Category Archives: latin

CD review: Antonio Adolfo

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fineFinas Misturas
(AAM 0705)

The title means Fine Mixture, and the fine mixture here is not only the choice of tunes – some of Brazilian pianist Adolfo’s own compositions; some jazz classics by Coltrane, Jarrett, Gillespie and others – but also the organic interaction between the pianist and his band.

As is the way if you want to do things in the Brazilian manner, there are two guitarists, one electric and one acoustic, and flute also plays a prominent role.

Floresta Azul (Blue Forest), an Adolfo original, sets the mood at medium to quick tempo, and Balada shows the band’s slower side. It may be Giant Steps that follows, but these are strides taken with gentle elegance in shoes of the softest leather.

Elsewhere, Jarrett’s Memories Of Tomorrow gets a thoroughly sensitive reading, with full exploration of its melodic nooks and crannies by Adolfo and electric guitarist Leo Amuedo, but where are Naima‘s crucial final rising chords?

Overall an album that isn’t going to change the world, but a pleasant reminder that the Brazilian sensibility brought to bear upon familiar material is always a sweet listen.

DVD review: Dino Saluzzi/Anja Lechner

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Anja Lechner and Dino Saluzzi.

Anja Lechner and Dino Saluzzi.

El Encuentro: A Film for Bandoneon and Cello
By Norbert Wiedmer and Enrique Ros
(ECM 760 2841)

In the ECM film called Sounds and Silence, also co-directed by Wiedmer, we were introduced to the partnership of the bandoneon player from Argentina and the cellist from Germany, and in fact some of that footage is here too.

The film is about the two musicians, their contrasting backgrounds and musical worlds, but also about the universal nature of music and the common languages of melody, harmony, rhythm and emotion that connect all musicians.

Lechner has to make a journey into Argentina and tango, and to learn its particular use of rubato; Saluzzi wants to take the bandoneon out from tango to explore wider worlds, and so is writing for chamber orchestra, with bandoneon solo, which is where we end up: in concert with the Metropole Orchestra of Amsterdam conducted by Jules Buckley.

But before all that, we see Lechner rehearsing a cello piece with Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, and listening to a magical piece of music on two duduks; we see Saluzzi working with jazz pianist George Gruntz, who had first brought the bandoneon master to East Germany; we see Saluzzi playing with a tango band in rural Argentina while a local man dances Lechner around the floor.

Saluzzi and Lechner make for an odd couple on the surface – physically they are so contrasting, for a start – but this adds to the charm of their relationship, which is not only a musical one but one of learning to understand each other’s cultures.

Saluzzi has some very moving and profound things to say about his music, and music in general, and that, and of course the music, make this an utterly enthralling short film.

Here is a short extract:

CD review: Vinicius Cantuaria

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Indio de Apartamento
(Naive Records)

You can take the Cantuaria out of Brazil but you can’t take the Brazil out of Cantuaria. The singer, guitarist and composer adds yet another gorgeous curlicue to the centrepiece of modern Brazilian music from his home far away in Brooklyn.

He begins with a whisper in your ear and a lush bed of strings behind the acoustic guitar for Humanos – this is smooth Cantuaria, and it’s just lovely.

But with track two, Moca Fela, we get the subtly off-the-wall Cantuaria, too – the same murmured vocal and gentle guitar, but a piano note or two sound initially has the listener looking round the room to see if a rogue pianist has just entered. It’s Ryuichi Sakamoto adding some pretty piano that sounds slightly at odds with the harmony of the tune, though of course he gradually blends more and more, or we get more and more used to the slightly odd mix so it all sounds just right.

Elsewhere there is a synth pulse and percussion to give forward momentum with yet more strange harmonies behind the vocal (Purus) and the singer seems to go back in time with Sakamoto again providing the piano on a timeless tune sung with an affecting vulnerability (Accorda).

There is the chirpier Bossa feel with electric piano on the tantalisingly brief Um Dia, This Time (Cantuaria singing in English – a rarity – with Jesse Harris for company) has electric bass grooving and old pal Bill Frisell in on guitar, while the title track has a machine-like noise in the background and semi-spoken vocals way back in the mix. It’s almost a fragment of a tune.

The album is determined in mood by the death of Cantuaria’s mother, but then his music has always had a melancholy edge to it – it’s part of its humanity and appeal. Apparently he records in his own studio and works slowly building things – hence the subtle detail. But he must also be a ruthless editor, because there is nothing extraneous here, and the more focussed and minimal he gets the better it sounds.

I have always loved Vinicius Cantuaria’s music; this is his most distilled released and it just might be his best yet.

CD review: recent releases in brief

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Greg Lewis
Organ Monk: Uwo In The Black
(Greg Lewis Music)

New interpretations of Monk tunes are one of the constants in the in-tray, which in so many ways is a good thing. But I think this might be a first – certainly according to my highly fallible memory – because the lead instrument is Hammond Organ.

With Lewis is Nasheet Waits on drums, Ronald Jackson on guitar and tenor saxophonist Reginald R Woods, and it’s generally damned good fun.

Little Rootie Toot opens the album with Lewis giving full vent to distortion in the bass pedal notes as he winds the melody up. There are loads more Monk favourites, from Ugly Beauty and Thelonious to Crepuscule With Nellie and 52nd Street Theme, and Lewis intersperses them with some of his own compositions, which are OK and sometimes Monk-influenced but not up to the real Monk stuff.

Wilber Calver
Diaspora
(Alex Wilson Records)

From one viewpoint this album is a celebration of that great big fusion of musical styles and traditions from around the world; from another it’s a complete mess.

Calver is a Cuban-Jamaican who found his instrument of calling in Celtic music – yep, he plays the bagpipes. What we have here is a blend of Celtic traditional music, jazz, Cuban music and reggae.

Pianist Alex Wilson has assembled a crack band which includes Paul Booth on reeds, Edwin Sanz on percussion and himself on piano, and the whole outfit acquits itself impeccably, one minute ripping through a rumba, the next a jig.

In some ways the weak link is Calver himself who, once one gets past the novelty of hearing bagpipes in these Afro-Cuban settings, doesn’t seem to do a lot more than play the tunes.

I guess it’s a question of taste, in the end. Does a little rum in your porridge get your buds tickling? Well, my view is it’s worth trying once, but I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it.

Jordan Young
Cymbal Melodies
(PosiTone)

And the organ trios with a bit of added saxophone just keep coming… This one is led by drummer Young with Brian Charette on organ. Avi Rothbard adds some guitar and Joe Sucato is the saxophonist.

The book is pretty straight-ahead readings of classic guitar and organ material from the likes of Lee Morgan and Grant Greene with some covers including Jimmy Webb’s By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Bacharach’s Raindrops Keep Falling… and Sting’s Roxanne.

Pleasant enough small combo grooving that could have been made at any time in the last half century.

Mike Hobarts’ Urban Jazz Collective
The Third Fish
(Another World Music)

Saxophonist Hobart’s band includes former Pig Bag trumpeter Chris Lee and Heliocentrics pianist Danny Keane, and the band brings a fresh-ish punch and enthusiasm to the Blue Note sound of the ’60s with some more worldly and modern influences thrown in.

After a pretty straight-ahead start on Fathead, a tribute to the Texan tenor tradition, things get more electronic and spacey on Nardis, add some urban edge with The Vista, and the band drapes their hearts all over their sleeves on Ellington’s In A Sentimental Mood.

It could sound a bit like a band that hasn’t found its style, but it’s saved by the enthusiasm they clearly feel for all the jazz that has gone before them.

Davide Mantovani
Choices
(Equilateral Records)

The Italian double bass player resident in the UK since the early ’90s, is another musician with world-wide taste. For this album he has called in Zoe Rahman, Paul Booth, Adriano Adewale and many others to play his compositions.

The range of styles runs from Brazilian samba to urban funk to West African rhythms and Eastern trance music, and there is even a little Bach, too.

Some of the pieces – like the Bach – outstay their welcome, while some of the lyrics – Goodbye Albatross, for example – are poor – and there is generally too much going in too many different directions, but it’s certainly not samey and the playing is all of a high standard.

Oz Robu Trio
Oz Robu
(Rhythm & Muse)

After the recent introduction of Kekko Fornarelli to British audiences, both on record and live, here is another young piano trio from Italy.

Fabio Visocchi is on piano and Fender Rhodes, Marco Brambilla on bass and Giordano Rizzato on drums. They all share compositional duties, and have a pleasantly Italian sound in that even when the chords get dark there is still some of that warm sunlight shining through.

Not as immediately appealing as Fornarelli, but not as strongly influenced by E.S.T. either. The band is due to visit Britain for some gigs next spring.

Sumi Tonooka
Now
(Arc)

The Philadelphian pianist is here in solo recital in New York State. It’s a double album documenting a whole concert with the material ranging from Elilington, Kern, Porter and Monk through a tasty medley of Mary Lou Williams tunes.

Then, having proved she knows her core jazz repertoire, Tonooka explores a few of her own compositions. These are wide-ranging, with Phantom Carousel feeling more classically impressionist in character, while Sojourn 1 And Uganda, and Moroccan Daze take a Randy Weston-influenced approach to African rhythms and harmony.

She ends with a witty, Art Tatumesque meander through I’m Confessin’.

A fine concert which might have made a better edited-down single CD.

CD review brief: Red Baraat

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Chaal Baby
(Jaro Records)

Is it a case of “coals to Newcastle” or, in this instance, “bhangra to Birmingham”? Whatever, Red Baraat are a dhol drum-centred band from Brooklyn, and they build a high-energy band around those drums with lots more percussion and lots of brass.

In place of the bass there is a sousaphone, and the influences come as much from funk and New Orleans marching bands, rap, Balkan craziness and the Latin sounds of New York as they do from the bhangra and Bollywood styles.

Tunak Tunak Tun is a pretty good example, moving through a whole world of grooves.

Overall, though, on record – this is their first studio album – the music gets a little repetitive to my ears, despite its eclectic nature and the instrumental skill of all the players.

The album ends with two live recordings from the band, and these are the game-changers, reminding me that this music really does need to be heard – and danced to – in live performance.

And you can do just that tomorrow evening in Chamberlain Square in Birmingham, as Red Baraat opens the evening’s excitement prior to Mandala, a mix of British Asian music and dance with spectacular 3D live projections on Birmingham Town Hall.

Red Baraat start at 6.30pm. Get your dancing shoes out now. More here