4 Pai Veio 171
5 Nunca VI Ninguem Dar Dois Em Nada
6 O Preto E O Branco
7 Nariz de Bronze
8 Vovo Tira-Tira
9 Garrafada Do Norte
10 Ze Fofinho de Ogum
11 Arruda de Guine
12 Cabeca Pra Vovo
13 Overdose de Cocada
14 Se Leonardo Da Vinte

Disc 4 - Cornos, Piranhas, Sogras, Pastores e OUtros Manés
1 Sequestraram Minha Sogra
2 Na Aba
3 Viuva de Seis
4 Necessidade
5 Quem USA Antena E Televisao
6 Minha Sogra Parece Sapatao
7 Vizinha Faladeira
8 Pode Acreditar Em Mim
9 Vou Lhe Dar Uma Colher
10 Sai Encosto
11 Pastor Trambiqueiro
12 Foi O Dr. Delegado Que Disse
13 Lugar Macabro
14 Os Tres Pagodeiros Do Rio

-------------------------------------------------

I have a crapload of Bezerra da Silva on vinyl, including his albums with Os Partideiros 10, and there is no question his stuff sounds better on wax. But since some people see fit to bitch and whine about the sound of the vinyl rips here, I am not really inspired to do many more of them. Which is a shame, because I have hours and hours of vinyl transfers waiting to be edited. Too bad. Apparently people don't realize that when they only show up to leave comments to complain about something, that this demotivates bloggers from doing what they do. I suggest to those people that they start their own blogs and see how all that works. Ah, but alas, this would presume you have something interesting to contribute and aren't just a humanoid leech, a hungry mouth who is never satisfied. The sense of entitlement of people on the internet these days... it's enough to make a person just say fuck it, why bother? So, this will be my last post for a while. I'm not going to write much either, not as much as this music deserves. Hardly anyone actually reads the write-ups anyway and now a few cyber-pricks have managed to sap my enthusiasm for this shindig. And don't even think this is only about the comments that get published -- The dozens every week that are just endless repetitive requests for favors from people I've never heard from before, or requests for re-ups from people who can't be bothered to even say 'hey thanks for the post.' Those people get a big Fuck You. I don't publish your "comments" because there is no point. And resending them every week isn't going to get them published. They will be ignored, indefinitely. Currently, 98 unpublished comments on this blog. See, I don't even have time to DELETE the stuff these people write to me.

Carnival is almost here. I had a bunch of posts I had planned in commemoration of carnival. Too bad for you I guess. I'll be listening to my records at home or with friends.

For the cool people who regularly stop by the blog and have something interesting to say -- thanks, you folks make a huge difference, more than you probably realize.

Bezerra da Silva, while he began his recording career singing coco in the style of Jackson do Pandeiro until he gained more recognition as a sambista with Os Partideiros 10, he really didn't hit the big time until he was nearly 50 years when he began releasing his samba albums for RCA-Victor and incorporated the archtype of the "malandro" into his stage persona. The figure of the malandro is an ubiquitous part of Brazilian folklore and culture - someone who survives on his street-smarts and wits while managing to avoid hard work as much as possible; a slick hustler anti-hero and trickster-figure; a figure that is both reviled and admired by people who play by society's rules. Bezerra took on this identity like no other sambista, and was able to engage with the gritty realities of urban life with a characteristic humor and biting dark humor. He could level astute critiques about societal ills like violence in the slums, corrupt police officers and judges, and also weave comical yarns about smoking pot or any number of songs dealing with mother-in-law humor.. (One of my favorite tunes here is 'Minha sogra parece sapatão')

The boxset has a wonderful graphic design and layout and a nice informative and insightful essay from music critic Rodrigo Faour. The four discs are arranged thematically, grouped based on lyrical content, rather than chronologically, making this a fun listen even for people who own his individual albums.

I wish I had time to translate the wonderful essay in the booklet from Rodrigo Faour. All in all this is a wonderful little package, and priced very economically. You should go out and buy it, and then track down all the individual releases on vinyl.

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Nara Leão - Dez Anos Depois (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:13:00 +0000

Nara Leão
Dez Anos Depois
Released 1971
This edition, Japanese SHM mastering

Recorded in Paris and Rio de Janeiro

LP 1

1. Insensatez (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
2. Samba de uma nota só (Tom jobim e Newton Mendonça)
3. Retrato em branco e preto (Tom Jobim e Chico Buarque)
4. Corcovado (Tom Jobim)
5. Garota de Ipanema (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
6. Pois é (Tom Jobim e Chico Buarque)
7. Chega de Saudade (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
8. Bonita (Tom Jobim e Ray Gilbert)
9. Você e eu (Carlos Lyra e Vinícius de Moares)
10. Fotografia (Tom Jobim)
11. O grande amor (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
12. Estrada do sol (Tom Jobim e Dolores Duran)

LP 2

1. Por toda minha vida (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
2. Desafinado (Tom jobim e Newton Mendonça)
3. Minha namorada (Carlos Lyra e Vinícius de Moraes)
4. Rapaz de bem (Jony Alf)
5. Vou por aí (Baden Powell e Aloysio de Oliveira)
6. O amor em paz (Tom Jobim e Vinícius de Moraes)
7. Sábia (Tom Jobim e Chico Buarque)
8. Meditação (Tom Jobim e Newton Mendonça)
9. Primavera (Carlos Lyra e Vinícius de Moraes)
10. Este seu olhar (Tom Jobim)
11. Outra vez (Tom Jobim)
12. Demais (Tom Jobim e Aloysio de Olieveira)

I was listening to the radio the other day and caught the second half of an interview with the daughter of Nara Leão who was there to talk about Nara's new revamped website and other subjects. She briefly mentioned this album, and how her mother had used it as a way to revisit her formative musical years as "the muse of bossa nova", in the time before she became estranged from that crowd, a process which included switching record labels, hanging out more and more at the Zicartola club, and favoring protest music while accusing bossa nova of idle romanticism and middle-class alienation. By 1970 she was living in France and shortly about to retire from the music business almost entirely: she opted to spend most of the seventies raising her children, and earning her PhD in psychology (!!). So this album is kind of a sweet swan song, a double album overflowing with the canonical bossa nova repertoire presented in tastefully spare arrangements. The first of the two LPs is entirely acoustic, while the second LP brings in the arrangers Roberto Menescal (her first guitar instructor along with Carlos Lyra, incidentally), Luis Eça, and Rogério Duprat, who add orchestration and occasionally rhythm parts.

Nara wouldn't record again for another five years, and that album (Meu Primeiro Amor, 1975) would steer clear of bossa nova and revel in songs and songwriters from earlier eras. She didn't tour or play live during this period, but decided to jump back into the show business racket with both feet in 1977 after she learned that she was suffering from a malignant brain cancer.

The first time I heard this album I felt there was something distant, disembodied, or disconnected about some of it, as if Nara was looking back on the decade that had just passed from a long distance provided by the reflective insights of maturity. Well it wasn't until looking at the credits that I understood that there was in fact an issue of distance at work, at least through the second half of it: not just because Nara was recorded in France, but because everything ELSE was recorded in Rio. That is to say, Nara's guitar and vocal were tracked separately from the accompaniment and orchestrations, which were done at a studio in Rio. The exception to this is the second acoustic guitar provided by "special guest" Tuca - who I believe was also living in Paris at the time and recording with people like Françoise Hardy. So my imagining of the process is like this - Nara and Tuca go into Polydor, France, to be recorded by the mysterious "Mr.Bonzon" listed on the album jacket, then the tapes are flown to Rio where the songs used on the second LP are sweetened with arrangements by Menescal, Eça, and Rogério Duprat. Rogério gives us two memorable tracks in his best baroque embellishment (and both featuring harpsichord), "Minha namorada" and "Primavera." While there is nothing to complain about with these arrangements from such talented company, I confess a predilection for the unadorned simplicity of the first half of the set. Just two acoustic guitars, the occasional stray piano line, and Nara's alluring voice. Oh, and a blast of annoying bongos thrown in there on one track that shall remain a surprise for you.

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Elis Regina - Ela (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:28:00 +0000

ELA
Elis Regina
1971 Phonogram
CD Reissue 1998 Philips

1 Ih! meu Deus do Céu
(Ronaldo Monteiro, Ivan Lins)
2 Black is beautiful
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Cinema Olympia
(Caetano Veloso)
4 Golden slumbers
(McCartney, Lennon)
5 Falei e disse
(Baden Powell, Paulo César Pinheiro)
6 Aviso aos navegantes
(Baden Powell, Paulo César Pinheiro)
7 Mundo deserto
(Erasmo Carlos, Roberto Carlos)
8 Ela
(César Costa Filho, Aldir Blanc)
9 Madalena
(Ronaldo Monteiro, Ivan Lins)
10 Os argonautas
(Caetano Veloso)
11 Estrada do Sol
(Dolores Duran, Tom Jobim)

Produced by Nelson Motta
with studio assistance from Roberto Menescal
Arrangements by Chico de Morais
Front cover by Aldo Luiz

----------------------

Today, January 19, marked 30 years since the death of one of Brazil's most beloved divas, Elis Regina. The last few years of her career saw her recording lots of crap, but during the 60s and the better part of the 70s she had a long string of solid records, even if the quality of her repertoire (and the number of songwriters from which she drew) dwindled over time. I've picked this record not because it's representative or a masterpiece or anything like that -- it's neither - but because I think it probably gets overlooked since it is chronologically sandwiched between a couple of her other records that overshadow it.

I always considered this sort of a weak effort but the album has grown on me over the years. It is sort of Elis' foray into the nascent Brazilian soul movement of the time, a genre for which she wasn't particularly well-suited. There were two big hits off it - Madalena from Ivan Lins, and Black Is Beautiful from Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle. The former is classic Elis Regina and deserved to be a smash hit; the latter is much better on the original 'Garra' album from Marcos Valle. The lyrics are so bizarre by today's standards (and rather politically incorrect, although kind of hilarious) that I really can't picture anyone other than Marcos Valle pulling it off. The thing about the Brothers Valle is they could be very clever, subtle, and ironic without seeming to be any of those things, and I've speculated elsewhere on the different interpretations a listener could give their song 'Black Is Beautiful'. But with Elis' schmaltzy, cabaret-style version, what you get is an over-literal, superficial reading of the tune that drags on for at least a minute too long. And like many things superficial, it was a bigger success.

In fact this album stands out for Elis and/or Nelson Motta's choice to tackle material that was pretty strongly associated with other popular artists. The most obvious of these being, naturally, her taking on The Beatles` "Golden Slumbers". Although I didn't like it the first time I heard it, I`ve changed my mind about it and now think its damn cool and is one of the strongest cuts here. Her version of Cinema Olympia, a song written by Caetano Veloso but associated with Gal Costa after appearing on one of her first records, is kind of redundant and pointless, although I appreciate the funky wah-wah guitar. And, sure, Elis could sing the phonebook and I would be happy, but when taking on material associated with one of her peers as esteemed as Gal, she ought to bring something more to the song, instead of less... Much better is her irreverent recording of Caetano's, "Os Navegantes", which appeared on his "white album" recorded as something like a Portuguese fado. Here, the verses are sung like a soul ballad, and the choruses are organ-fringed lounge jazz. The tune never takes off with the fire that Elis was capable of imparting to it, but in a way it's her restraining of herself that makes it work. Not sure about the lounge arrangement though; this song makes me wonder what the whole album would have sounded like with Erlon Chaves on arrangements, who had done some wonderful work with Elis. The song "Mundo deserto" by Erasmo and Roberto Carlos is pretty bad ass. I like Elis singing their songs. Probably the most unexpected tune is a Jobim/Dolorus Duran piece that closes the album, `Estrada do sol`, which is almost outrageously bombastic and pretty goddamn original. It's a great closer for a bit of an uneven album that I continue to appreciate more over time.

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Harry Whitaker / Black Renaissance - Body, Mind and Spirit (1976)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

Black Renaissance
Body, Mind and Spirit

1. Black Renaissance
2. Magic Ritual

Recorded at Sound Ideas, New York, NY (01/15/1976).

Arranger: Harry Whitaker.

Players: Harry Whitaker (piano); Lani Groves, Edna Holt, Sandy Nakarmura, Assata Dolby (vocals); Azar Lawrence (soprano & tenor saxophones); David Schnitter (tenor saxophone); Woody Shaw (trumpet); Buster Williams (bass); Billy Hart, Howard King (drums, percussion); Mtume, Earl Bennett (percussion)

--------

For those of you who have never heard of this album, it will come as a lovely surprise. For those who have heard about it but have yet to actually hear it, it might well seem a bit over-hyped, due in no small part to the douchebaggery of one Giles Peterson, who prattles on in the liner notes about how cool he is for knowing about it and showing it off to any other DJ's who "dared to challenge" him. Well if you ignore that bloated musical neocolonialist (and snappy dresser), you can immerse yourself in what was truly a lost gem, lost even to its creator for decades.

Recorded on Martin Luther King Day in 1976, Whitaker invested his own hard-earned money as an arranger, writer, and session player into making this boldly uncommercial soul-jazz exercise in musical stretching. It features understated riffing from Azar Lawrence, David Schnitter, and the eternally-underrated Woody Shaw. Anchoring the rhythm is stalwart bassist Buster Williams with Howard King on drums and James Mtume on percussion. These latter two would go on to release the first album from the band Mtume the following year, and it's interesting to keep that in mind while listening to this. While the first side of this album straddles a line between between mellow funk and spaced-out soul jazz (and is a bit long-winded at 23 minutes), the second and shorter side 'Magic Ritual' is a more aggressive, agitated piece of Afrocentric celebration. There is effective use of spoken word here that puts us comfortably in Strata-East and loft scene territory. More industry/label hype is compelled to claim this is "one of the earliest examples of rap" or some such nonsense. How many records are we going to bestow that honor on? At any rate claiming this for an album released as late as 1976 is a ludicrous statement that ignores so many musical ancestors it barely merits discussion. So, I'll stop discussing it.

Since it is Martin Luther King Day in the United States, and since the next US president is likely to abolish that holiday, this makes today probably the last opportunity to celebrate this album without being locked up and held in indefinite detention without Habeas Corpus.

The sound on the CD is burdened with distortions, but given that the masters were destroyed and the source used here is presumably the Japanese bootleg that until now was the only available release, at the end of the day it sounds surprisingly good.

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Trio Mocotó - Trio Mocotó (1973)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:31:00 +0000

Trio Mocotó
Released 1973 on RGE

Fritz Escovão (Luís Carlos de Souza)- cuíca and vocals), Nereu Gargalo (Nereu São José)- pandeiro and vocals) e João Paraíba (João Carlos Fagundes Gomes) drums and vocals

with Amilson Godoi (piano), Olmir Stocker (guitar), Itiberê (bass), and Bira (percussion)

Arrangements and orchestration by Rogérgio Duprat, Sérgio Carvalho, João Carlos Pegoraro, Waldemiro Lemke

SIDE ONE
01. Desapareça, Vá, Desapareça
02. Nó na Garganta
03. Vem Cá, Meu Bem, Vem Cá
04. Recordar
05. Não Vá embora
06. Desculpe

SIDE TWO
07. Maior é Deus
08. Samba da Preguiça
09. Palomares
10. Swinga Sambaby
11. Tô Por Fora da Jogada
12. Gotas da Chuva na Minha Boca

Feeling hungry? Help yourself to a steaming plate of mocotó. Trio Mocotó to be precise. These guys are more famous for being the percussion section underpinning some of Jorge Ben's greatest records than they are for their own material. And it's easy to understand that - as good as this album is, their original tunes are rather lackluster and their flat, boring vocals would have made them very popular with the hipster crowd in present-day Olinda or Recife. Which is my way of saying that their vocals are bloody awful and rather irritating (with the exception of Não Vá Embora and Palomares). Trio Mocotó excels at creating a groove, but without a musically-charismatic frontman like Jorge Ben to lead them, their stuff can feel a little uninspired. But this is still essential listening for anyone interested in the samba-soul, samba-rock scene of the mid-70s and has some wonderful moments. As you can see from the album credits, there were a TON of arrangers working on this album; Unfortunately their credits are not specified as to which songs were arranged by whom, but I am willing to guess that Rogério Duprat arranged "Nó na garganta" and possibly "Palomares." The latter tune is easily the high point of the record -- Once you make it through the chord changes of the first verse, you may say to yourself, "boy these guys really took a page from the Jorge Ben textbook of songwriting", until you look at the album credits and see that it IS actually a Jorge Ben song. Kind of a throwaway tune, as he had songs to spare. He would end up recording it himself sometime in the 90s. Get this album just for this tune, if nothing else, and you will find the rest of the songs growing on you after a while. Other strong cuts here http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifinclude 'Maior é Deus' (NOT the Paulo César Pinheiro tune, by the way), the mellow sentimentality of 'Recordar', and Ben-like "Swinga Sambaby", and the propulsive opener, 'Desapareça', which features nice Hammond B3 as well as an uncredited saxophone solo. It's a very short solo, perhaps they just grabbed a sax player from the corridor of the recording studio and asked him to play a few bars and forgot to ask his name when they payed him.. If you are like me and find Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs to be cloying potential suicide-triggers, don't even THINK about listening to the final song, the ridiculous closer "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Cuica."

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity - He's Coming (1972) Verve 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:19:00 +0000

Roy Ayers Ubiquity
HE'S COMING
Released 1972 (Polydor PD 5022)
This REISSUE, DATE UNKNOWN

1 He's A Superstar 5:35
2 He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother 4:04
3 Ain't Got Time 2:53
4 I Don't Know How To Love Him 4:02
5 He's Coming 6:20
6 We Live In Brooklyn Baby 3:43
7 Sweet Butterfly Of Love / Sweet Tears 5:20
9 Fire Weaver 3:40

Arranged By – Harry Whitaker, Roy Ayers
Backing Vocals – Carol Smiley, Gloria Jones, Victoria Hospedale
Bass – John Williams (8) (tracks: 1 to 5, 7 to 9), Ron Carter (tracks: 6)
Congas – Jumma Santos
Drums – David Lee, Jr.
Drums, Percussion – Billy Cobham
Electric Piano, Organ, Vocals – Harry Whitaker
Guitar – Bob Fusco (tracks: 6), Sam Brown (2) (tracks: 1 to 5, 7 to 9)
Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Sonny Fortune
Strings – Selwart Clarke
Vibraphone, Organ, Vocals – Roy Ayers

Producer – Ed Kolis (tracks: 6), Myrnaleah Williams
Engineer – Rudy Van Gelder
-------------------------------

This is probably the least ubiquitous of the Roy Ayers Ubiquity albums. Much raw than later efforts, and pretty trippy with a Jesus-freak vibe saturating a lot of the tunes It's not really a concept album, though, but almost. It includes a cover of a tune from Jesus Christ Superstar ("I Don't Know How To Love Him") and the famous Hollies tune "He's Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," which has been covered by seemingly everyone since it was first recorded, including Cher the year before Ayers. But Donny Hathaway also recorded in 1971, and I'd like to think Roy and Co. were listening to Donny and not Cher when they thought of this arrangement. Keyboardist Harry Whitaker also arranges two songs, including his own "We Live In Brooklyn Baby" which is the strongest, leanest, and song on the album.

And oh yeah, Billy Cobham is pounding the skins on this album. He is playing in stealth mode, however, almost hard to believe he had just joined up with the bombastic Mahavishnu Orchestra or that his own over-the-top 'Spectrum' was in the works. Here, he behaves himself. The whole records alternating frantic-mellow dynamic is a welcome holiday-season elixir, and the title track features dueling-keyboard work from Whitaker and Ayers that is undelicately precious.

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Sam Rivers - Dimensions & Extensions (1967)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:23:00 +0000

SAM RIVERS
Dimension & Extensions

Recorded on March 17, 1967 at the Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
First issued in 1976 on Blue Note BNLA 453 as part of the double album "Involution" (the second half of which is an Andrew Hill session).
Issued as an individual album with the original cover for the first time in 1986 (BST 84261)
CD Reissue is 1998 Blue Note RVG Remaster

1 Precis 5:18
2 Paean 5:23
3 Effusive Melange 5:49
4 Involution 7:12
5 Afflatus 6:25
6 Helix 5:31

Alto Saxophone, Flute – James Spaulding
Bass – Cecil McBee
Drums – Steve Ellington
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Flute – Sam Rivers
Trombone – Julian Priester
Trumpet – Donald Byrd

----------

Producer – Alfred Lion
Recorded By, Remastered By – Rudy Van Gelder
Reissue Producer – Michael Cuscuna

------------------------

The Earth lost another musical giant when Sam Rivers passed away this week (Dec 26) at the age of 88 years. The man had a long career in which he put out a ton of music of a very high caliber. I lament that I never saw him perform live, particularly as I had the chance once and somehow missed it -- I can't remember what my reason was, but it better have been a good one. Fortunately I've been a fan of his records for a long time, and he sure left us a lot of those.

The first music I heard from him were the albums he recorded for Impulse (in particular, 'Hues') which were done right at the time when he was a key figure in the loft music scene happening in New York. But he put out so much and on so many labels (Black Saint, ECM, Mosaic, and quite a few smaller labels) it's sometimes difficult to know where to start. He had the unlucky fortune of getting on the Blue Note roster right before the label was sold to Liberty, and as the release history listed above should make clear (and the liner notes from Robert Palmer and Bob Blumenthal make much clearer), this particular album had a very odd legacy indeed. It was recorded in 67, assigned a catalog number, and had classic Blue Note album cover artwork done for it -- only to sit on the shelves for a decade before ever seeing the light of day. When it finally did, it was issued as part of a double album that also featured Rivers playing with Andrew Hill's group. It was finally issued under the original title "Dimensiosn & Extensions" in the 1980s.

This is exhilarating stuff and it's hard to see how it stayed under the radar for so long. Driving bass work from Cecil McBee (a frequent sideman for Rivers) under-girds what is at times a wall of brass and reeds (courtesy of Julian Priester, Donald Byrd, and James Spaulding). Rivers is unique for a lot of reasons, one of them being that for someone associated with 'free jazz' he probably owes as much or more to Charlie Parker than to Coltrane. There is both intimacy and a certain swing in most everything he touched, and one line Palmer wrote about this album pretty much nails it: "Never has atonality in jazz writing sounded this warm." He was equally at ease in small trio settings as he was playing in or leading big ensembles. He recent four albums recorded as Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Orchestra are all excellent and leave it very clear that the man was still in full possession of his creative powers and abilities in writing, arranging and performing top-notch stuff well into his 80s.

Rest easy, Mr. Rivers. You will be missed.

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Candeia - Candeia (1970)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:55:00 +0000

------------------------------

Candeia (1970)
1970 Equipe (EQ-865)

Reissued (poorly) in 2011, Discobertas (DB-079)

1 Samba da antiga
(Candeia)
2 Sorriso antigo
(Aldecy, Candeia)
3 Viver
(Candeia)
4 O pagode
(Candeia)
5 Prece ao sol
(Candeia)
6 A volta
(Candeia)
7 Paixão segundo eu
(Candeia)
8 Dia de graça
(Candeia)
9 Outro recado
(Otto Enrique Trepte, Candeia)
10 Chorei, chorei
(Candeia)
11 Coisas banais
(Candeia, Paulinho da Viola)
12 Ilusão perdida
(Otto Enrique Trepte, Candeia)

*note: Otto Enrique Trepte is otherwise-known as Casquinha de Portela

-------------

A classic, wonderful, and rare album from Candeia that has unfortunately been nearly ruined by that awful, truly godawful sound of the Discobertas record label. They should be ashamed of themselves. On one hand, one could say that we should just be thankful that this music is being reissued; in fact, the existence of this reissue probably means that nobody else will bother reissuing this material again for another decade or longer -- meaning that the end result is that we are stuck with this subpar representation. I know I have said this before about Discobertas and I hate sounding like a broken record, but it is a point worth emphasizing. The shoddy quality of their releases would make a person think they operate like the old Radioactive records (i.e. only a semi-legitimate but essentially bootleg label), but instead these guys seem to have a publicity department. All of their Candeia reissues were sourced from mediocre vinyl copies and seemingly played back on a cheap turntable with a twenty year-old stylus (maybe they were going for a needle / agulha as vintage as the records themselves, so perhaps 30 years old)...

Well on to the music (if you can hear it over the noise). As far as I know this is Candeia's first actual album, and marks his coming out of self-imposed seclusion after a shooting left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. (This happened while Candeia worked as a police officer, and according to legend followed closely on the heels of a night when Candeia had a curse put upon him by a prostitute who he apparently had beaten up while on the job.) Although he had written some of the Portela samba school's most famous compositions, leading them to victory in the Carnaval competitions several times, he withdrew from the bohemian life after his accident and had to be nudged back into writing and performing by friends like Martinho da Vila and Paulinho da Viola. And thank the stars that he had such persistent friends. Because Cartola may have only recorded a handful of records as a leader or member of a group during his brief decade of the 1970s (he passed away in 1978), but all of them are essential. This one is particularly strong, better than his second album (Seguinte: Raiz). Leading off with the self-reflexive "Samba da antiga" and just taking off from there on all cylinders. There is the infectious refrains of the samba da roda, "O Pagode", with Candeia holding court between the chorus of "não se pode ficar sem entrar no pagode", to beautiful samba-canção like "A volta." One of the wonderful flourishes of this record is the trombone playing credited only to Raulzinho. If the sound wasn't so terrible on this reissue, we could hear the interplay between the trombone, the lead and group vocals, the surdo, the agogô on divine "Outro recado", co-written with Casquinha and easily one of the highlights of this consistently high-caliber record. But in the condition the audio is in, it all sort of gets lost in a wash of white noise that will leave you with tinnitus if you play it too loudly. This is sandwiched by two other sambas that ought to be canonical, 'Dia de graça' and 'Chorei, chorei'. Hard to fathom that he wrote so many fantastic tunes without partners, which makes his infrequent partnerships all the more special, especially when they are with people like Casquinha or Paulinho da Viola -- "Coisas banais" has Paulinho's both lyrically and melodically pretty heavy on it, but Candeia adds his charismatic ebullience to it. The record is short, and it is so good that you want to play it over again immediately when it finishes.. Except that Discobertas put out a product that sounds like shit.

If you are wondering what to get me for Christmas, you can track down a copy of the Equipe vinyl and mail it to me. Thanks in advance.

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Grifters - One Sock Missing (1993)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:05:00 +0000

GRIFTERS
One Sock Missing
Released 1993
Shangri-La Records 004

1 Bummer 2:53
2 She Blows Blasts of Static 4:04
3 Shark 4:16
4 Teenage Jesus 3:02
5 'Side 2:50
6 #1 1:16
7 Tupelo Moan 5:06
8 Wonder 1:20
9 Corolla Hoist 4:02
10 Encrusted 2:19
11 The Casual Years 3:19
12 Sain 2:28
13 Just Passing Out 3:21
14 I Arise 4:35

---------------------
So here is something you don't see everyday on this blog. I'm too tired to write much lately and so this is sort of a cop-out post. Pulled this off the shelf the other day and was surprised how much it still tickles my eardrum. Did the Grifters have vibe? You bet. Could their music melt the faces off of any current-day skinny-pants 'indie' band? Hells yeah. These guy were 'lo-fi' when that term did not signify an affected, contrived aesthetic choice, but an economic one where musicians creatively pushed the limits of whatever recording gear they could get their hands on in the days before every schmuck with a computer had a studio at home. Plus they were from Memphis, where 'vibe' is included with your zipcode. These guys could lurch vertiginous from dirty, scuzzy, noisy rock to moments of undelicate beauty, sometimes in the same tune. One of my favorite musically bipolar choices of the era. While the band's songwriting would develop and sophisticate itself rather quickly and pleasingly in the albums to come, this one boasts the spontaneity and messiness that they would lose somewhat around the time they got picked up by Sub Pop and then had their career crash and burn. You know, like all those other bands. Along with 'The Eureka EP' this is one of their better hidden pleasures. Partially recorded in a flower shop, partially at Easley Studio, it sounds the way it ought to.

Oh, I had actually prepared this to share elsewhere but a CRC-mismatching error on the fourth track made it ineligible there, so that's another reason why I am breaking form a bit and featuring it here. What the hell, it's the holidays. Just an FYI for those of you who crave 100% error free audio extraction, this isn't one of those..

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Doug Carn - Infant Eyes (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Doug Carn
"Infant Eyes"
Released 1971 on Black Jazz Records (BJ/3)

Welcome 1:15
Little B's Poem 3:50
Moon Child 7:56
Infant Eyes 9:50
Passion Dance 5:58
Acknowledgement 8:45
Peace 4:30

Doug Carn - piano, electric Piano, organ
Jean Carn - vocals
Bob Frazier - flugelhorn, trumpet
George Harper - flute, tenor, saxophone
Al Hall Jr. - trombone, trombone
Henry Franklin - bass
Michael Carvin - drums

Produced by Gene Russell

Although he recorded a 1969 album in a trio setting for Savoy (which I've never heard), Doug Carn is of course most famous for his relationship with the independent Black Jazz label. His albums on that imprint may be single-handedly responsible for the label's canonical status in Afrocentric spiritual jazz. They are remarkable for many reasons, not least of which is the presence of innovative lyrics sung by his then-wife Jean Carn, who not unlike Abbey Lincoln used her voice as part of the ensemble arrangements rather than as a vocalist with a backup band. The communal family vibe is accentuated by the beautiful album cover photography and the opening tune Little B's Poem; together with the cover photo, I feel like I knew their daughter and wonder where she is now and how she feels about all the musical attention today. While the following albums from the Doug and Jean Carn would push further with original material, this first album is noteworthy for it's reworking of compositions by jazz heavyweights that they admired - Bobby Hutcherson, Horace Silver, Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, and Wayne Shorter. In particular, adding lyrics to that material and making the compositions into something else is the big achievement here.

I have a repress vinyl of this that sounds pretty good and began to mess around with a digital rip of it, but am unsure whether or not to keep working on it. This CD pressing from 1997 sounds okay but the second side (of the original LP) suffers from nasty wow and flutter from whatever source tape they used. This was the first appearance of this album on CD and I am not sure if there has been any other remastered versions since, but I kind of doubt it. In fact last year somebody claiming to have a set of Black Jazz master tapes was selling the whole bundle on Craig's List for a hefty sum; the auction was dubious as they were comprised of 1/2" reels, which even for a studio on a budget in the early 70s would have been a substandard format, and claimed to come with full reproduction rights. Most likely the reels were production copies or just plain counterfeit, the listing was not online long before it was either met with an offer or taken down. Hopefully that doesn't mean that we'll be seeing a new series of reissues mastered from 1/2-inch tape.. Unfortunately a few of the other extant Doug Carn reissues have the same wow-and-flutter problem. Badly stored tapes, damaged playback equipment, sloppy transferring, or all of the above, it doesn't really matter - the end result is that this precious, important music hasn't received the treatment that it merits. But the most important thing is that it is still available and people can hear it. Since the reissued vinyls were most certainly just the CD master with an R$AA equalization curve applied, there isn't much point in having both versions except for purely fetishistic reasons. Unless I can manage to get my hands on original vinyl pressings, they are however all we've got..

The liner notes by Doug Carn are a treasure. Written just for the reissue, they have a remarkable amount of detailed recollections for being composed more than thirty years after the recordings, showing just what a special time this was for everyone involved. While this is not my favorite of the Carn albums on Black Jazz, it is unique and on its own it is a great record. The title cut, which according to the notes was the first fruits of Doug's experience with writing lyrics to other peoples' music, stands out as the most fully realized work here.

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Pixinguinha - Som Pixinguinha (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:50:00 +0000

Pixinguinha
"Som Pixinguinha"

1971 Odeon
2003 Remaster / Odeon 100 Anos

1 Um a zero
(Benedito Lacerda, Pixinguinha)
2 Desprezado
(Pixinguinha)
3 O gato e o canário
(Benedito Lacerda, Pixinguinha)
4 Samba fúnebre
(Vinicius de Moraes, Pixinguinha)
5 Gargalhada
(Pixinguinha)
6 Urubatan
(Benedito Lacerda, Pixinguinha)
7 Pula sapo
(Pixinguinha)
8 Carinhoso
(Pixinguinha, João de Barro)
9 De mal pra pior
(Hermínio Bello de Carvalho, Pixinguinha)
10 Odeon
(Ernesto Nazareth)
11 Samba do urubu
(Pixinguinha)

Finally, for the first time in this blog, a contribution from one of the most important figures in twentieth-century music (particularly in a place called Brazil) - Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr., better known as Pixinguinha.

While Pixinguinha's name and many of his compositions may be ubiquitous in the history of Brazilian music, the same can't be said for recordings that actually feature him. A great deal of his seminal recorded output was on 78 rpm and can be found on a smattering of CD collections, some of them rather rare. He made quite a few LP records in the 1950s, which are also damn hard to come by. This album, made after a period of semi-retirement and only two years before his death, is therefore a nice treat. It's gorgeous stuff, with some odd production choices. The inclusion of organ and electric bass and bongos to make the album sound more contemporary to 1971 struck me as odd at first but that may be because I am used to hearing "purist" choro as its played these days, which is a throwback to its early 20th-century origins. There is a new composition that Pixinguinha wrote with Vinicius and all I can say about it is... too much Vinicius. "Choro funebre" probably should have died in the outtake bin and had something else take its place on this album, except that it features Paulo Mauro on sax, which earns its keep. And then there is the truly bizarre "Samba de Urubu", which features fuzzed-out guitar and a funky thumb-piano break. As weird as that might seem for a choro record, I have to hand it to the mixing engineers -- they manage to make it work, in part because the overdriven fuzzy guitars sit nestled in the mix alongside everything else rather than taking over the song, and they make judicious use of the idea rather than over-doing it. I'm not sure if there a sub-genre of 'experimental' or psychedelic choro but if so this tune must be a "standard" in it. A definite high point is an eight-minute version of "Carinhoso." Along with 'Garota de Ipanema' (Girl From Ipanema), this has to be one of the most recorded songs of any Brazilian composer since Orlando Silva first recorded it in 1937 -- so much so that (quite like Garota de Ipanema) I usually cringe when I hear the first few instantly-recognizable notes being played.... So seeing that it was stretched out to EIGHT MINUTES for this record initially made me groan with dread. But the song belongs in the hands of its maker, and the arrangement is fresh, adventurous, and impeccably recorded.

The original and extensive liner notes by Hermínio Bello de Carvalho are thankfully reproduced in their entirety in the booklet, and give a track by track description. Unfortunately for the non-Portuguese speaking (and even for lusophiles), the musician credits are couched within these notes rather than listed separately, making kind of hard to list everyone who played on this record. Please pardon me that I am not taking the hour or so it would probably take me to piece it together and type it out... Mastering is a bit loud or 'hot' but not overly compressed and much better than a lot of the other reissues in this series (Odeon 100 Anos).

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VA - Rubber Soul Clap, Volume 1 (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:33:00 +0000

Various Artists - Rubber Soul Clap, Volume 1
Private pressing 2010
Flabbergasted Vibes Special Products (FBV-01)

This fun little compilation was something I had put together as a holiday gift for a friend last year, with promises to put together a second volume that is still unfinished. The idea should be pretty obvious - exploring the long arm of influence of the fabulous foursome into the furthest reaches of funkiness. They shall be named in the interest of this blog surviving a little longer, nor shall any song titles be listed here other than in the back cover art above. Some of the selections are well-known, even over-played, others much less so. Lots of cool stuff here, but I think The Crusaders probably steal the show. I hope you enjoy it, and - who knows? - maybe Volume 2 will see the light of day before year's end...

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for complete liner notes and rare photos send a SASE to my PO Box in the Kayman Islands and a cashier's check for $200.

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Tim Maia - Tim Maia em Inglês (1978)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:01:00 +0000

TIM MAIA (1978)
aka "Tim Maia em inglês"
Original recording sessions 1976
Original LP release, Seroma 1978
CD reissue on Continental 1995
This reissue, Editora Abril 2011

1 With no one else around
(Tim Maia)
2 I love you, girl
(Reginaldo, Paulo, Tim Maia)
3 To fall in love
(Tim Maia)
4 Only a dream
(Tim Maia)
5 People
(Paulo, Tim Maia)
6 Let’s have a ball tonight
(Reginaldo, Tim Maia)
7 I
(Tim Maia)
8 Day by day
(Reginaldo, Paulo, Tim Maia)
9 Vitória régia
(Reginaldo, Carlos, Paulo, Tim Maia)

This had long been the Holy Grail of Tim Maia albums for me. Even with all the mystery surrounding the deleted Racional albums, they were long available as bootlegs and then the first finally saw an official reissue a few years back on Trama Records. But this album, one of Tim's strongest, never garnered the kind of critical attention and cult status of those albums. This is probably for several reasons -- it is straight-up, top-notch quality SOUL with none of the bizarre lyrical rants of the Racional religious cult attached to it; it was Tim's intention to record an album singing entirely in English, so in a way it would have alienated a great deal of his Brazilian public; and, most importantly, nobody ever really heard it. All these factors were compounded by the fact that the album was delayed two years between recording and releasing the masterial. And as luck would have it, it would finally come out when he also had an album out on Warner Brothers that year which would become one of his biggest chart successes, "Tim Maia Disco Club."

And by the time this album came out, Tim had truly alienated most of the record industry. Although an innovator and an entrepreneur in a million ways (he was one of the first Brazilian artists to found his own label), he had relatively no business acumen, and his penchant for not keeping to scheduled meetings and even his own concerts - showing up obscenely late or not at all, calling of the show at the last minute because they put the wrong color M&M's in his dressing room -- had grown so famous as to make concert promoters and record labels reluctant to work with him. Warner Brothers took on a risk putting out 'Disco Club' in 1978, and dropped him soon after.

The story goes that this album was actually recorded in 1976 when Tim had come to his senses and left behind the bizarre charismatic / religious / semi-apocalyptic cult when he found out its founder was growing rich on its members donations. The album was recorded and the album covers were printed up. Some say that Tim lost his nerve at the last minute about the risky move of releasing an album entirely in English; other versions say he simply didn't have the money left to press the vinyl. Most likely both versions are true. The result was that he ended up releasing the 1976 album often known as "Rhodêsia" (for the hit it contained) on Polygram records, and then another album (sometimes called 'Verão Carioca') in 1977, before this album ever saw the light of day. Tim released it on his own imprint, SEROMA Records, and it fell on deaf ears. With no distributors willing to work with him or take up the album, Tim took it on himself to go personally to radio stations and journalists handing out copies (he joked that the album covers had begun to 'yellow' in the two years that they waited for the vinyl to be pressed). The results were utterly ineffectual. It seemed that nobody cared.

And it's a damn shame. I have said before that if Tim's records had been released in the US, he would have been a huge soul music star there. This is also true of this album, as it really stands among the best of its peers in American soul music. And the most incredible part is that although Tim drank at the font of American soul, funk, and rhythm and blues (he also lived in New York and bummed around the US for about ten years before getting himself deported) - he only sounds like HIMSELF, Tim Maia. Unmistakeably Tim Maia.

The entire first half of the album is saturated with mellow chill-out soul ballads with gorgeous melodies and lush arrangements, that manage to keep a certain hard edge in the production, keeping the base arrangements (bass, guitar, drums, keyboards) anchored well while letting the horn arrangements add further depth. The first song, "With No One Else Around", is just plain gorgeous. Another love song, with the nondescript title of "I Love You, Girl" makes up in musicality what it lacks in lyrical content, and ends with a swinging crescendo. The third track "To Fall In Love," the favorite of the writer of the reissue's liner notes, combines poignant by simple lyrics (To fall in love is like burning fire), with the bands ability to work the dynamics between tight and close, and swinging and large, as well as some tight full-stop breaks with very long pauses leaving you wondering where they are going next. They aren't really going anywhere but back into the main groove but it still works to charm you.

"Only A Dream" has Tim singing in falsetto in a way he rarely did, that oddly enough puts me in a mind of someone on another continent who would release his first album in 1978 - Prince Rogers Nelson. Of course, falsetto is a 70s soul trademark but something about the first bars of the chord progression remind me of something that could have been on 'For You'... The lyrics are, once again, nothing complicated, but striking in their sincerity - "Let me live the life I dreamed once before, let me live the way I once wished to be." Anyone who knows about Tim's tumultuous personal life with substance abuse and women can't help but be moved by the vulnerability expressed in this tune. The next track, "People," is another ballad but changes the theme to social commentary of the 'enough with all the hate, we are all the same' variety. Kind of the weak cut of the bunch but still respectable. This is followed by "Let's Have a Ball Tonight", which is the first upbeat tune on the whole album. In fact, its a slowly undulating funk number but comes off as fast given all the ballads preceding it. Lyrics are again a foray in social commentary of anti-war, peace-on-earth sentiments but more effective this time - nothing overreaching or pretentious but just direct candor: "There are so many conversations / meeting parties and cocktails / to preserve peace on earth / They never find the way. / You know why? Because love is really the answer, this you'll have to agree..." The band then whips into a muscular bridge that sounds very much like the groove of 'Energia Racional', especially a four-note vamp plucked out on the guitar. And it works joyously. Another ballad follows, "I," in which Tim seems in a rush to sign the papers for a wedding. "Day By Day" follows the tried and true formula of some of the other ballads here - mid-tempo, and going out swinging. Its good, but its overshadowed by the closer "Vitória Régia", which was also the name given of Tim's band. The tune is a festival of funk that ends up being a kind of call to arms for environmental preservation and a hymn to Mother Nature. Victória Régia is the name given to the HUGE lily pads found in parts of Brazil (fine examples of which exist in Rio's Botanical Gardens). It's also a bad-ass name for a band.

AND NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS!!! --

This CD reissue on Editora Abril sounds AWFUL. Just really bloody awful. I challenge anyone to listen to it and tell me it does NOT sound like shit. It sounds like it was sourced from low-bitrate mp3s the producers grabbed off the internet, or from an old cassette full of wow-and-flutter. I suppose master tapes may not be easy to find in the mess that is Tim's legacy, but for fuch's sake, they could at least attempt a restoration from a clean vinyl copy like Trauma tried (with some success) with Racional. To have waited this long for this album to be reissued and then to hear it sound so thin and distorted was truly anticlimatic. In fact, those of you who follow this blog have have noticed (or even bookmarked) the Tim Maia Discography Page I had begun working on with the hopes to make it a repository for all things Tim. This Editora Abril reissue pretty much took the wind out of those sails. In fact ALL the Ed.Abril reissues sound like shit in various shades of brown. I may still work a little on the page, but I was really disillusioned to see not one but TWO mediocre and half-assed attempts of reissuing Tim Maia's material in the same year (the other being `Universal`), neither of them approaching a complete discography nor awarding the attention to detail his music deserves.

Ah, but Editora Abril gives us these *wonderful* huge booklets. But I will let you in on a secret: There is NO REASON for this booklet to be this long. A lot of it is filler: graphic design tricks that attempt to give a 1970s's "period" look to the packaging with lots of pastels and free-floating bubble shapes interspersed. As well as completely superfulous information like the fact that The Police had a new album out in 1978. Who cares? Even stranger, a picture of Black Sabbath and a note about *their* album of the year, the underwhelming 'Never Say Die.' I suppose this could have something to do with Editora Abril being more of a news publishing house than a record label. All of their Tim Maia Series reissues rely heavily on fluff like this, whether its Sonny & Cher, Jim Morrison, or ABBA - somehow they feel it is necessary to remind us that these albums were made in the 1970s by including photos and captions that have nothing to do with the music on your sound system. But let me level this criticism which I find to be more serious: It is sad that, even after all these years, a lot of Brazilian journalists and the music press still don't seem to GET Tim Maia. A great of time is spent at the beginning of the booklet's essay describing the climate of disco music that was becoming a popular fad in the later 70s in Brazil. That would be fine, except this album has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT!! These facts are more relevant to 1977's "Verão Carioca" and especially 1978's "Tim Maia Disco Club", which was - obviously - deeply influenced by disco. But "Tim Maia em inglês" is pure soul, there isn't a single NOTE deserving of the label 'disco' on it,making all of this commentary in the notes beside the point and anachronistic. Also questionable is the inclusion of a well-known anecdote about the recording of "Verão Carioca" while noisy construction was going on in the building next door -- Did they accidentally include this in the booklet for the wrong CD?? Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Well, it may not be much of a step up from the crappy mp3s some of you may already have of this album, but at least it's in print again. Sort of..

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Marcos Valle - Marcos Valle (1974)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:29:00 +0000

MARCOS VALLE

Released 1974 on Odeon (SMOFB 3854)
Reissued 2011 in the box Marcos Valle Tudo

1 No rumo do sol
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
2 Meu herói
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Só se morre uma vez
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
4 Casamento, filhos e convenções
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
5 Remédio pro coração
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
6 Brasil X México
(Marco Valle)
7 Tango
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
8 Nossa vida começa na gente
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
9 Novelo de lã
(Walter Mariani, Marcos Valle)
10 Cobaia
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
11 Charlie Bravo
(Marcos Valle)

Marcos Valle - vocals, piano, arrangements
Tavito - arrangements
Wagner Tiso - keyboards
José Roberto Betrami - keyboards
Helio Delmiro - electric guitar
Luizão Maia and Alex Malheiros - bass
Robertinho Silva - drums
Vocals - Márcio Lott, Renato Correa, Ronaldo Correa, Marisinha, Regininha, Malu, Aninha e Claudio Telles

Produced by Milton Miranda
Musical direction by Lindolfo Gaya
Production assistant - Tavito
Recording technicians - Roberto, Dacy and Toninho
Remix engineer - Z.J. Merky
Photos and layout - Flavio D'Alincourt
Art - Roberto Souza
Cover - Juarez Machado

2011 reissue coordinated by Charles Gavin
Supervision by Marcos Valle
Remastered by Ricardo Gardia at Magic Master, RJ

Marcos Valle's restive spirit once again sees him changing things up. Rather than attempt to repeat the winning formula of 1973's "Previsão do Tempo", this album finds Marcos nesting in the clouds of baroque pop and blue-eyed soul. The vocal and orchestral arrangements - aided and abetted by composer Tavito - are meticulous, and the production, as always, is first-rate and delicious. Largely a mellow affair dominated by ballads, it is punctuated with a few more upbeat tunes beginning the with sensitive anti-hero anthem "Meu herói." While not packing the pure funk punch of the Azymuth tunes of the last album, there are some funky hooks - "Casamentos, filhos e convenções" has a very satisfying chorus with chord changes to offset the verse well enough to be called perfection. Clavinet through a wah-pedal mixed with strings, brass, piano. Very nice analog synth work from Wagner Tiso and José Roberto Betrami on the whole record. The song "Remedio pro coração" reminds me of Taiguara's albums from the early to mid 70s, but less melancholic and angst-ridden. "Tango" is probably the only Marcos Valle tune to have a bandeon, and is actually almost a tango, and a great song. "Nossa vida começa a gente" is a sonic orgasm, its lush pop exterior subverted by the inclusion of what appears to be a surdo drum dropped into the chorus that would almost make this prime material for a dub remix (but.. please don't do this). "Novela de lã" is another ballad, downbeat with a lot of room for dynamics, muted electric guitar sneaking in some jazz chords, Hammond organ threatening to swell but never actually doing so, and of course more layered vocal harmonies. "Cobaia" is one of my favorite slow tunes on the album mostly due to the piano line that comes in about 27 seconds in and its interplay with the acoustic guitar. The whole album is full of these subtle touches that disguise the sheer creativity of the arrangements. Seven of the eleven songs clock in around two and a half minutes, three tunes barely crack the three-minute mark, and the album closes with one "long" tune that almost reaches five minutes, the gorgeous instrumental "Charlie Bravo", which has Wagner Tiso's influence in it pretty strongly. There is no track by track sessionography for this that I am aware of, which is a shame for this tune in particular - I have a feeling that Marcos himself may not even play on the song but only composed it. Well, "only" composed a five-minute elegy to his own legacy in a composition that evokes everything that came before on the record, and in a way much of his achievements as a musician and composer over the last decade. It is both a fitting and beguiling closer to this very necessary boxset. It leaves me wanting to hear more - and once again, these last few http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifvolumes in the box lack any alternate mixes or bonus tracks - but it also reminds that there is already so much here to keep a lover of good music happy, we should really just be thankful.

I know it was a long wait for this last piece of the Valle box. I hope its been worth it. By far this box has been the most satisfying reissues of any Brazilian artist's back catalog in many years.

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Walter Bishop, Jr - Coral Keys (1971) Black Jazz BJ/2

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:31:00 +0000

"Coral Keys"
Walter Bishop, Jr.
Released on Black Jazz 1971 (BJ/2)
Japanese Reissue 2005 Black Jazz/P-Vine

Coral Keys 6:20
Waltz For Zweetie 5:08
Track Down 4:51
Soul Turn Around 7:18
Our November 4:10
Three Loves 5:00
Freedom Suite 7:50

All songs composedand arranged by Walter Bishop
Produced and engineered by Gene Russell

Reggie Johnson - Bass
Idris Muhammad - drums (side one),
Alan Shwaetz Benger - drums (side two)
Harold Vic - Soprano sax and flute (side one), tenor sax (side two)
Woody Shaw - trumpet (side two)
Walter Bishop - piano

Well my friends, I've been too busy for blogging and have to take advantage of spare moments, such as now when I am coming alive with my first cup of coffee, to do some leisurely writing. My apologies for the brevity of this post. I'll be dipping into the Black Jazz catalog frequently over the coming weeks (or months... I always seem to make unkept promises), and have decided to start with this album, the second release on the label. The first release was by label founder Gene Russell ("New Directions") and while it's a good enough disc, it's not a *great* disc and in my opinion not the best introduction to this very important label and their legacy. So, let's start with this one.

Pianist, theorist, and sometime poet Walter Bishop Jr. has a strong enough jazz resumé to pique your interest on his own but the pot is sweetened by the company he brings along on these two sessions, divided neatly into the two sides of the album. The first is driven by the soulful drumming of Idris Muhammad, and kicks off with a riff that is coincidentally reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's "Bring Down the Birds" from the Blow Up soundtrack. Harold Vic's economical playing on the flute helps make this a very mellow and subtle opening for an album that kind of sneaks up on you. Vic switches to soprano sax in a low register for the next tune as Idris and Reggie swing the bejeezes out of this Waltz for Zweetie. "Track Down" brings us slowly into soul jazz earthy explorations and Walter steps out from his understatements a bit to show us what he's got on the solos. Nice interactions between him and Idris on this piece too. "Soul Turn Around" is, as the title might tip you off, unapologetic soul jazz with a fat bass line that lets Muhammad do his thing that he's best at, creating a steady groove that gets our head and shoulders bobbing, swaying, wanting to move. Vic sounds a bit flat to me on this one.

The second side benefits from the presence of one of my favorite underrated trumpeters, Woody Shaw who helps take the album up a notch. (If you don't know Woody's work as a bandleader, don't waste any time in looking him up. Hard to say where to start but you could do worse than 'Song of Songs' [1972] or Little Red's Fantasy [1976]). His playing is always imaginative, effortlessly agile or sparse when the moment calls for it, and he makes a good partner for Harlod Vic, rounding out the sound nicely. 'Our November' is, well, a very autumnal composition. The drum throne is handed over to Alan Shwaetz Benger from this point on. While certainly capable enough, he can be a bit busy and I miss Idris' personality. He does, however, shine on the final track on this album, when the whole ensemble gets to stretch out for the first time on a record made of up of relatively short tracks. "Freedom Suite" may be unimaginatively titled but the music here is undoubtedly the most adventurous and free on the record. Very articulate expressions of hesitation, suspension, curiosity, frustration and release. Benger has a wonderful way of making the drum kit collapse on itself, and occasionally just chooses to stop playing entirely in the middle of a bar, leaving the rest of the group to walk on air. Both Shaw and Bish are very grounded and warm players and retain those qualities even when the band goes into free time, running against the grain of harshness and fire music usually found in the idiom. At slightly under ten minutes, these piece could have gone on much longer and still kept me interested.

Like Bish himself this album is modest and unassuming of its many merits. A fairly traditional jazz record in terms of Black Jazz's catalog, it is less interesting and exciting than his second offering on the label, "Keeper of My Soul" from 1973, where we'll find Bish augmenting his palette with electric piano, organ, and a larger ensemble. But we'll get to that one later. Until then, enjoy this record which is none too shabby.

FLAC

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Marcos Valle - Previsão do Tempo (1973)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:28:00 +0000

PREVISÃO DO TEMPO
Marcos Valle
1973 on Odeon (SMOFB 3788)
2011 Reissue in box Marcos Valle Tudo

1 Flamengo até morrer
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
2 Nem paletó, nem gravata
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Tira a mão
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
4 Mentira
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
5 Previsão do tempo
(Marcos Valle)
6 Mais do que valsa
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
7 Os ossos do barão
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
8 Não tem nada não
(Eumir Deodato, Marcos Valle, João Donato)
9 Não tem nada não
(Eumir Deodato, Marcos Valle, João Donato)
10 Samba fatal
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
11 Tiu-ba-la-quieba
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
12 De repente, moça flor
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)

Marcos Valle - vocals, Fender Rhodes, acoustic guitar, orchestrations on tracks 1 & 10

with
Azymuth:
José Roberto Bertrami, Arp Strings, Hammond, synthesizers and orchestrations on 1, 6, 8, 9, 11 & 12
Alex Malheiros - bass
Ivan Conti (Mamão) - drums

Participation of O Terço on tracks 1 & 10
Sérgio Hinds - electric guitar
César das Merces - bass
Vinícius Cantuária - drumsWaltel Branco - orchestration on "Os ossos do barão"

Produced by Milton Miranda
Musical director - Lindolfo Gaya
Production Assistant - Paulo Sérgio Valle
Technical director - Z.J. Merky
Recording technicians - Nivaldo Duarte, Toninho, Dacy
Remix engineer - Jorge Teixeira

Photos - Paulo Sérgio Valle
Layout - Joel Cocchiararo

Remastered in 2011 by Ricardo Garcia at Magic Master Studio, RJ

My apologies for the long delay in getting this post up and out, but I think this album is probably worth the wait. 'Previsão do Tempo' (or "Weather Report" in English) is most certainly a career highlight for Marcos Valle and one of his best of the decade. Retaining some of the dreaminess of 'Vento Sul' (and some of the musicians from O Terço on a few tracks), whereas that album is dreamy-sedated-sprawling-spaced-out, this one is leaner, focused, funkier, but still grooving with the same bohemian vibe that permeates all that is The Brothers Valle at this point. The album opens with a musical tribute to the Flamengo football club. Kinda boring really. I find songs about sports fucking boring, sorry. But at least it gives us the tip that the tone of this album is a little 'lighter' than the last. Oddly enough it's a fairly straight MPB-style samba as played by O Terço in 1973, whose other song on the album, "Samba fatal" is a hell of a lot darker and heavier. For the rest of the album Valle has Azymuth as his backing band. And it is an analog keyboard lover's geekfest galore from this point out. Production is incredible. 'Nem paléto nem gravatá' is their celebration of adamant nonconformity, a hippie shout of "hell no!", seeing as in 1973 everyone else but them were all wearing suits and ties.*

The song 'Mentira' teaches you the proper way to pronounce the word 'mentira' to a carioca. If you say it any other way, such as how the remaining 97% of Brazil pronounces the word, you will be invariably corrected by an American who has never been outside of Rio or treated like backward outside / off-worlder by a native resident of the city. Oh, and this tune was a huge hit in the European discos, as Marcos tells us in his introductory note.

They are able to follow this slab of funk with gorgeously delicate ballads like the instrumental title song, "Mais do que valsa," and "De repente, moça flor". While sill maintaining a texture like buttered velvet with Rhodes electric piano, analog synth gurgles, brushed drums, and blue-eyed soulsearching vocals. "Os ossos de barão", an ode to the material world where all is for sale. And the two part "Não tem nada não" is actually just one tune with a false fade-out and an outro, but is divided here into separate tracks. Pan-Latin fusion post-bossa funk. Some of Paulo's less interesting lyrics but I feel like he was writing more for the sound of the words and fitting them into the lockstep groove of the band than trying for profundity. The aforementioned "Samba fatal", aptly named for its gravity, is timed well in the sequence. Not sure if these tracks with O Terço were a continuation of and/or outtakes from the Vento Sul sessions (neither Valle nor Gavin give us actual recording dates in otherwise pretty thorough info), but the two tunes with them do not sound to my ears like throw aways. Most likely they were recorded after they had been touring together and Marcos had a few songs he'd been working on during rehearsals. Its ominous minor-chord changes, organ, and fuzzy-braincell guitar (mixed just perfectly in the right channel) compliments some of Paulo's best lyrics on the album.

*irony

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Herbie Mann - Live at Newport (1963)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:28:00 +0000

I know there are quite a few people waiting for me to finish up the Marcos Valle series, but I've been rather busy lately. But a whole week without a blog post is just unconscionable, so here's a quick one (while he's away).

Herbie Mann still doesn't get enough credit for his role in helping spread the seeds of musical cross-fertilization between the US and Brazil, nor for the amount of great players that passed through the ranks of his various ensembles. My explanation for this lack of respect hinges on the fact that by the late sixties Herbie would become obsessed with taking his shirt off for every photo op, bearing his hairy pectorals while blowing madly on his flute. And also committing the venial jazz sin of flirting too much with commercialism for the jazz critics, embracing soul, R&B, funk, rock, and disco at one time or another.

This is a very fine set of music from Herbie with his shirt still on, and a lineup that boasts Dave Pike, Willie Bobo and Patato Valdez. From Bennie Goodman to Luis Bonfa, there really isn't a dull moment. And a ripping bossa-bop treatment of "Desafinado" is all on its own enough to make this record worth having. The solos from Herbie and Dave Pike are a world apart from the many sleepier, starchier American jazz appropriations of bossa nova's own appropriations of American jazz. It's as if the original Jobim/Mendonça song had a zipper, and Herbie Mann pulled the zipper all the way down, pushed the fabric inside out, stuffed it with a simulacrum of Dizzy Gillespie, pulled the zipper back up, and gave it to us all on Christmas day. Just like if you go far enough to the east you end up in the west eventually, bossa nova's whitening of samba is baptized into Black American music and Latin Jazz by a Jew from Brooklyn.

Oh, and lots of folks are fond of pointing out that this live version of `Garota de Ipanema` (The Girl from Ipanema)was actually recorded before the Getz/Giblerto version had been released (although that version *had* been recorded by the time of the concert). Pretty cool, eh?

Elsewhere, Willie Bobo and Patato tear it up on the timbales and congas. Like they always do. I hope this whets your appetite for more from the family of Mann as I have quite a bit I've been meaning to share someday (including the oddball albums with Sonny Sharrock and Roy Ayers). This 2001 reissue on Wounded Bird has pretty decent sound too.

Juju - Chapter Two: Nia (1974) Strata- East - Black Fire 24/96khz vinyl

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:28:00 +0000

JuJu – Chapter Two: Nia

Originally released on
Strata-East – SES-7420 in 1974
This repressing, Black Fire Records (date unknown)

To find peace, you must BE it.
- Ngoma Ya Uhuru, "Complete the Circle"

1 Introduction 2:40
2 Contradiction (For Thulani) 5:10
3 Black Experience 3:44
4 Nia (Poem: Complete The Circle) 8:36
5 The End Of The Butterfly King (Poem: Things Comin' Along) 6:10
6 Black Unity 15:58

Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Flute, Percussion – Plunky Nkabinde
Bells, Vocals,Poetry – Ngoma Ya Uhuru
Congas – Simbo
Drums, Congas, Whistle – Babatunde
Electric Bass – Phil Branch
Piano, Shekere, Percussion – Al-Hammel Rasul
Vibraphone, Percussion – Lon Moshe

Engineer – Tom Williams
Liner Notes – Thulani Nkabinde

Arranged by Plunky Nkabinde
Art Direction, Photography, Layout – Collis Davis

Recorded June, 1974 at Eastern Recording Studios, Richmond, Virginia

Video Playback Equipment: Center For Puerto Rican Studies, New York City
---------------------------

Video playback equipment?? I wish I know what that was all about. Presumably it involved some heady stuff at the The East, the collectively-run tiny jazz club / pedagogical outreach / Afrocentricity home base for so much great music that ended up released on the associated Strata-East record label. (The Center for PR Studies was and still is part of Hunter College and linked to the CUNY system).

"JUJU" was the name of the ensemble that would become the funk-jazz-fusion outfit known as 'Oneness of Juju'. Their first two albums were made for the famed Strata-East label. The first one dipping from the well of free jazz outfits like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, while this album goes further into Afro-centric themes with layers and layers of percussion, a few unrelentingly-groove-based compositions, and poetry over a couple tunes, very much in the spirit of early 70s spiritual-jazz sociopolitical-revolutionary-love and political fire music. Their take on Pharaoh Sanders 'Black Unity' is frenzied -- two electric bass guitars giving it a heavy fusion sound (although they are the only electric instruments featured). Drummer 'Babatunde' definitely has jazz chops but sometimes he sounds like Billy Cobham on on a tight budget, something about the way he tunes his kit and his heavy hands. The couple of drum solos he takes are a little weird to my ears but when all the rest of the percussionists kick in it starts to gel very nicely. You can actually hear the band transitioning from the more free-jazz, heavily AEoC-inspired first album to their leaner jazz-funk identify as Oneness of Juju, with this album acting as a spiritual bridge between them. The radical spaces created around The East saturate this album, and if anyone needed convincing that those messages are still relevant they need only open a newspaper or look out in the streets.

"A new day is coming. A new day is here. Seize the time ... everything comes in time... I don't believe in time. Only change. Change the time. It's ours now brothers, sisters. It's ours now if we use it. There is no time. Only rhythm and change. There is no time, only rhythm and change. Only change. Only change. Change."

These Black Fire vinyl repressings are, like so many vinyl repressings, a bit inconsistent. You will definitely notice the surface noise in some of the quiet passages , which there is no way of removing without leaving digital artifacts much more offensive to the ear. But the majority of the album has the band playing fairly loud, and so the surface noise really doesn't bother me much. If it bothers you, I'll be happy to refund your money.

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Marcos Valle - Vento Sul (1972) with O Terço

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 05:37:00 +0000

"Vento Sul"
Marcos Valle
with O Terço

Released 1972 on Odeon SMOFB 3725
Reissued 2011 in the boxset Marcos valle Tudo

1 Revolução orgânica
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
2 Malena
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Pista 02
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
4 Vôo cego
(Cláudio Guimarães)
5 Bôdas de sangue
(Marcos Valle)
6 Democústico
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
7 Vento Sul
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
8 Rosto barbado
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
9 Mi hermoza
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
10 Paisagem de Mariana
(Frederyko)
11 Deixa o mundo e o sol entrar
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)

BONUS TRACK
12. O beato

Marcos Valle - vocals, piano
Ian Guest- orchestration and arrangements on `Bodas de sangue`
Hugo Bellard - orchestration and arrangements on `Deixa o mundo e o sol entrar`

O Terço:
Sérgio Hinds - electric guitar and coro
Vinícius Cantuária - drums, second vocal on 'Revolução orgânica', coro
César das Mercês - bass, and coro

Cláudio Guimarães - electric guitar
Fredera - electric guitar on 'Pasagem de Mariana'
Robertinho Silva - drums, percussion
Paulo Guimarães - flute

Produced by Milton Miranda
Musical director - Lindolfo Gaya

----------------------

"Vento Sul, from 1972, is an album very different from the earlier records - I experienced a lot in terms of rhythms, harmonies, melodies, arrangements and instrumentation. O Terço, one of the best bands of the era, accompanied me in all this and we recorded it all together. I also counted on the collaboration of Fredera, Robertinho Silva and the talented twins Cláudio and Paulo Guimarães (they were also part of the band in our shows). The bonus track here is a verion I did for Odeon of "O beato", a song that was part of the soundtrack for the novela 'Selva de Pedre.'

I consider this album a very experimental one: it was practically created in a modest fisherman's house that we rented in Búzios, in a communitarian spirit. It marked my 'hippie' era...
- Marcos Valle, liner note / blurb

So here were are (finally) with the next installment as the Brothers Valle continue their trend of changing the approach to songwriting and recording and continued to make ingenious decisions regarding their musicians and production choices. This album features the band O Terço as part of the backing band, which unfortunately for Brazilians of a certain age will be associated with wanky overblown progressive rock from the mid-70s. But in their early days they were much more psychedelic, and I make no apologies for my own soft spot for early 70s prog. And on this album O Terço sounds more like the earliest O Terço than O Terço actually did by 1972 -- the dreamy, acoustic haze from when Jorge Amiden was in the band (see the 'Karma' album also posted here). Also in the musician credits are stalwarts like Robertinho on the drums and Paulo Guimarães on flute

The marriage is a happy one. The album was recorded in Búzios, which was practically a hippie commune that received famous visitors like Joplin and Mick Jagger in the years leading up to this album, before it blew up into an overpriced tourist trap. It is the first album since 1963's "Samba Demais" to feature songs that were not written by at least one of the Valle brothers. The collective creative process on this album is evident by how smoothly tunes like "Vôo cego" by Cláudio Guimarães and "Paisagem de Mariana" (Frederyko) fit in with the Valle's tunes. In fact "Vôo cego" (or 'Blind Flight' in English) is one of my favorite songs on the album. It is followed by a beautiful instrumental tunes, 'Bodas de sangue', that was arranged by Ian Guest, someone I don't know much about other than the fact that he also has album credits on Donato's "Quem é quem" and on some Milton Banana Trio albums; and that, contrary to his very English-sounding name, he was in fact Brazilian and an important figure in jazz circles and taught quite a few students a music professor. The song is followed up by the quirky, somewhat experimental, somewhat silly 'Democústico', where you'll hear an agogô played in an afoxê rhythm balanced against squiggly wah-wah guitar lines.

The lysergic textures of this record can hypnotize the unwary, so do not listen to this while operating heavy machinery. The title song "Vento sul" has an open, meandering, incompleteness to it that is equally charming and beguiling. Reflective lyrics dealing with the identity politics of alternative lifestyles in the tune 'Rosto barbado' give way to playfully schizoid moodshifts in 'Mi hermoza', which alternates between open acoustic strumming and big aural spaces to a chugging midsection that is about as hard-rocking as the Valles are likely to get. Sounds as much or more like an O Terço song than the tunes here actually written by O Terço members, in fact. It is followed by "Paisagem de Mariana", a song that fits flows nicely in its surroundings and which bears a pretty heavy stylistic similarity to any number of Milton Nascimento/Ronaldo Bastos/Fernando Brandt compositions between 1970 - 72. "Deixa o mundo e o sol entrar" is a another gorgeous tune anchored in acoustic guitars with careful piano, occasional drums, and a meandering melody line that is as warm as the song's title. It is a perfect finale for this masterpiece-in-miniature. For this reissue, I actually wish they had included a minute of blank audio / silence at the end in which to collect our wits. Not that "O beato" doesn't fit with the rest of this -- oddly enough, for a telenovela track, it is as equally hazy and tripped out as anything else on this disc. But the original album has a kind of poetic closure to it with "Deixa o mundo" that gets a bit lost when followed immediately by another song.

Since it is sandwiched in Valle's discography between two giant albums, 'Garra' and 'Previsão do Tempo', it seems like `Vento Sul` may have gotten overlooked to some degree. At least one of my Brazilian friends who is old enough to have been alive when this album was released (unlike myself), and who is also more of an O Terço fan that I am, was completely unaware of it until I passed along this reissue to him. And as much as I personally love this album, it lacks any obvious hit singles or even anything that jumps out as particularly "catchy", which could turn off listeners who are particularly enamored with the Valle Brothers' pop sensibilities. Even though it has 'big names' attached to it, this album FEELS obscure, with repeated listenings never quite diminishing the sense that we are privy to some aural hidden treasure and secret between friends. These are qualities that should put it high up on the list of favorites for anyone into 'cult' favorite psychedelic Brazilian music from the late 60s and 70s. Marcos, in his blurb (too short to be called liner notes, really) seems to insinuate that this album is kind of an exception or even diversion in his discography, an experimental side-trip. It may be that, but it is also an exploration and perhaps a deepening of some of the aural territory he had already been traversing in the previous two albums. The next album, `Previsão do Tempo', marks a return to more structured compositions, soul and funk influences, and songs that are easier to sing along to when you play them loudly. But don't shrug off this album - it deserves a careful listen, with or without additional chemical enhancement.

Back cover liner notes, free translation (as in loose, as well as the fact that I don't charge for this...)

I'm in the middle of the album. Five songs are already recorded. I'm certain that they are going to be some of the best things I've ever done. As good or better than "Samba Demais" (my first album) or "Viola Enluarda."

The songs on this album were made with much care and tranquility, and I sincerely think that it's been a long, long time since I've done anything that pleases me so much. I'll say the same for the lyrics by Paulo Sérgio. We're giving you the full picture of what we've recently been sketching out in our music. Nothing rushed, no worries about commercialism.

Paulo Sérgio came up with the idea to form a group. We formed one. It was a wonderful idea.

Sérgio, VInicius, Cézar, Frederico, Paulo e Cláudio (twins), Robertinho e Maurício Maestro. Musicians and people of the highest caliber.

We are working like eight arrangers. Every day we get together to hang out and talk and the ideas for each song keep coming. And the result couldn't be better, I think; we all think so.

The album cover is from Juarez Macho, logically. Renato is responsible for the production and I can say that he also is part of the group, because he's collaborating like a motherfucker with us on this album.

We are lucky to have the recording technicians are Zilmar and Nivaldo. Milton Miranda is the Director of Production, and is also one of the most sensational people I've ever known.

It's all there.

- Marcos

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Marcos Valle - Garra (1971)

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 02:32:00 +0000

GARRA
Marcos Valle
1971 on Odeon (MOFB 3683)

1 Jesus meu Rei
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
2 Com mais de 30
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Garra
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
4 Black is beautiful
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
5 Ao amigo Tom
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Osmar Milito, Marcos Valle)
6 Paz e futebol
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
7 Que bandeira
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Máriozinho Rocha, Marcos Valle)
8 Wanda Vidal
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
9 Minha voz virá do sol da América
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
10 Vinte e seis anos de vida normal
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)
11 O cafona
(Paulo Sergio Valle, Marcos Valle)

----------
bonus tracks 2011

12. Com mais de 30 (versao instrumental)
13. Garra (versao instrumental em sol)
14. Black is beautiful (alternate version instrumental)
15. Que bandeira (alternate version instrumental)
16. Que bandeira (instrumental mix)
17. Wanda Vida (instrumental mix)
Marcos Valle - vocals and piano
Dom Salvador - piano and organ
Marizinha - vocal on Black is Beautiful
Geraldo Vaspar - acoustic guitar, orchestrations on 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8
Orlando Silveira - orchestrations 9, 10
Cesar Camargo mariano - orchestration on 6

Produced by Milton Miranda
Musical direction by Lindolfo Gaya
Assisten producer - Mariozinho Rocha

2011 reissue supervised by Charles Gavin
Reamstered by Ricardo Garcia at Magic Master, RJ

Another classic early 70s album from Marcos Valle, But, this album took a little while to grow on me. Perhaps because, when I'm obsessively-compulsively collecting, consuming, and divulging music, I am busy worshiping the Dark One, Satanáis, Beelzebub, Lucifer, or Jimmy Witherspoon - I am a little put off by the opening track on this one, 'Jesus Meu Rei.' On the other hand, there is an apocryphal and even millenarian streak to a lot of the content on this album. Satan may have granted me the power to acquire gluttunous amounts of music over the years, but far be if from me to question The Brothers Valle if their faith is strong. It's a gorgeous baroque pop tune with whispy harpsichord and strummy acoustic guitar and very, um, "churchy" organ from none other than Dom Salvador. Then tuning into the lyrics and I am surprised, in spite of knowing that I shouldn't be, of Paulo Sérgios genius. In its hymnal piety the song also calls on Jesus to look around at how the world has changed, and ambiguous lines that can either be a lament of world gone down the wrong path, or perhaps a plea to some type of moral relativity adn realism ("nada e ninguem / sabe o que é mal / e o que é bem / Jesus meu rei / fazendo lei / Passa seu tempo real"). A chorus of voices that's built since the first verse swells into the transcendent bridge and the softly provocative lines:

De repente, achou a verdade / Informou ao seu ministério / Que o mistério estava na vida / Vida lá fora / Fora dali

Era só olhar para o mundo / Ver a gente amando na grama / E as crianças pelo jardim Escorrendo pra mãe, pro pai // Pro país

For the non-Lusophile, I regret to inform you that are missing out on quite a bit here and subtle wordplay that translation just can't get at. Listen to how well the lyrics, vocals, and arrangments hang together and reinforce each other.

When I first played this album I didn't quite know what to thing of it. But since then I've decided this may be the "sleeper" in the whole batch of Marcos's 1970s output, a near perfect album. In his liner notes Marcos admits to his inability to classify these songs: "sambas-pop-bossa-jazz", he calls them, but there is definitely some pós-Tropicália rock here too.

"Com mais de trinta" begins by playing with the trendy phrase of the late 60s and early 70s, "Never trust anyone over 30," after which Paulo gives us a hold LOT of reasons not to trust the number 30. Then seemingly leaving the whole idea of 30 in the dust as the narrator contemplates the things in life he dreams about but never does, his sensation of dislocation in time and space, "Passo a passo, faço mais um traço".. This is deceptively simple, unadorned lyricism. Bereft of the layered complexity of Chico Buarque's genius work, or unburdened by the density of Caetano Veloso's beguiling forays into solipsism, Paulo Sérgio seems to have had a way of saying speaking in a very simple way about very complex ideas. So simply and directly that might leave you utterly unstruck and unconcinved when first encountered. There is a clean symetrical beauty to the words, Marcos' vocal delivery, and the production and arrangements. When the truth of this hit me, the parts of this album that had seemed like a bit of a confused mess became utterly uncluttered. Paulo had a way of setting words to Marcos' musical ideas that makes them one of the classic telekinetic songwriting teams. And Paulo had a way of churning out pointed, sardonic, and nuanced critiques of all manner of societal patterns, preconceptions, of issues contemporary and contextual and quasi-eternal, without ever succumbing to bitterness or hipster irony, holding on to his own brand of humanist optimism.

The title track is just plain weird, with Marcos's out-of-breath 'ha ha' sounding completely bizarre in one of his brother's stranger lyrics concoctions of urban dislocation, ambition, alienation. Musically it's infectiously punchy in a soft painted-velvet arrangement of drums grooving in the left channel, utterly unhurried and laid-back; Dom Salvador laying down percussive bursts of organ and swells of Hammond vibrato at the end of certain measures; breaks at the ends of the chorus where suddenly flutes and violins sneak their way. Then a verse of Marcos singing scatlike nonsense syllables. Once again, sonically it is a pastiche of elements that probably shouldn't be thrown together and yet couldn't sound more natural (and, once again, Paulo Sérgio manages a lyrical mimesis). The alternate version here, at a faster tempo and in different key, sheds light on the creative process and makes me even more impressed with the final version. Its not that the two are terribly different in structure or execution, but the album take is much more "in the pocket."

The album continues to challenge the listener, to greater or lesser success or failure. "Black Is Beautiful" almost feels like they are (as the British would say) 'having a go' at the listener with a playful send-up of Afrocentric pride; then I think to myself, no, they are totally sincere, just hopelessly clumsy and even naive about it. From a sociohistorical context, in Brazil or in the US where the phrase "Black is beautiful" was born, there is so much that is just WRONG with this tune that I wouldn't know where to start. I still can't honestly say what they were thinking.. This album has plenty of The Brother's Valle blue-eyed soul on it, but this song has enough exaggerated torch-song drama to it that I just can't take it too seriously But it's also too damn intriguing for me to leave it at face value, and its kind of, well, a bit hilarious:

"Hoje cedo na Rua do Ouvidor // Early today on Ouvidor Street
Quantos louras horríveis eu vi // I saw so many horrible blondes
Eu quero uma dama de cor // I want a lady of color
Uma deusa do Congo ou daqui // A goddess from the Congo or from here
(Que se integre no meu sangue europeu) // To blend with my European blood

Black is beautiful (2x)
Black beauty is so peaceful
I wanna a black
So beautiful"

If this is sardonic, then it may be complex commentary on the foundational myths of Brazilian mestizagem (race-making, and often coerced in the master-slave relationship) as the roots of an alleged "racial democracy" that has never existed in reality. Or, perhaps its just completely silly drivel from two blond-haired blue-eyed surfista beach bums. In which case, its still hard to be mad at these guys. It's just too damn honest and awkward, and the broken English (is this intentional? These guys spent two years living in the States...) only adds to the sense that somebody is mocking somebody else about...something.

Amigo Tom... At this time Tom Jobim had spent quite a few years in the US recording with the likes of Frank Sinatra and producer Creed Taylor (for his CPI label). This song is a simple `welcome home', things weren't the same without you, please don't leave again, yes things have changed here but it will all be okay in the end.. The melody line and chordal structure is a worthy homage to the master of bossa nova.

"Paz e futebol" takes up the trope of Brazilian culture a culmination of tropical laziness and a Lusitanian aversion towards work, a critique strongly linked to Anglo-Saxon prejudices against Brazil but just as equally bought into by Brazil's upper class who looks to Europe (or the US) as their model for "civilzation". This is a gentle rebuttle without an exclamation point to punctuate its rancor. "Que bandeira" is probably just a song of thwarted, spurned love and the misunderstandings in changing relationships. Or maybe it's a coded critique of the military dictatorship that the censor`s missed because they thought Marcos and Paulo were harmless pothead surfers at this point.. "Wanda Vidal" is lyrically like the opening of some unwritten mystery novel, but was actually on the soundtrack to a telenovela (Os Ossos do Barão) and musically driven by heavily strummed acoustic guitar, bossa-rock drums, chunks of organ chords and piano, congas.. Apparently this song has some cult status in Europe and the US as Madlib apparently did a remix of it. The following tune "Minha voz vira do sol de América" is, in spite of its possibly megalomaniac title, an understated instrumental based around Marcos or Dom Salvador's piano and Veraldo Gaspar's lush arrangement, with a stray female vocal drifting in and out (uncredited, but maybe his wife Ana again?). "Vinte e seis anos de vida normal" - this song couldn't possibly have a cooler introduction of vocal harmonies, strings, followed by strong propulsive drums, erogenous arrangements, and more of Paulo's lyrical talent in narrating another disaffected, alienated young person who feels they've spent their life reading newspapers and watching TV, wishing he'd done things he hadn't, regretting things he had, until he comes across an announcement in the paper that mentions that he has died, um, reading the newspaper, followed by a stanza of millenarian hyperbole too good to spoil.

"Cafona" (translated roughly as in bad taste, tacky, 'brega' or whatever) is either utter nonsense or deep and profound. I'm not sure. But its definitely got one of the deepest grooves around on this disc and Marcos vocals couldn't be more, well, Marcos. And it was the lead track for a another telenovela sountrack, a show with the same name of "Cafona." It's a perfect album closer, and again a perfect marriage of voice-lyric-instrumentation-arrangement.

The instrumental bonus tracks all make for great listening. And sense we mentioned Madlib in this post -- is he actually hoping for more remixes and samples? One thing that hasn't been mentioned in these posts is that, in a big way, Marcos Valle is more valorized outside Brazil than within it, where is almost forgotten except for his bigger hits. In a lot ways he was either ahead of his time, or just 'out of time', existing in some weird alternate musical universe. I am aware that these write-ups have perhaps begun leaning towards the breathless prose of idyllic idol praise but, damnit, this album really IS probably a masterpiece. It is nothing if not masterful, and it makes it all sound so easy - as if blending sun-dappled soul music with post-bossa pop, mild psychedelia (as in, about five or six hours into a psychedelic experience..), and rock attitude is just something they guys could do with a shrug or the casual nonchalance displayed in the back cover photos.

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Candeia - Samba de Roda (1975) reissue

noreply@blogger.com (Flabbergast) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:57:00 +0000

SAMBA DE RODA
Candeia
1975 Tapecar SS-007
2011 Reissue Discobertas (DB-081)

1 Brinde ao cansaço
(Candeia)
2 Conselhos de vadio
(Alvarenga)
3 Alegria perdida
(Candeia, Wilson Moreira)
4 Camafeu
(Martinho da Vila)
5 Sinhá dona da casa
(Candeia, Netinho)
6 Acalentava
(Candeia)
7 Seleção de Partido Alto:
Samba na tendinha (Candeia)
Já clareou (Dewett Cardoso)
Não tem veneno (Candeia-Wilson Moreira)
Eskindôlelê (Candeia)
Olha hora Maria (Folclore-Adpt. Candeia)

8 Motivos folclóricos da Bahia:
a) Capoeira: Ai, Haydê (Folclore)
Paranauê (Folclore-Adpt. Candeia)
b) Maculelê: Sou eu, sou eu (Folclore)
Não mate homem (Folclore-Adpt. Candeia)
c) Candomblé: Deus que lhe dê (Folclore)
Salve! Salve! (Folclore-Adpt. Candeia)
d) Samba de roda: Porque não veio (Folclore-Adpt. Candeia)

--------------------------------
I hesitated on sharing this here for a long time. Why, you ask? Isn`t this a wonderful classic album from the genius Candeia? Yes, yes it is -- but giving this reissue any wider publicity is like polluting the waters. Finally I decided that, as a public service, I should post about it - with this caveat: I strongly urge all readers DO NOT BUY THIS reissue under any circumstances, I don't care how cheaply you find it in your local shop.

Another essential samba album that has been essentially ruined by a reissue that makes it barely listenable. I am not exaggerating. Our blogger friend Dr. Funkathus has opined that I am something of an obsessive over about audio and sound quality. That may be so, but this reissue disproves the commonly spoken fallback excuse of "It's the music that matters in the end." Because, honestly, I will give ten dollars to anyone who can make it through this first track without a) cringing or b) checking your stereo system connections or c) wondering if you are listening to a low bitrate mp3. OK so I won't give you ten dollars because I am flat broke at the moment. THIS album, which I picked up simultaneously with the other two Candeia reissues on the Discobertas label, is what prompted me to bring them all back to Livraria Cultura and ask for a refund on the basis that they were defective and should not have been released this way. The store clerk thought it was a slightly unorthodox request, but that store is famously awesome and took them back anyway. I hope they sent returned them to the label with an angry note but, alas, they probably didn't. If Discobertas had any integrity they would do a product recall on these, because they are seriously, seriously substandard. These releases have stripped them of any legitimacy as a label and put them in category of shadowy semi-legit / outright bootleg labels like the defunct Radioactive label. Candeia must be rolling over in his grave, and his family must be really hard up for cash to have licensed the rights over these people.

This album deserves a better write-up than this. But it also deserves a better reissue.

It is Candeia in full bloom and at the peak of his powers as a songwriter and performer -- a peak that would last until the end of his short life and his final posthumous album, Axê. Dominated by his original compositions but also carefully chosen covers like the humorous "Conselhos de vadio" (Alvarenga) and "Camafeu" from Martinho da Vila which has all the melodic trademarks of that composer.

The album is saturated with the sound of samba's roots in Afro-brazilian religious traditions (such as but not exclusively Candomblé), incorporating instruments like the berimbau and capoeira rhythmic structure. But the show-stopping centerpiece of this album is without any doubt the 11-minute selection of Partido Alto tunes which gives a taste of how this stuff was performed in a relaxed live setting, something more fully explored on an album called Partido Em 5 that I will be also be sharing here soon...

1975 was a momentous year for Candeia. Disenchanted with the direction of the established samba schools, he founded "Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra e Escola de Samba Quilombo" with Wilson Moreira and Nei Lopes in Rio's suburbs, to reassert samba's roots in Afro-Brazilian traditions. One of his songs, "O Mar Seranou" was recorded by Clara Nunes and was the leading hit single of her best-selling album, 'Claridade.' And, with all that going on, he also recorded THIS ALBUM.

It is much better to have this album in your collection than not to. But even a half-assed vinyl rip on the net would probably be less abrasive for your ears. And apparently this was issued on CD once before in the 1990s although I have never come across a copy.

in 320 kbs em pe tree

in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO

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