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

Eric Kurimski – Réplica (Lima Limon Records 2008)

In Peru, Eric Kurimski observes in the notes of his journey to Lima, the concept of time loosely exists. What a remarkable observation by the musician who became besotted with Peruvian music so much so that he traveled to the small South American country to become one of its most extraordinary exponents. This recording, Replica, the debut for Eric Kurimski, is a seminal document of the music of Peru. It is unlike the scores of folkloric recordings made in South America, by a world that has come under the bewitching spell of Latin American music. Here an artist, an important guitar maestro has participated directly in the creation of Afro-Peruvian music. It is a case of cultures colliding – jazz and Afro-Peruvian – to bring new musical creations to life.

Kurimski is a guitarist par excellence. He has adapted a principally classical technique to the stringed instrument, enabling it to sing with both jazz and Spanish inflections. The technique is pizzicato, but the notes are often bent offering sudden and subtle glissandos. This makes the instrument a willing participant in the making of landos and festejos and valses. In choosing these forms Kurimski brings an important aspect of Afro-Peruvian music into focus and that is its inextricable link to the blues context of jazz.

In exquisite fashion, he turns John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” into a joyful lando. The irony should not be lost as the lando featured interior rhythms (forbidden by the Colonial Spanish) and once signified a complete freedom from slavery. “Giant Steps”? How much more significant can the title now be?

More extensively, this record features a fine interplay between guitar and the arch instrument of Peru, the Cajon. Juan Medrano Cotito is one of those little-known maestros of the instrument. His style is bold and he issues a rapid battery of slaps – both with flat and variously cupped palms to berate the box with such an array of tones and pitches that the rhythm is multiplied with a bountiful cornucopia of echoes and resonant vibrations unlike percussion rarely experienced in jazz. This is completely new music where modern compositions such as “Hope For Spring” rub noisily together with “Ronca Canalete” and “Toro Mata”. “Desesperacion,” “Yo No Como Camote” and the unforgettable “Despertar,” by the celebrated Afro-Peruvian master, Carlos Hayre, make this one of the most ground-breaking records of 2008 – one where Afro-Peruvian music meets jazz in a spell-binding collision of artistic cultures.

Tracks: Hope for Spring; New York Titlan; Ronca Canalete; Giant Steps; Yo No Como Camote; Toto Mata; Desesperacion; Despertar.

Personnel: Eric Kurimski: guitar; Juan Medrano Cotito; cajon, percussion, guapeo (3, 6); Carlos Hayre: guitar/electric bass (7); Edward Perez: bass (1, 4, 5, 8); Sergio Veldeos: guitar (1, 5, 8); Yuri Juarez: guitar (2, 4); Noel Marambio: bass (4); Joscha Oetz: bass (3, 6); Charo Goyoneche: vocals (3, 6); Carlos Medrano: cajita/coros (3, 6).

Eric Kurimski on the web: www.erickurimski.com | www.myspace.com/erickurimski

Review written by: Raul da Gama