Mario Adnet – More Jobim Jazz (Adventure Music – 2011)
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Review written by: Raul da Gama -
Of all the musicians who have contributed to keeping the repertoire of great Brazilian composers alive, Mario Adnet may be making the greatest contribution here. Like trombonist Roswell Rudd, soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy and pianist Misha Mengleberg who gone to great lengths to keep the music of the great pianist and composer Herbie Nichols’ and (to a certain extent) Thelonious Monk’s repertoire alive, the guitarist Adnet has created some of the finest repertory albums of Brazilian music. His work to preserve and spread the music of Moacir Santos, ranks among the finest albums of Brazilian music to have been released as is his album of Baden Powell music and of course his Jobim Jazz album. To these he has now added More Jobim Jazz, another exquisite album produced by the Adventure label of Richard Zirinsky Jr. and Mike Marshall.
Mario Adnet may well be one of the finest living orchestrators in contemporary musical idioms outside what is still catalogued as classical music. He combines the skill of Gil Evans in his use of woodwinds and brass, with a stylish use of strings and percussion and although he has not written much for truly large ensembles he is easily the peer of the Duke, or at least the Duke Ellington of small and medium sized Brazilian ensembles. His elegant taste and his marvelous sense of colours and shades puts him in a secure place where the only other reigning musicians are The Duke, Gil Evans and George Russell. He has a sensibility that makes him to small ensembles what Respighi is to the large world of classical music. Such is his extraordinarily sharp ear for timbre and for the tonal spectrum of the instruments in the brass, woodwinds and certainly strings as well and it seems only a matter of time before he uses the larger family of strings—violins, violoncellos and multiple basses.
On More Jobim Jazz Adnet seems to have tapped into the soul of Jobim, just as he did before. Here, however he is more assured than ever before. This is evident from the sure-footed manner in which he has paced the music, using tempi that are marginally quicker than the Master himself. “Wave” is a wonderful example. On lesser-known Jobim charts such as “Samba de Maria Luiza” “Marina Del Ray” he uses sixteenth notes to colour his harmonies with the most subtle hues. And in “Deus e o Diabo Do Sol” his masterful use of color and nuanced shades turns the melodic narrative into something of a masterful and visually exciting medieval battle. This he repeats in his re-creation of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as he introduces Jobim’s beautiful “Samba do Avião”. The superb work of the trombones has much to do with this and it bodes well for the earthy energy of new Brazilian masters of the instrument, Everson Moraes and Vittor Santos.
Mario Adnet says he discovered the link between Gerry Mulligan’s Tentet and Quartet from 1953. If he goes on listening to the cool surfing sounds of the 50s West Coast, heaven knows what he will come up with next!
Track Listing: 1. Takatanga; 2. Mojave; 3. Boto (Porpoise); 4. Bonita; 5. Antigua; 6. O Homem (The Man); 7. Ai Quem Me Dera (I Wish); 8. O Barbinha Branca (The Little White Bearded Man); 9. Samba de Maria Luiza (Maria Luiza’s Samba); 10. Wave; 11. Marina Del Ray; 12. Deau e o Diabo Na Terra Do Sol (God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun); 13. Samba do Avião (Song of the Jet) (intro: Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin).
Personnel: Andrea Ernest Dias: flute (4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13); Joana Adnet: clarinet (2, 8, 9 – 11, 13); Zé Canuto: alto saxophone (1, 3 – 9, 11, 12); Marcelo Martins: tenor saxophone (1 – 5, 8 – 13); Henrique Band: baritone saxophone (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13); Philip Doyle: French horn (1, 3, 5, 6, 10 – 13); Jessé Sadoc: trumpet (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 12), flugelhorn (2, 10); Aquiles Moraes: trumpet (9), flugelhorn (11, 13); Everson Moraes: trombone (1 – 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 – 13); Vittor Santos: trombone (6, 9, 10 – 13); Mario Adnet: acoustic guitar (1 – 6, 10, 11, 13); Antonia Adnet: acoustic guitar (7 – 9); Ricardo Silveira: electric guitar: 4, 5, 8, 10, 12); Marcos Nimrichter: piano (1, 2, 4 – 10, 12, 13), accordion (3, 7, 8); Jorge Helder: acoustic bass (1 – 10, 12, 13); Jurim Moreira: drums (1 – 3, 6, 12); Raphael Barata: drums (4, 5, 7 – 10, 13), Armando Marçal: percussion (1 – 3, 6, 12).
Related links: Mario Adnet on the web: www.marioadnet.com
Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto – Corrente (Adventure Music – 2011)
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Review written by: Raul da Gama -
From the first notes of the lilting, swaggering Afro-Caribbean melody of “Corrente” it is clear that Jovino Santos Neto is on his surreptitious way to making his Quinteto album, Corrente one of his most memorable to date. From there on, whether he is rendering a baião, a choro, marcha, samba or xoté, it is clear that his mastery of crossing rhythms as they collide with the idiom of jazz is sublime. The magical and beguiling polyrhythms of “Two Friends, True Friends” is a classic example of this, as is the mystical “Zagaia”. And then there is the masterful cross-rhythms of “Matraca,” a chart that owes much to the maddeningly ingenious music of Hermeto Pascoal, an early mentor of Santos Neto.
Jovino Santos Neto, more than any Brazilian musician, with the possible exceptions of Egberto Gismonti, Nana Vasconcelos, Sergio Santos—vastly different artists from each other as they are from Santos Neto—yet who revel in the deep roots of African, native as much as they do on European sources. These artists are in the forefront of a neo-Brazilian revolution that is setting the world on fire. Jovino Santos Neto gives notice of this with the sublime ingenuity of his composition “Vivendo no Presente”, which is as much raucous melding of native and African flavours, with its berimbau and pandeiro mixing with pianism that is technically proficient in the European sense of the phrase.
Despite his masterly piano virtuosity, Santos Neto remains a grassroots Brazilian musician. His approach to music is very much polyrhythmic rather than polyphonic and although he layers Harvey Wainapel’s saxophone and his own flute, or melodica or his piano and Ben Thomas’ vibraphone using multiple counterpoint, it is the bass lines of his compositions that drive the melodies. Thus he is able to accommodate the dancing polyrhythms of his own piano, vibes and of course the drums of Mark Ivester and the percussion of Jeff Busch in the grander scheme of things; making rhythm the stellar concepts of his music.
In the fine choro, “Pra Casa” Santos Neto pits his melodica against multiple layers of clarinets and here the roles of polyphony and polyrhythms are reversed. Yet the angularity and elemental saudade of his song is superbly crafted, with gutbucket tones and exquisite Afro-Brazilian rhythms. The visual extravagance of “Sea and Sky” highlights Santos Neto’s penchant for creating large canvases on which he daubs bright colours and hues, crossing them with thick bass lines hidden in the melody so to create the illusion of multiple textures underscored by percussion and melodica. The forlorn loops and tottering gamboling of the clarinet on “A Fonte” foretell of impending bloom—a colourful symphonic sojourn led by the woodwinds of Wainapel into a mysterious soundscape painted over by the palette of the bass and the hypnotic lines of Santos Neto’s piano that increases the drama and kinetic energy of the piece with its dense Brahms-like textures and timbres.
Somehow the final “word” is that the soul is now in a place from where it will eventually emerge joyfully. But that is a story that the next album from Jovino Santos Neto must tell.
Track Listing: 1. Corrente (Current); 2. Vivendo no Presente (Living in the Present); 3. Two Friends, 4. True Friends; 5. Matraca (Rattle); 6. Outras Praias (Other Beaches); 7. Zagaia (Spear); 8. Pra Casa (Homeward); 9. Sea and Sky; 10. A Fonte (The Source).
Personnel: Jovino Santos Neto: piano, Rhodes, flute, melodica, hand claps; Harvey Wainapel: clarinets, saxophones; Chuck Deardorf: acoustic, electric basses; Mark Ivester: drums; Jeff Busch: percussion; Ben Thomas: vibraphone (2, 4, 6, 8); Lena Simon: vocals (3); Caroline Corcoran: vocals (3).
Related links: Jovino Santos Neto on the web: www.jovisan.net
Yamandú Costa e Hamilton de Holanda – Live (Adventure Music)
When Brazil laughs, the world laughs with her. When she cries the world cries with her. No more is there greater evidence of this when the music of that majestic country is played, especially when musicians with the ingenuity of Heitor Villa Lobos, Pixinguinha, Guinga, Chico Buarque, Hermeto Pascoal, and Egberto Gismonti among others sing of her beauty and grand design. In that magnificent musical geometry and in the edifice of her epic tradition of music and dance lies the secret; its mystery will probably never be discovered, yet forever enjoyed when musicians such as the bandolim genius, Hamilton de Holanda and the master of the Brazilian violão Yamandú Costa sit down to play. This 2008 concert, recorded in Saõ Paulo is steeped in the gorgeous emotions of saudade—so steeped in it that it is impossible not to shed the proverbial tear when beholden of the utter beauty of each maestro’s virtuosity.
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Hamilton de Holanda plays an instrument that might have seemed impossible to tame for generations. The mandolin, or bandolim as it is called in his native Brazil, has a knack of sounding dry. So taut are the strings and so small its body that notes die fairly rapidly after they are plucked or strummed. This is unlike the guitar (violão), which notes dally in the air around the instruments for precious moments after they are sounded. But De Holanda’s technique is so unique and advanced and his dynamics are so superior that he is able to let the notes of his music just that little bit longer so that they intertwine with those played by Costa. The result is a musical dialogue that is akin to the most beautifully expressed counterpoint performed by two stringed instruments. In fact sometimes it is impossible to tell the difference between the instruments—especially in charts such as the superb “01Byte 10 Strings” or Costa’s achingly beautiful “Samba for Rapha.”
Yamandú Costa is another guitarist born into the great Brazilian tradition that includes players like Barbosa-Lima, Laurindo Almeida, Guinga, Gismonti, the three Assads (Sergio, Odair and Badi) and Marcus Tardelli. In fact Brazil has perhaps as many musicians who practice a modern wizardry on the violão as musicians did on piano in the era of the Romantics in 18th Century Europe. Costa does not always play fast. At his hand it seems unnecessary to do so. He can let his fingers fly in a rapid ascending arpeggio if the music calls for that. But he also extracts such pure emotions from the notes he plays, sometimes with such deep and ponderous dexterity that it appears that his violão is actually alive with every feeling and emotion that a human being is endowed with; all that Costa is doing is urging his instrument to speak its mind. His phrases are just long enough to make the emotional outburst come to life in the inner ear and when he desires to tell a story, as on “Whispered,” his music simply stirs the soul. Of course, he has a fine bedfellow in De Holanda who is often aroused by Costa’s playing and meets the magisterium of the violão with one of equal grandeur for the bandolim. This utter beauty is repeated on the encore for the program—Ernesto Nazareth’s “Sliding” or as the composer would have it, “Escorregando.”
This is a recording of exceeding beauty, one that will not be surpassed in a long time because it creates a new language for stringed instruments where voices are heard in all their splendour at the hands of sheer musical ingenuity.
Tracks: 1. Samba do Véio; 2. Chamamé; 3. Sweet; 4. Light of Dawn; 5. 01 Byte 10 Strings; 6. Samba for Rapha; 7. Whispered; 8. Flower of Life; 9. Seasons; 10. Shiawase; 11. Sliding.
Personnel: Hamilton de Holanda: 10-string mandolin; Yamandú Costa: 7-string guitar.
Yamandú Costa on the web: www.yamandu.com.br
Hamilton de Holanda on the web: www.hamiltondeholanda.com/en
Review written by: Raul da Gama
André Vasconcellos – 2 (Adventure Music -2011)
There is nothing predictable about the music of André Vasconcellos. To begin with, he is one of a crop of fresh Brazilian musicians that include guitarists Daniel Santiago and Yamandú Costa, mandolin-player, Hamilton de Holanda and, chief among them, pianist André Mehmari who are re-evaluating their native milieu and the idiom in which they write. They are doing this in relation to the Romantic Era of 17th and 18th Century music that brought them up at home in the first place. And then there is the inevitable surge of the currents of the late 19th and early 20th Century Impressionists from France—men such as the musicians, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré, painters like Monet. The Brazilians—inventive as they are—put all this into a sort of musical decanter, and in the heat of Amazonia and the polyrhythm of Africa, they sally forth with ever-new ways of expressing their musical ingenuity.
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The bassist, Vasconcellos has distilled this complex array of influences into a music that is set against a background of rich, darkish tones and colors, which splash and swirl, tremble, vibrate and soar amid the sparkle and rumble of a myriad rhythms. Vasconcellos is also a sublime melodist. His music flows like an eternal river of song, which although grim and sad at times, always floats with rhythm and rhyme. Its poetics are deeply rooted in his fine sense of the ebb and flow of the art of balladry and the mighty heart of a troubadour. On 2 his work dazzles with many examples of this. His innate ability to light up melodies with complex harmonies is also in evidence. Here, Vasconcellos uses both piano and guitar to ignite an electrifying dialogue between his growling instrument and the pianism of David Feldman and Renato Fonseca, and the magnificent dynamics of guitarists Marco Vasconcellos and Torcuato Mariano. The slanting harmonics of saxophonist, Josue Lopez add a dramatic voice to the proceedings.
Vasconcellos is a deep romantic at heart. His vision is rooted in a sense of the imagistic wholeness of all things beautiful and ugly. There is no such thing as neutrality in his world. In this regard he seems blessed with a sensibility close to that of the great Brazilian poet, Manoel de Barros. In “Signals of Rain” and in “The Trip of the Elephant” he seems to leap and frolic in the poetry of the earth and all things in it. “Bullfight” is another musical tribute to the beauty of ugliness and gore. Vasconcellos also traipses across the rural landscape and into the urban one, but here too not without considerable sentiment and romanticism. “Rome” and “The Old City Ballad” delight without falling into the trap of sentimentality. Sometimes the musician’s music may dally seemingly interminably and at other times there is an energetic rush to the music that feels like a charge of the heartbeat felt in the heart as much as in the soul. “The Trip of the Elephant” with its deeply swaggering rhythm is very much like this in the manner of its progress. And “Spiral,” which is beautiful in its complexity also features a tantalising review of the art of Vasconcellos’ adroitness at the bass.
This album may not grip heart at first hearing, but letting go of all preconceptions of what Brazilian music must sound like today, its music creeps in to take hold of the unconscious tenderly crushing all sensibilities occupying body and soul together.
Track Listing: 1. Signals of Rain; 2. Rome; 3. Balance of Relations; 4. The Old City Ballad; 5. Bullfight; 6. Puerto Madero; 7. The Trip of the Elephant; 8. Spiral.
Personnel: André Vasconcellos: bass; Allen Pontes; drums; Josue Lopez: tenor saxophone; Marco Vasconcellos: guitar (1, 2, 3, 5, 7); David Feldman: piano (1, 2, 3, 5, 8); Renato Fonseca: piano (4, 6); Torcuato Mariano: guitar (4, 6).
André Vasconcellos on the web: www.myspace.com/andrevasconcellos
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Jovino Santos Neto – Veja o Som/See the Sound (Adventure Music)
There comes a time in the life of a pianist, when the lure of a solo project is strong and he or she inevitably gives in. Having thus satisfied the yearning the musician is struck by an even more daunting task: the thought of a duo program, made even more alluring when there is an opportunity to duet with more than one musician and instrumentalist. Such an extravagance is rarely passed up so it is no surprise to find the wonderful world of pianist Jovino Santos Neto illuminated and festooned with duets with no less than twenty musicians as he makes this extraordinary album, Veja o Som (See the Sound), so named when the remarkable Airto Moreira let it slip after the spectacular duet take made it to the album. To be accorded the privilege of playing with practically anyone he wished to play with is rare indeed for any musician and says a lot about his or her relationship with the record label. And Adventure Music once again lived up to its name as well, by going the distance with Santos Neto this time. So what did the pianist do with this privilege?
First off, the program meanders into a maze of great music, with surprises at every turn. It is almost as if Santos Neto hopped onto a futuristic craft and began his journey through ether, suddenly encountering music and musicians with whom to play it. The surprises are breathtaking and the fact that it took two CDs to realize the dream is indicative of the fact that Jovino Santos Neto chose to choke the listening audience with gold in a bejewelled ornament of a double CD. The second remarkable aspect of the program is the outstanding playing of Santos Neto. His ability to switch from soloist to a supportive role is remarkable. That he is a fine soloist is beyond doubt. His palette is awash with the soft hues of many colors. He plays with great sensitivity, with phrases and lines that flow in whorls and ever widening circles. His approach to song is holistic, seemingly one that emerges from a beguiling place where he hears all music in the totality of the soundscape where it exists as if in an entirely fluid state.
Some of these turn the melodies inside out—Jobim’s “Insensatez,” a duet with the ethereal voice of Gretchen Parlato is one such. He can be puckish and play also with a wry, bouncy sense of humour: The breezy track, “Santa Morena,” played with mandolin wizard, Mike Marshall and Hermeto Pascoal’s spectacular; “February 1” with Anat Cohen is another. Frequently he reinvent melodies by diving in to a magical space and emerging with ideas that seemed impossible until now: Two fine examples of this are “Aquelas Coisas Todas,” with the deep brooding and yet sensuous tenor saxophone of David Sanchez and Moacir Santos’ classic, “April Child,” which is bravely and completely re-imagined with the impossibly brilliant sound of Vittor Santos’ trombone. But the most remarkable tracks of all are those that appear to be almost completely spontaneous inventions. “Veja o Som” with Airto Moreira’s remarkable volley of sounds of nature, including his primordial voice, the haunting “Sonora Garoa” with the magnificent voice of Mônica Salmaso and the ethereally beautiful “Cruzando o Sertão” with the percussionist, Luiz Guello are the crowning glory of the whole project.
Surely this must be one of Jovino Santos Neto’s most remarkable albums. It certainly is a wonderful follow-up to that spectacular piano duet album he did with Weber Iago for the same label, Live at Caramoor, where his pianism was just as spectacular. Here, however, Santos Neto is driven to invent with a remarkable array of musicians, especially voice artists, something Brasil has a surfeit of. Whatever will the pianist be up to next? Perhaps an album with the great Hermeto Pascoal, with whom Santos Neto spent time as Director of Music, would be the only thing that could cap this experience.
Tracks: CD1: Aquelas Coisas Todas (All of Those Things); Santa Morena (Dark-skinned Saint); Insensatez (How Insensitive); O Que Vier Eu Traço (Bring it On); Caminhos Cruzados (Crossed Paths); Veja o Som (See the Sound); Flor de Lis (Upside Down); February 1; Gloria; Nature Boy; CD2: Ahlê Sonora Garoa (Sonorous Drizzle); Morro Velho (Old Mountain); Cruzando o Sertão (Crossing the Hinterland); Feira de Mangaio (Street Bazaar); Canção do Amanhecer (The Dawn Song); April Child; Joana Francesa (Joana the Frenchwoman); Canto de Xangô (Xangô Chant); Alegre Menina (Gabriela’s Song).
Personnel: Jovino Santos Neto: piano, bamboo flute, flute, melodica; David Sanchez: tenor saxophone; Mike Marshall: mandocello, mandolin; Gretchen Parlato: voice; Paquito D’Rivera: C clarinet; Bill Frisell: electric guitar; Airto Moreira: voice, percussion; Tom Lellis: voice, shaker; Anat Cohen: soprano saxophone; Danilo Brito: mandolin; Joe Locke: vibraphone; João Donato: electric piano; Mônica Salmaso: voice; Ricardo Silveira: acoustic guitar; Luiz Guello: Pandeiro, effects, congas, djembe; Toninho Ferragutti: accordion; Joyce Moreno: voice; Vittor Santos: trombone; Paula Morelenbaum: voice; Gabriel Grossi: harmonica; Teco Cardoso: flutes.
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Jovino Santos Neto on the web: www.jovisan.net
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Mike Marshall – An Adventure 1999—2009 (Adventure Music – 2010)
Few musicians deserve a retrospective more richly than the mandolin player, Mike Marshall. The ground-breaking, genre defying instrumentalist and composer has melded his prodigious skills with musicians as far removed as David Grisman and Darol Anger, Bela Fleck and Caterina Lichtenberg… to where his heart lies most comfortably and gracefully, with Brasilian musicians such as Hamilton de Holanda and Hermeto Pascoal. Marshall’s career has spanned much more than a decade. However, this album, An Adventure 1999—2009 features his work in various contexts for just the years that he helped form the Adventure Music label with Richard Zirinsky, and recorded with that truly artist-oriented label.
Marshall’s work during this time was truly distinct. There is work here with artists such as the virtuoso violinist Alex Hargreaves and also the wondrous violinist, Darol Anger that was recorded just over a year or two ago—albums such as Big Trio and Woodshop that produced tracks such as “House Camp,” “Back to the Castle” and “Peter Pan” as well as “Borealis” that contain some of the finest work that has bluegrass inflected. Further back, in 2007 there is collaboration with the Scandinavian group Väsen, together with Darol Anger that explores more exotic avenues such as the ululations of Middle Eastern sounding melodies such as “Egypt” and the Nordic mythical elements brought delightfully to life with “Loke’s Troubles.” The violinist, Anger, is more than a casual collaborator with Marshall and he is featured again in an earlier Adventure album with Marshall. This one is 2005’s Psychograss, a voluptuous album that yields “Into the Lion’s Den” and “Stroll of the Mud Bug,” both of which are moveable feasts for Marshall fans and feature rich harmonies with Anger as well as banjo player, Tony Trischka and guitarist, David Grier.
Then there are the memorable Brasilian albums. The earliest is the 1996/2005 album, Brazil Duets from which the two duets—with Andy Narell on piano this time—“Um a Zero,” Pixinguinha’s wonderful choro, and “Indifference” with the great banjoist, Bela Fleck are culled. In 2004 Marshall recorded an album of some of the best-known choros, Choro Famoso and this album produced two of the finest tracks on this retrospective, “Sarau Para Redamés” and “Um Abraço Seu Domingos.”
But the most memorable of all the work represented here is on the 2003 album with fellow Adventure Music alumni, Jovino Santos Neto, the extraordinary Brasilian-born and raised multi instrumentalist, who was formally musical director of the legendary Hermeto Pascoal’s group before lighting out on his own. The album, Serenata also yields two tracks, “Serenata” with Santos Neto on piano and “Quando Mais Longe, Mais Perto” which also features Pascoal himself on bass flute. The other unforgettable album is “New Words” (2006) with magical duets featuring the new sensation, Brasilian bandolim player, Hamilton de Holanda. The traditional track and an extended medley with Ernesto Nazareth’s “Blackberry Blossom/Apenhei-te Cavaquinho” is a fascinating reminder of the unbridled genius of both de Holanda and Marshall. The crowning moment must surely be the Irish jig-inflected, “Brejeiro,” which features de Holanda on an Irish bouzouki, a lute that he has mastered and on which he waxes eloquently.
Significantly, Marshall also excels on the air, “Angels We Have Heard on High,” from the 1997/2008 album, Midnight Clear, but this time he is heard on acoustic guitar, an instrument he rarely plays. However this is one instrument that might be grist for his grinding in the near future—perhaps a pensive solo album from the ingenious fingers of Mike Marshall.
Tracks: House Camp; Back to the Castle; Peter Pan; Borealis; Egypt; Loke’s Troubles; Blackberry Blossom/Apenhei-te Cavaquinho; Brejeiro; Into the Lion’s Den; Stroll of the Mud Bug; Sarau Para Redamés; Um Abraço Seu Domingos; Serenata; Quando Mais Longe, Mais Perto; Angels We Have Heard on High; Um a Zero; Indifference.
Personnel: Mike Marshall: mandolin (1 – 7, 9 – 12, 14, 16, 17), 10-string mandolin (1), mandocello (2); nylon string guitar (13), acoustic guitar (15); Paul Kowert: bass (1, 2); Alex Hargreaves: violin (1, 2); Darol Anger: violins (3 – 5, 9, 10), baritone violin (5, 6); Phil Asberg: piano (3); Todd Sickaloose: bass (3); Aaron Johnston: shaker, cymbals (3); Olov Johansson: nykelharpa (5, 6); Mikael Mann: 5-string viola (5, 6); Roger Tallroth: 12-string guitar (5, 6); Hamilton de Holanda: 10-string mandolin (7), Irish bouzouki (8); David Grier: guitar (9, 10); Todd Phillips: acoustic bass (9, 10); Tony Trischka: banjo (9, 10); Carlos Oliveira: nylon string guitar (11, 12); Andy Connell: clarinet, soprano saxophone (11, 12); Michael Spiro: percussion (11, 12, 14); Brian Rice: percussion (11, 12); Jovino Santos Neto: piano (13, 14); Hermeto Pascoal: bass flute (14); John Santos: percussion (14); Andy Narell: piano (16); Béla Fleck: banjo (17).
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Mike Marshall on the web: http://mikemarshall.net
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Benjamim Taubkin – Piano Masters Vol. 1 (Adventure Music – 2010)
Any musician with the daring to attempt a solo project has to be on his game from the moment his fingers touch the keys. However few pianists—since the great Bill Evans—have shown unrivalled touch and expression as Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Michel Pilc and now the majestic Brazilian pianist, Benjamim Taubkin. Fortuitously, Adventure Music selected him to inaugurate their forthcoming series with Piano Masters Vol. 1. Here he plays mostly his own compositions, which are, in themselves, staggering in their architecture and scope; where Taubkin movingly navigates the expanse of the keyboard with such mastery that he recalls the staggering invention of Jarrett’s Köln Concert (ECM, 1975) and the incredible feeling and expression of Jarrett’s other masterpiece, The Melody at Night, With You (ECM, 1999).
Playing with deeply felt emotions throughout, and also with a certain child-like playfulness (“A Melodia e a Semente/The Melody and the Seed”) Taubkin dazzles also with unsurpassed virtuosity, brilliant sense of time and a sense of touch and technique that is so flawless it is sometimes hard to believe that one man can do so much to embellish musical expression. All this might sound like fantasy, but it is so downright true that it stops the very breath of the listener. There are times on “Em Torno de Vibraçóes de Jacob (Around Jacobs Vibrations)” when it appears that the pianist is in a trance at a recital much like it must have been in the days when Franz Liszt was performing an etude or a piece, when he decided to include a devilishly brilliant cadenza into the proceedings. Taubkin also refurbishes Tom Jobim’s “O Morro Nõ Tem Vez (Somewhere in the Hills)” with such dexterity that it is barely recognizable. He also gives John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” a brilliantly whimsical rebirth turning the song on its head so much so that its melody is discernable only once and awhile. This is pianism at its breathtaking best.
Taubkin is unmistakably Brazilian. The energy and rhythmic idiosyncrasies of choro and samba seem to flow through his veins albeit is a subtle way throughout the album. The former shines through on Pixinguinha’s “Prozeas de Solon (Solon’s Exploits)” and the latter rhythms flavour the music in a hidden manner, as if the melodies incorporate them on a mystic plane. There is also a pulsating feeling in Taubkin’s fingers. The manner in which he varies the pressure of his fingers on the notes delivers a multitude of various colors, which never seem the same twice. Taubkin wields his fingers as if they were a myriad brushes dappling the keyboard as if it were a pianistic canvas. His ideas emerge from a cornucopia of sound that sends forth its riches in waves of utter beauty. “O Coraçáo e o Rio (The Heart and the River)” and the magnificent “Caipira” are two of the most beautiful examples of the rich flutter of sound that Taubkin seems to pull out of a veritable vortex.
This is an album that is destined to become one of those delivered on a rarefied plane. Without doubt it will be remembered as one of the finest in 2010, or any other year.
Tracks: Em Torno de Influências (Around the Influences); A Melodia e a Semente (The Melody and the Seed); Em Torno de Vibraçóes de Jacob (Around Jacobs Vibrations); O Morro Nõ Tem Vez (Somewhere in the Hills); Prozeas de Solon (Solon’s Exploits); O Coraçáo e o Rio (The Heart and the River); Pro Frank (For Frank); Giant Steps; Meu Outuno em NY (My Autumn in NY); Em Torno de Estácio de Amado Maita (Around Estácio from Amado Maita); Caipira.
Personnel: Benjamim Taubkin: piano.
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Benjamim Taubkin on the web: www.myspace.com/benjamimtaubkin
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Marcos Amorim Trio – Portraits (Adventure Music – 2010)
The music of guitarist Marcos Amorim penetrates the air so softly as he bends and folds notes gently creating a sort of glimmering light that wraps each note and phrase with a kind of warm glow that flickers and jumps where the accents of the music fall. Amorim is unique in that his music is a gilt-edged melding of Carioca rhythms and an almost vocal version of the ebb-tide of warm Atlantic waters that flavour the special voicings of Rio’s best singers. Of course Amorim does not sing—not on this album, Portraits or on his other albums, but his guitar does all the same. Even when the guitarist plays in clipped, staccato manner, his long lines appear to be soft and rounded at the edge of each phrase. Thus he gives the impression that he is using his finger and thumb always—even when he courses the strings with the plectrum, searching for that gracious tone with which to deliver his ideas.
Amorim is a thoughtful player, sharing the course that the music takes with bassist, Jorge Albuquerque and percussion colorist, Rafael Barata, both of whom appear to have such an empathy with the guitarist that they appear to share a musical brain. Amorim starts the chain of events by inventing a line, born of a fanciful idea. He then lets the gauntlet open slightly and seemingly invites Albuquerque in. The bassist embellishes the line with tonal and timbral values that dapple like sunlight on a window sill. Barata might jump in if invited to rattle the music with almost harmonically tuned percussion. The stretching of one such a line is brilliantly displayed on the brooding portrait, “Daniel” where the musicians exchange ideas frequently as each urges the song forward towards its inevitable destination: the complete sketch of the persona in question.
Rhythmically Amorim displays much virtuosity and deft expression as he charges onward through the energetic shuffle of “Maracatú.” He is much more circumspect in the manner in which he delays the rhythmic advance of the chart, on “Portraits” and, especially, the magnificently laid out “Bantu.” The diminished chord changes that flavour the former tune and the spacious melody provide a roomy interior in which Amorim crafts his great curved harmonies, chased down by the resonating electric bass of Albuquerque and the polyrhythmic effervescence of Barata rumbles and brassy splashes. The spare voicings of the music is also in beautiful evidence on “Morning,” “Leblon” and “Prece.” The electric urgency of “Ribeirinha” and the ghostly percussion on “Amarak” make both charts impossible to predict as they progress mysteriously onwards.
The majesty and mysticism of “Music Box” make that chart a perfectly tantalizing one to end the session with. In normal circumstances an album that barely ever rises above sotto voce almost throughout might have been somewhat difficult to endure for the length of time that Portraits lasts. However, the relatively impenetrable mystery of the music on the album keeps it always fresh and stunningly beautiful. It also marks a new phase for the guitarist that keeps Brazil’s great tradition of guitarists alive and well and, well, on a roll.
Tracks: Ribeirinha; Morning; Amarak; Maracatú Portraits; Bantu; Leblon; Prece; Daniel; Music Box.
Personnel: Marcos Amorim: electric and acoustic guitars; Jorge Albuquerque: electric and acoustic basses; Rafael Barata: drums and percussion; Sergio Nunes: cello (8).
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Marcos Amorim on the web: www.luzdaluamusic.mus.br
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg (Adventure Music – 2010)
It is no longer the necessity to use the term Third Stream that Gunther Schuller “invented” to describe the music created by the Modern Jazz Quartet in the 50’s, which was a confluence of the European Classical tradition streaming with cadenzas, infused with swaggering swing and syncopations of jazz idioms to describe much contemporary 21st century music, which does the same. Labels of any sort would diminish the excellence of the music played by Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg, certainly two of the finest practitioners of that graceful instrument—the mandolin—descended from the Lute of the Renaissance era. Besides which, the beautiful flow of Lichtenberg’s expressive interpretations of the music coaxed, no doubt, by Marshall’s gentle, effervescent and irresistible crush on Brasilian music makes his delightful intransigence on Lichtenberg’s filigreed, baroque fluttering makes the music impossible to label one way or another.
Does Marshall make the creative leap in to the realm of the European or does Lichtenberg flutter and gambol in the uninterrupted sertão of Brasil? It does not seem to matter as the transcription of Bach’s “Violin Sonata III in C Major” belongs not so much to the tradition of the baroque cathedral, here but to the Elysian fields of the pampas or the sertão of Brasil, at least this is what the collision of cultures brought about. Not that it was consciously done by the artists. It is just that it happened. Recto verso the whole effect when Marshall and Lichtenberg play Jacob do Bandolim’s “Assanhado” and “Santa Morena,” or Zeguinho da Abreu’s “Não Me Toques,” or even—though not at all surprisingly—Marshall’s own beguiling compositions, “The Cat, The Mouse and The Chicken” a piece that dazzles animatedly as it tells a story full of the pathos of a Charlie Chaplin short, marked with classical sadness, and “Dec 29th” which is more ominous and with murkier antecedents. Both his songs mark Marshall a clever composer, who mixed media and has a fine sense of putting the narrative together with vivid pictures and compelling storytelling.
Both players are at the top of their respective games as they advance from one chart to the other. Lichtenberg is fey, almost shy as she expresses herself with delicacy and feminine grace. She flutters like a bird of paradise on the strings seeming to make the notes hang much longer than they are prone to do with a mandolin. Marshall is sinewy, yet seems to conjure a kind of yin-yang approach to his soloing. The androgynous pretence makes for a calculatedly singular style that is neither harsh nor slender, but, like a mysterious being, Marshall always seems to inhabit a magical place somewhere between earth and sky as he lets his mystique unfold with hypnotic splendour.
What a marvellous, utterly memorable piece of work this is from Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg—such a seemingly hard act to follow for any mandolin players.
Tracks: Allegro Assai (From the Violin Sonata III in C Major); The Cat, The Mouse and The Chicken; Sonata IV for Two Violins; Gankino (Bulgarian traditional tune); Assanhado; Marziale Allegretto (Duetto II Op. 98); Santa Morena; Dec. 29th; Giga (From the Violin Partita II in D Minor-BWV1004); Suite Venezolana; Não Me Toques.
Personnel: Mike Marshall: mandolin, mandocello, mandola, cello (12); Caterina Lichtenberg: mandolin.
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Mike Marshall on the web: www.mikemarshall.net
Caterina Lichtenberg on the web: www.caterinalichtenberg.de
Review written by: Raul da Gama
Lucía Pulido: Time Darkened by Sorrow, Brightened By Passion
Feature written by: Raul da Gama
The sky darkens, Lorca-like and a primordial wail rips through it. “Ai…leh leh leh…/No sé qué tendrá mi pecho/no sé qué tendrá mi pecho…/que mi voz alevanta,” she sings as she cries… “I don’t know what’s in my chest/I don’t know what’s in my chest…/that my voice is arising.” Her voice cuts through the dense clouds and shoots across the sky towards the infinite… Beloved Carmelita has thrown her life away. Dressed like a siren, she emerges from her home to walk the streets. The singer is heartbroken. “Carmelita, adiós,” she warns… “Ai…leh leh leh…/No sabiendo que la rosa/no sabiendo que la rosa/muere triste y deshojada/a le le le,” “Not knowing that the rose/Not knowing that the rose/Dies sad and bereft of petals/Carmelita adios.”
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Lucía Pulido’s voice is in flood, like the Orinoco when it rains and is angry that the earth is dry. Her voice rises and falls, ululating… mimicking the river as it soars high and mighty over everything, sweeping out of sight the flotsam and jetsam that despoil the green brown and blue of the soundscape. It is the cleansing fire, the heart’s desire. The gausá rattles and trembles in her hand as her voice is tremulous. The chirimía band that encourages her sensuous swagger to become intense as a dervish, or mystic… a saint in a trance until her energy and the band’s consume everything on the earth that bleeds with elemental sorrow—and many time with unbridled joy as well.
The album is Lucía Pulido, a 2000 release from the German label, Intuition. It is a pivotal one for Pulido, who is joined here by the Japanese percussionist, Satoshi Takeishi who arranges the songs and also plays the Tambora, Llamador and Redoblante—instruments of north and west African origin that are traditional to Colombia and elsewhere in South America, first brought over by the Spanish conquistadores. Like she has done on so many occasions before, Pulido reaches deep into the heart of her music. In fact she goes even beyond that to find the soul of the songs, the ghostly characters and develops the kind of bestiary that would have done that Argentinean master—Jorge Luis Borges—proud. Her lyricism is beautiful and her profound interpretations qualify her to be more than a griot. On the sensual “El Pilón,” a traditional feature that is like something from out of missing verses from the Biblical Songs of Solomon she cavorts with her characters, slurring and delaying the end notes of each phrase to depict near-drunken love and this infuses the song with dramatic puya effect.
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Two religious songs make this album breathtakingly beautiful. The first is the somber, “En Una Tiniebla Oscura” devoted to the Virgin Mary and the other is played to “Cantos de Vaquería,” lavishly enhanced with brass and woodwinds. Her association with Bullerengue is masterful and the two on the album are unforgettable. “Porro Magangueleño” and “Carmelita, Adios” are so deeply felt that they are almost seared into the memory. “Zafra” is a high and lonesome zafra or herding song from the Atlantic coast of the country and is magnificently approached by bassist, Jairo Moreno, who might as well have bowed his way into a very special place in the realm of acoustic bass players. The percussionists make the piece much too seductive to resist. And “Velo Qué Bonito” is a funerary masterpiece, conceived and executed with sublime emotion.
Lucía Pulido is an artist who connects with the genre of song at a very elementally deep level. To that extent she exercises an almost shamanic control over the lyric, its narration and how it will affect the listener. In Africa she would be a gnawa, like Maalem Mahmoud Gania, the legendary Moroccan gnawa musician first brought out of Africa by Bill Laswell with the seminal Trance of the Seven Colors, a collaboration with the great tenor saxophonist, Pharoah Sanders that is a certified masterpiece, as is the other gnawa album produced by Laswell, The Next Dream with that other mystical gnawa artist, Bachir Attar.
Pulido is an artist who has been shaped by a passionate love for her country and is bonded to Colombia almost the way a wood sprite is bonded with a forest floor. The air she breathes seems to transform itself as it courses through her veins. Cultures collide in her heart and soul… African, Spanish, Caribbean, Amerindian. She may not be any one of them, but she is all of them. This is why her soul can float free, travelling infinitely across the country drawing on sounds and stories—real and mythical, concrete and mystical—until she has absorbed them and made them her own. It seems that she can experience life through every pore. As experiences become internalized they also form a continuum that Pulido transforms into her art using a voice that has no parallel in music. Pulido’s voice is like an instrument that is at once a part of her body as well as a musical device that is to be controlled with unbridled imagination and extreme virtuosity.
So complete is Pulido’s command of her sublime voice that she can set it free like a bird, watching as it catches a thermal and floats high and mightily across oceans of sound. She can bend it, let it crack and yodel with it. And because her voice is a mirror to her soul she can let it sink to depths of despair to conjure up images of extreme sadness—even the finality of death—before it rises and flies free as it is the soul itself ascending into the heavens where it will be ensconced, with celestial beings, as it finally comes to rest. That is just one of the stories she can tell. Her intonation is exquisite. Her songs become arias as she articulates not just emotions, but the complicated melodic and harmonic journeys that she undertakes to tell the music’s stories. She is a trumpet, a shepherd’s horn; a trombone and a lyre. She is a wood sylph, a siren, a saint and sinner crying out for salvation. She is a drum connecting with the animism of the rainforest as well as with the frightening prospect of life in a slum.
Clearly Pulido exists in a continuum that parallels the history of Colombia. Its fractured history from the time it was liberated from its Spanish colonists by Simón Bolívar through dictatorships of the early part of the 20th Century, the guerillas who tore up the country; the drug cartels—the chilling legacy of the 70’s. It was against this backdrop that Pulido first made a name for herself as the voice of the legendary duo, Iván y Lucía. The “Iván” of the dup was Iván Benavides, a songwriter and musician whose name was synonymous with the Nueva Canción movement, which incorporated the newly invented vallenato musical dialect, much in the same way Caetano Veloso’s and Gilberto Gil came to found Musica Popular Brasileira, or the tropicalia movement in song. Throughout the 80’s and the 90’s, the duo, Iván y Lucía ruled the Colombian popular music scene as Veloso and Gil, Elis and Maria Bethânia ruled the one in Brasil.
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The power duo performed tirelessly criss-crossing the country, performing in small towns and large ones. Benavides grew into a truly accomplished composer, who probably did not get the credit he deserved for the music he helped create for a decade. It is unfortunate that the duo is known to have recorded only two albums and it is not really known how much of the music really remains for aficionados and collectors to treasure. It is however, impossible to erase from memory the recording and many performances of Benavides’ classic chart, “Alba,” a song which he wrote to a poem by José Luis Díaz Granados. Iván y Lucía created a song that became an anthem for a whole generation, as did other classic Nueva Canción compositions, “A la sombra del tiempo” and “Corazón” among the numerous others that Benavides created for his partner and himself to woo audiences with wherever they went to perform. Benavides also created songs of protest against the murderous politics of the paramilitary culture that was tearing Colombia apart then. A few have still survived. “Canción para los ausentes” and the towering “Afuera” were two such songs. The latter is as well known as the Brasilian legend, Chico Buarque’s “Calice.”
Then, in the early 90’s Carlos Vives, arguably Colombia’s most well known artist launched a new record label to celebrate the growing popularity of Colombia’s Nueva Canción. Gaira Musica Local was launched with the release of Lucía, Pulido’s first really solo album. Although produced by the prodigiously talented composer, pianist, accordionist and organist, Héctor Martignon, Iván Benavides returned to compose virtually all of the music and play guitars throughout the album. The music on Lucía stands out as one of the finest popular albums ever made in Colombia. The musical idiom is almost completely vallenato, a Colombian street rhythm long considered part of the lower class, untouchable culture by Colombian elites. Bookended by Benavides’ amazingly deep and moving chart, “La Hoguera,” the album also contains such gems as “Las Cuatro Palomas,” “El Piano Dolores” and the Caribbean flavored “Circulo Vicioso,” which was probably one of the most enduring melodies that Iván Benavides has ever written.
In 1994 Pulido arrived in New York and immediately began a niche for herself. Although her first solo album, Lucía was released by Vives’ label a year later, Pulido had already begun to meld the music of Colombia into a unique approach to her musical art, stretching her experimental style of singing to the limit. Traditional forms of music, such as Bullerengue, joropos and cumbia became launch pads for her fabulous flights of vocalastics. Her sophisticated art also encompassed cantos de vaquería, herding songs, alabaos funeral laments and cantos de zafra or harvest chants. After the success of Lucía Pulido: Cantos Religiosos y Paganos in 2000, she went on to release Dolor de Ausencia, a classic repertoire of broken love, despecho, twelve boleros and valses that are filled with such elemental sadness that are breathtaking in their sweep of the emotional beauty. The chart, “Aunque me duela el Alma” is one of those songs that will remain seared in the memory even with just one hearing. Once again Pulido had struck home not only with her amazing ability to turn timeless feelings into timeless music. The brilliance of her art continued to grow beyond even wild expectation. Still her appeal was largely niche and her recorded output considered to consist of specialized projects, although she continued to gain fame from performing not only in the United States, but also in Latin America and Europe as well.
In 2005, Pulido began a cycle of Songbooks with the writer and experimental guitarist, Fernando Tarrés y La Raza, Songbook I (Beliefs) and Songbook II (Prayers) will remain among the most ambitious vocal music ever committed to disc in any language or culture in any time. The full impact of Lucía Pulido’s sophistication and fearless experimental approach to music exists in these two discs released on the Argentinean label, BAU Records. The extraordinary musical journey is like a river in flood. Its brilliance is felt from the time the first bars are sounded by Tarrés’ spectacular guitars, Jerónimo Carmona’s deep resonant bass and the polyrhythmic gymnastics of Carto Brandán’s percussion and the host of other talented musicians. This incredible music continues unabated throughout Songbook I (Beliefs) . It is, however, Songbook II (Prayers) that is, without doubt, one of the most breathtaking albums in Pulido’s repertoire. On the opening chart, “Aqui te estoy esperando” Pulido provides the most extraordinary example of her vocal prowess as she sings the first few bars of the mystical song a capella but is eerily pitch perfect throughout its undulating progress. On her favorite, “La Hoguera (Final)” she duels in fine fashion with two fine percussionists, Jorge Sepúlveda and Urián Sarmiento.
The collective improvisation on both albums is clearly why New York musicians, David Binney and Erik Friedlander love to work with Pulido. Her innate ability to create music quite literally out of mouthfuls of air makes her one of the most precious artists in that city. It is also the reason why the Brasilian musician, Benjamin Taubkin tipped her for his own ambitious project, Contemporary America, Another Center (Adventure Music, 2007) a beautifully crafted recording where the musical idioms of 7 South American countries explode in an album of Amazonian splendor, as colorful as it is dense and rich and fresh in experimentalism. Experimentalism and unbridled creativity is also the most memorable aspect of Pulido’s tribute to the renowned Colombian writer, Rafael Pombo put together by Carlos Vives in 2008. And spectacular versions of “Canto de Zafra” and “Canto de Velorio” were included in the soundtrack for Gustav Deutsch’s experimental German film, Film ist: A Girl and a Gun, a musical experiment Pulido shared with three contemporary European musicians: Christian Fennez, Burkhard Stangl and Martin Seiwart.
Lucía Pulido created a sensation with her 2008 masterpiece, Luna Menguante/Waning Moon also released on the Adventure Music label. Here she celebrates her rare talent once again. Of all the vocalists in the world of music, especially those that practice the ancient, dying art of singing a story – not merely narrating – but telling it as griots do only a handful inhabit an atmosphere so rarified that they would qualify for canonization. If such sainthood was possible then Abbey Lincoln and Sheila Jordan would have been anointed a while ago. So would Sussan Deyhim, the Farsi singer of Sufi music and the Ethiopian singer, Ejigayehu “Gigi” Shibabaw, as well as Maria Bethânia from Brasil… and the reining griot princess would, of course, be Lucía Pulido from Colombia.
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Of all of these vocalists, Lucía Pulido’s is the probably most arresting and sublime artistry. She has the most bewitching voice that can swirl from ebullient and festive to an elementally sad lament. So great is her control over the vocal dynamic that Pulido can summon sudden changes in power and density, by gathering her vocal chords and pouring liquefied dialogues with musicians and instruments. She is able to take command and consume a lyric and if she so pleases and the song demands, set it free to flutter into the ether to echo interminably until it pierces the heart like a perfectly-aimed arrow.
The album, Luna Menguante/Waning Moon is a breathtaking showcase of this otherworldly talent. It gathers together music from the folkloric traditions of the Colombian Caribbean, its Pacific Coast and the Eastern Plains. There are twelve songs rendered in an utterly ancient yet modern context with such brilliance that each seizes the senses and it is impossible to extract oneself from the lyric, the manner in which the song is vocalized and the dynamic sound canvas that she is able to conjure up. Pulido inhabits the music with body and soul. She alone commands what it will do to the senses – all six of them, which are at once her prisoner until the song becomes the epiphany.
Although each of the songs is exquisitely complete there is something extraordinarily magical with the ones she sings with the accompaniment of Stomu Takeishi’s bass. “I’ve No One to Love Me,” “Full Moon Song” and “Funeral Song” are exemplary in style, interplay with the bass and the power of voice over lyric. But is the 0.27 second, solo-voiced “Cattleherding Song” that will be best remembered for its power and solitary splendor. But then the other tracks are no less unforgettable… And the magic of Lucía Pulido’s voice continues to haunt long after the echoes of the last notes have died in the future.
This is an extraordinary record. Although many musicians may have attempted to bring the beauty of Latin American folkloric beauty to life, few artists are likely to have such a lasting impact as Lucía Pulido’s Luna Menguante/Waning Moon. Perhaps with the possible exception of Gigi’s Abyssinia Infinite, Sussan Deyhim’s Madman of God, Maria Bethânia’s As Canções Que Você Fez Pra Mim, Maryam Tollar’s work on Michael Occhipinti’s Sicilian Jazz Project and Abbey Lincoln’s Abbey Sings Abbey. But Pulido’s may be better than them all. Tragically, however, Lucía Pulido remains a niche artist, known for her extraordinary experimentalism rather than for the great vocalist that she is—in any country and in any time. Perhaps one day when musical tastes return to the high art that they once were Pulido will receive what is truly due to her.
Lucía Pulido on the web: www.luciapulido.com
Feature written by: Raul da Gama
