Month: January 2011

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Gonzaguinha – Luiz Gonzaga Jr.. (1974)

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Gonazaguinha
“Luiz Gonzaga Jr.”
Released 1974

01 É preciso
02 Piada infeliz
03 Meu coração é um pandeiro
04 Uma família qualquer
05 Pois é, seu Zé
06 Rabisco n’areia
07 Assum preto
08 Amanhã ou depois
09 Galope
10 Desesperadamente

Sidney Matos – acoustic and electric guitars, organ, electric piano, bass
Arnaldo Luis – bass, acoustic guitar
João Cortez – drums, percussion
Gonzaga Jr. – acoustic guitar, percussion, vocals

Produced by Milton Miranda
Musical direction / arrangements – Maestro Gaya
Production assistant: Renato Corrêa
Technical director – Z.J. Merky
Recording technician – Toninho / Nivaldo
Remix engineer – Nivaldo Duarte

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For the last few days I have been thinking of Egypt, how distant it all seems, and how the people around me seem largely unconscious, somnambulantly disinterested of the historical importance of what is going on there, and how it effects all of us. I’m sure I could have chosen to upload any number of more ‘appropriate’ albums but I have been listening to this one a lot lately and it was sitting here waiting for an upload.

Luiz Gonzaga Jr., o “Gonzaguinha”, did not make music for throwing a good party. He could have made a career just off the simple fact that he was the son of the King of Baião, Luiz Gonzaga, and been a mediocre forró singer and still sold tons of albums just by that association. Instead, he chose a different path, that of a deeply-poetic composer more in the mold of the singer-songwriter archetype that became more common in the 1970s seemingly everywhere in the world, but in Brazil often had a directly proportional relationship to the political repression happening in the country. By the early 70s, the ‘movimento estudantil’ was in tatters, the UNE (the universities’ student unions) officially dissolved by the military dicatorship, their meetings resulting in persecution, harassment, disappearances. As the 60s came to a close, the rather heavy-handed and preachy protest music of “música engajada” from the likes of Geraldo Vandre became more a thing of the past, as the optimism that protest music could change the situation and mobilize people faded, and Tropicália’s confrontational iconoclasm challenged its musical and ontological premises. The increased censorship after ‘Institutional Act 5″ of 1968 shut down the Brazilian Congress and gave absolute power to the military resulted in a change of tactics for the socially-conscious activist-oriented songwriter. The usual example is Chico Buarque, who is famous for having his material censored during this period and would perfect the use of the quotidian metaphor as a vehicle for expressions of social unrest, creating more elusive, complex works that were consequently more difficult to challenge by the censorship boards.

But, obviously, there were other wordsmiths besides Chico that were adepts at this. Gonzaguinha is part of a post-68 generation of singer-songwriters that would also include Belchior and Fagner. These latter two were both from the northeastern state of Ceará; Gonzaguinha was born in Rio, but his father was basically a walking-talking-singing symbol of northeastern-ness, and born in Pernambuco. I always think of all three of them together for some reason, but Gonzaguinha’s musical output precedes the other two slightly. They all their own styles of writing and performance, but shared a certain atmospheric vibe and themes in their early music.

This album is pretty much all down-beat, heavy, somber material. The album opens with the mind-blowing song “É preciso” which has become probably my favorite composition of his. Lyrically framing a scenario of (under-valued) domestic labor of a mother and the child by her side who accompanies her at home, in the streets, in the open street markets, the words seem to recount the memories of the singer/narrator of his own growing up and a remembered or imagined dialog with his mother as he reflects on his life. The couplet that is repeated and slightly rephrased throughout the song, “Labutar é preciso; lutar é preciso” (hard work/labor is necessary; to struggle is necessary) is sung first as wisdom imparted from mother to son while she works at washing laundry. Later it is sung back from son to mother as the son struggles to get by on his own as a young man. The parallels with the political oppression, the crushing of the labor and student movements, the clandestine groups working to overthrow or at least undermine the military dictatorship … All of this runs like a subterranean undercurrent beneath the words sung in the plaintive voice of Luiz that grows more urgent and pleading as the song moves along.

The fastest tempo on the album is the song ‘Galope’ which is still manages to be dissonant and dark. All of the songs are originals except “Assum Preto” which is from Gonzagão (his dad) and Humberto Teixeira, and which Gonzaguinha makes almost unrecognizable from its original version, slowing it down and somewhat pulling it apart. The instrumentation and performances are all wonderful, impeccable musicianship that shines precisely because the musicians know when to hold back and let the song carry *them*, embellishing the music with occasional twists of avant garde post-psychedelic dissonance. The album is consistently great – “Piada infeliz”, “Meu coração é um pandeiro”, “Uma família qualquer”, “Desesperadamente” – there is cinematic majesty and power in these songs, the key to which is their understatement and lack of histrionics.

So give this record a listen. While pockets of resistance in the Arab world try and reclaim their rights after decades of oligarchical tyranny and dictatorships sponsored by powerful allies in the United States and the European community, remember that these struggles have taken place elsewhere and will continue to take place until every last human is free from repression and political violence. Until that unlikely utopia comes about, “LUTAR É PRECISO.”

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Bama, The Village Poet – Ghettos of the Mind (1972)

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Bama, The Village Poet
Ghettos of the Mind”
1972 on Chess Records (CH-50032)
Reissue on Aware Records
A1 I Got Soul 4:46
A2 Welfare Slave 5:47
A3 Nothingness 2:26
A4 Thanksgiving 3:52
A5 Ghettos Of The Mind 0:31
B1 The Right To Be Wrong 4:17
B2 Blessed Marie 3:55
B3 Justice Isn’t Blind 2:35
B4 Social Narcotics 5:08
B5 Blackman, My Brother 5:35
B6 Drunken Sister 2:49

Poetry written and performed by- George McCord. aka “Bama”

Music composed and arranged by Jimmy “Wiz” Wizner
Featuring: Bernard `Pretty` Purdie , Cornell Dupree , Gordon Edwards , Richard Tee
Produced by Billy Jackson, Bacon Fat Music and ‘Those who believe Blacks deserve something better’.

TRANSCRIPTION INFO

Vinyl -> Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply) > Creek Audio OBH-15 -> M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard -> Adobe Audition 3.0 at 24-bits 96khz -> Click Repair light settings, additional clicks and pops removed in Audition -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced -> ID Tags done in foobar2000 v.1.0.1 and Tag & Rename. No EQ or compression.

Confession, by the end of this vinyl transfer, I kind of stopped paying attention. The last two tracks have some clicks and pops I missed. Oh well, you can borrow my copy and do your own rip if you like, I don`t mind.

Album jacket photos and labels are from both the discogs archive and from my own repress copy. I used the original LP photo (which appears more of a cream color) above because I had trouble photographing my blindingly-white repress without it reflecting the sea-green paint of the walls in my house.

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Flabber review

Okay. Let me start off by quoting the blurb from my favorite record shop in the universe, “A lost classic in the funky poetry mode of the 70s – and right up there with the best work from the time by the Last Poets, Jim Ingram, or Gil Scott Heron! Bama’s got a rough-edged voice that works very well with the funkier backings of the set – handled by a team that includes Bernard Purdie on drums, Richard Tee on keyboards, and Cornell Dupree on guitar – and this rough vocal style also fits the themes of the tunes, which are still as political and righteous as other work in the genre, but a bit more down to earth as well. ..”

Now, I realize that Dusty Groove exists to sell records, aside from their pedagogical function of turning the people of the world onto righteous music. And they sometimes are guilty of a wee bit of over-hyping the rarities in their own stock in order to generate enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a good thing. I rarely post about an album I am not enthusiastic about.

But let’s get something straight right here and now. Bama (George McCord) was no Gil Scott Heron or Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), and can’t hold a candle to the flames of The Last Poets or the likes of Jayne Cortez. In my opinion, if it wasn`t for the players on this album like Bernard `Pretty Purdie` and Cornell Dupree, nobody would care at all about it at this point.

McCord has his moments, but its mostly the musical arrangements that keep you listening. The opening track “I Got Soul,” has integrity, dealing as it does with how suffering – even suffering the horrors of state-sponsored racial discrimination – can make an individual who he is, leaving him to say that if he had his life to live all over again he would still “do it black.” It’s a cool poem with great instrumental backing, that shows Bama in a light of a no-frills, sincere, and rough-around-the-edges street poet. So far so good. “Welfare Slaves” is another decent tune, a cynical slow rap over a suitably slow blues, and observations that should be required listening for those lost souls of the American Right-Wing who still go around thinking and saying that people actually *want* to be on welfare. So far so good. The next track, “Nothingness” is when things start to get a little shakey. Two and a half minutes of Bama philosophizing about nothingness over a spacey electric piano chord sequence, wherein he concludes “that after many years of nothingness, I have found nothingness to be something. But compared to something, it was still nothing. Nothing.” Deep, man. Deep.

Alright so one clunker doesn’t make me give up on a record. However, the next one was almost the final nail in the coffin-lid of my first experience with Bama. The next track, “Thanksgiving” is just Pretty Purdie giving a tom-tom-heavy drum solo while Bama recites his poem. Wherein Bama makes profound observations like, “Them pilgrims was a bunch of phonies.” He then goes on to give his counter-narrative to the white American vision of Thanksigiving, while simultaneously getting in some paternalistic condescending remarks about “the Indians were too slow to learn,” and some bitter critiques about the invasion of North America being an `indepedence` for some. Once again, Bama is sincere and means every word of it. But it’s just hard for me not to bust out laughing when he lets loose with poetic stanzas like:

“You give thanks for destroying an innocent people who weclomed you in when your own deprived you of a right to pray.
You give thanks for taking the land of a people who gave you a place to stay.

God have Mercy.
Eat your turkey.”

All of this delivered in his gravel-gargling voice that is very reminiscent of Red Foxx. Immediately on first hearing this track, the following image was born inside my mind`s eye:

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Side two of the album. Surprisingly, given everything I`ve written above, is that one of the best things on the record is the relatively unaccompanied “The Right to be Wrong” (which has only a heart-beat thumb of a drum machine accompanying it). A reflection on non-judging of our fellow humans that would be worthy of a Buddhist monk if it wasn’t for some latent homophobia (…”this would even give the homo a right to be wrong”). Next track – Blessed Marie, rather unremarkable and trite paen to falling in love with (and having married) a prostitute. Followed by “Justice Isn’t Blind,” which is by far the grooviest track here, both musicially and lyrically sharp, with the band laying down a latin-fringed funk of low-key atmosphere. But then when in the final eight-bars or so the band just works the groove with no restraint, I start wishing this was just an all-instrumental LP.. “Social Narcotics”… I can`t really comment on critiques so sophmoric as those on this track. It`s just kind of embarassing to listen to. “Blackman, My Brother,” is intense, however. Backed again only by Bernard Purdie, its a relentless rejection of white culture and its white-washing of American history, of its underbelly of violence, rape, and subjegation, and also shatteres any rose-colored glasses looking at a utopic, romantic vision of the Civil Rights movement, and an angry recuperation of self-respect and pride in blackenss. It’s delivered with the same directness and sincerity as the rest of the stuff on this album, but its got a sophistication that is lacking in a lot of the other poems.

The final track, `The Drunken Sister`… just kind of fizzles out compared to the previous track. Not much to say here, really. Nothing bad, but nothing too great.

So if you haven`t deduced it already I am ambivalent or perhaps just indifferent to this record. It has historical value but more for the people who played on it than for the poetry contained in it, although it might reflect a bit more realistically the spectrum of black urban poetry in the early seventies (I mean, it couldn`t ALL be brilliant, right?). But the next time I decide to reorganize my LP collection, I am going to have a tough time deciding whether this album belongs in the section with Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets, or is maybe better suited to the section with Richord Pryor and Red Foxx…

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Roberto Carlos – Roberto Carlos (1969)

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Roberto Carlos – “Roberto Carlos”
Released December 1969 on CBS (1-37645)
Reissue on CD mid-1990s

1. As flores do jardim da nossa casa (3:11)
2. Aceito seu coração (3:40)
3. Nada vai me convencer (2:50)
4. Do outro lado da cidade (3:42)
5. Quero ter você perto de mim (3:07)
6. O diamante cor-de-rosa (3:19)
7. Não vou ficar (3:00)
8. As curvas da estrada de Santos (3:33)
9. Sua estupidez (4:55)
10. Oh! meu imenso amor (2:05)
11. Não adianta (3:49)
12. Nada tenho a perder (2:48)

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This album deserves a better write up than I can give it. The cause for this situation is that I have listened to it twice today and I am all broken up, emocionado.

I will admit it. As an ignorant outsider, I didn’t “get” the obsession with Roberto Carlos at first. He seemed like an uglier Brazilian version of Julio Iglesias (as my friend Celia put it… I added the ugly part). Really, an analogy to Elvis Presley might be apt as well: both are known as the “King” and both starred in a lot of silly films aimed at teenagers, even if Roberto’s films were modeled more on The Beatles cinematic misadventures.

But then I discovered the records from this period in question which have since become very precious to me. By the late 60s, Roberto Carlos had come a long way from ‘Splish Splash’, which is a fun record, actually, but utterly derivative. In the 1970s he would become the king of romantic ballads in Brazil, but here we are in December of 1969 on the cusp of change… wait, wait, what do we have here, that music journalist cliché of the “transitional album”?? Well, maybe or maybe not. But the fact is that the songwriting and performances on this record are a lot more mature than the early burst of Jovem Guarda albums, and yet they haven’t arrived at the rather drippy sentimentalism and over-production that would start to characterize his work as he continued at his unending (até hoje) labor of selling tons of records and selling out huge stadiums where women of all ages through their undergarments on stage.

This album has more than a few of the best songs of the guy’s career, and particularly some of the best writing from Roberto and his brother Erasmo. The opening cut “As Flores do Jardim de Nossa Casa” is a masterpiece, and an example of one of the facets of pop music that have always intrigued me the most: if you put these lyrics down on a piece of paper, of flowers dying from the absence of your lost love, they might come across to many people as complete drivel. But put those same words to this melody and this more-than-perfect arrangement and orchestration and they become pure fucking poetry. The first time I ever heard this song was the moment I finally “got” Roberto Carlos. This is it. This is why they call him O Rei.

With the exception of the ungainly and irritating “Oh! meu imenso amor”, everything else here is wonderful. The record is dominated by its ballads but never manages to feel “slow” by grace of Roberto’s ability to hold an audience. The song “Quero ter você perto de mim” begins with him singing a capella for half of the first verse before each instrument comes in slowly, one at a time, building Roberto’s melancholic castle of saudades. Listening to it, I can imagine the musicians, engineers, producers all huddled around the control room listening to an earlier take of the song where they all begin together, and Roberto abruptly interrupting the playback. “No. Stop the tape. This isn’t the way this song should sound. Let’s go back and do it one more time. Like this…” Of course this is a total fantasy of an idle mind since I have now listened to this album THREE times today while going about my daily business. But, you know, it *could* have happened that way.

This tune is followed by an oddly cathartic slow instrumental tune, written by Erasmo and Roberto but sounding like it was found discarded in Ennio Morricone’s front lawn. Its beautiful and lyrical and wordless. And, in an example of perfect album sequencing, it is followed by heavy funk of “Não Vou Ficar,” written by none other than Tim Maia and here injected with all the pent-up energy of a person who’s suffered all the heartbreaks detailed in the last six songs. We even get Roberto giving a few soul-music “ahh! uhhh!” shouts during a brief drum-and-bass break. (The song “Nada Vai Me Convencer”, from earlier in the record, is oddly reminiscent of this tune but without half of its charm.) As I said in the post on Tim Maia’s 1971 record, people fight about whose version is better. They are both damn good, I can’t say any longer. I am biased differently today, because I have listened to this record THREE TIMES. Oh, and Tim basically had to threaten Roberto with a kidnapping to convince him to finally answer his calls and record one of his songs. Perhaps a bit of magoãs after being fired from the Sputniks…

“As curvas da estrada de Santos” finds a middle ground between the slower melancholic tunes and the “I’ve had enough of you” swagger of ‘Não vou ficar’, but definitely lean toward the latter. A Ciéncia de Cornologia começa aqui, minha gente, nesse disco.

Next is “Sua estupidez” which surely ranks pretty high in the list of ‘greatest songs ever written.’ It has something of the spirit of Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” (to come five years later, obviously) but much less acidic and bitter, simpler and more direct and tender in its message. Nothing I can say about it would do anything than detract from that simplicity. Just listen to it. If you don’t understand the lyrics, the music should still grab you.

The song probably should have gone at the end of the album. At least, I don’t have anything left to say about the rest the remaining three songs after listening to “Sua estupidez”. I already mentioned that I find “Oh! meu imenso amor” abrasive. “Não adianta” is actually a really great tune, that oddly enough opens with the same chord progression as “Everybody’s Talkin'” of Fred Neil/Harry Nilsson fame. Then the closer, “Nada Tenho a Perder” pulls back a notch on the quality/intensity level, perfectly fine song but nothing too special about it. Maybe it was intentional, this sort of running-out-steam rather than going-out-with-a-bang. Because it sort of makes you want to play the album over again. Like, three or four more times.

If nothing else, this album is proof that Roberto Carlos had moved from the art of making hit singles, to the art of the Long Playing record, or LP. I have recently decided that is what this blog has its roots in — the pleasures found in the almost-lost art of listening to the LP…

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Bembeya Jazz National – The Syliphone Years (2004)

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Bembeya Jazz National
The Syliphone Years
Recordings from the 1960s and 1970s
2-CD Anthology released by Sterns Africa 2004
Liner notes in French and English by Graeme Counsel

DISC ONE

1. Republique Guinee
2. Sabor de guajira
3. Armee Guineenne
4. Dembaty Galant
5. Air Guinee
6. Guinee Hety Horemoun
7. Montuno De La Sierra
8. Waraba
9. Dagna
10. Doni Doni
11. Camara Mousso
12. Super Tentemba
13. Mami Wati
14. Alalake

DISC TWO

1. Beyla
2. Fatoumata
3. Moussogbe
4. Sou
5. N’Gamokoro
6. Ballake
7. Mussofing
8. Dya Dya
9. Sino Mousso
10. N’Temenna
11. Telephone
12. Petit Sekou

I don’t usually like to just cut and paste reviews from other places in lieu of my own thoughts and commentary. But not only am I running around trying to settle a nasty visa issue this week, but I have also been sitting for months on a stack of amazing compilations from the likes of Sterns and Analog Africa and it’s about time I shared one of them. Since this one has a nice, well-written review from BBC, why not let them do the talking while I sip my morning coffee? I will just add: this is great music.

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BBC Review
“‘..its hard to fault this superlative and long overdue re-issue,which commemorates a truly golden era in African music.”

Jon Lusk 2004-12-21

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The music made in Guinea during the first two decades after independence from France in 1958 represents some of the most sublime and influential that any West African nation has ever produced. Backed by Sékou Touré’s socialist government, groups from every region of the country were encouraged to modernise their ancient musical traditions and were given the financial assistance to do so. And of all the musical riches that this policy unearthed, those of Bembeya Jazz National were the finest.

If you weren’t quite convinced by the band’s 2002 comeback album Bembeya, and the recent Guitar Fö from their mighty guitarist Sékou Diabaté, this 2-CD compilation really shows what all the fuss was about. It’s a thorough selection of their best work for the national Syliphone label, which began releasing local music in the mid 1960s. For those already familiar with compilations like Mémoire de Aboubacar Demba Camara -at least half of which is reproduced here -the first disc, which includes many early singles previously unavailable on CD, will be a revelation.

Highlights? Pretty much the whole damn thing, though it depends on your mood, such is the variety of styles they experimented with. All the ingredients that made their music so wonderful are there on their first single “République Guinée”; the trademark off-key brass section, grooving percussion, Sékou Diabaté’s exquisite guitar and the distinctively savoury vocals of Demba Camara. Apart from updating the griot songs of their largely Maninka heritage, the band revelled in outside influences.

Titles like “Sabor de Guajira”, “Montuno de la Sierra” and the rumba-flavoured gem “Dagna” illustrate the passion for Cuban music which they shared with many West African musicians of their generation. Likewise, “Mami Wata” is an affectionate nod to Ghanaian highlife, and “Sou” takes a short trip to Cape Verde. The compilation brings us as far as 1976, three years after the death of Demba Camara, by which time their sound was beginning to take on a soukous flavour.

Those who are fussy about sound quality should perhaps be warned that some of the recordings are copied from vinyl rather than the original master tapes, but also that this music is about ambience, not accuracy. The only major omission is anything from the epic Regard sur le Passé, probably because as Graeme Counsel’s excellent sleevenotes explain it consists of a single song spread over two sides of vinyl, and is best heard in its entirety. Otherwise, its hard to fault this superlative and long overdue re-issue, which commemorates a truly golden era in African music. If the brooding, majestic grace of Ballake doesn’t give you goosebumps, you should probably see a doctor soon. – Jon Lusk, BBC

Sterns Music


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Jackson do Pandeiro – Chiclete Com Banana: 1958-60 (2008)

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Jackson do Pandeiro
“Chiclete Com Banana”
The Columbia Records Sessions 1958-60
Released 2008 by Discobertas Records (DB – 002)

DISC ONE

1. Tum, Tum, Tum
2. Pacífico Pacato
3. Boa Noite
4. Nortista Quatrocentão
5. Sem Querer
6. Vou Sambar
7. Boi da Cara Preta
8. Linda
9. Baião do Bambolê
10. Quadro Negro
11. Forró na Gafieira
12. Cantiga do Sapo
13. Naquela Base
14. Quem Não Chora Não Mama

DISC TWO

1. Chiclete com Banana
2. Forró de Surubim
2. Lágrima
3. De Arerê
4. Ogum de Malê
5. Sarava o Endá
6. Casaca de Couro
7. Lamento Cego
8. Valsa Neném
9. Mane Gardino
10. Acorrentado
11. Leva Teu Gererê
12. Vou Buscar Maria
13. Penerou Gavião

I have already lamented previously about the current sad state of Jackson do Pandeiro’s discography. I don’t know if it is due to evil record executives or quarelling family members, but his very extensive catalog of recordings is barely in print, limited to three titles that represent full albums (O Forró de Jackson, O Rei do Rítmo, and A Cabra da Peste) and few compilations with generic packaging that do little to honor the man. But alas it must just be me, the gringo commodity fetishizer, who gets so worked up about OBJECTS and the lack of them. What’s important is the music, right? Well, when you can find it. When you want Jackson do Pandeiro in better quality than a crappy mp3 you found on the internet, then you find yourself with a problem.

Let us welcome Discobertas records, then, into this sad story. They have done the world a service, and brought us a focused, concise collection of music: pretty much everything Jackson recorded for the Columbia record label in his brief tenure there from September 1958 to September of 1960. This is music that makes me glad to be alive.

As the liner notes point out, Jackson do Pandeiro shocked everyone when he left Copacabana Records, with whom he had made a ton of hit records and become a national sensation, and left for the (American-owned) Columbia. Ironic, then, that he end there recording one of his most famous tunes and one of the most famous moments of musical social critique and satire of American imperialism – ‘Chiclete Com Banana’.

By this time, Jackson do Pandeiro was living in Rio, starring in films, and living it up carioca-style. The majority of the tracks on this collection were released on 78’s and many will be unfamiliar even to Brazilian fans. In addition to the expected songs of baião and coco, there are also styles like rojão, batuque, marcha and samba represented here. And it is samba that is perhaps the most starteling revelation here — not that Jackson could sing samba, since he had already done so quite well, but the way it’s presented here. With horn charts and strings often replacing instruments like the sanfona or concertina, one wonders if Columbia was trying to make a samba star out of Jackson. Or perhaps it was his own initiative to do something different? There is a recent book about the man (“O Rei do Ritmo” by Fernando Moura and Antonio Vicente) that may or may not shine some light on this issue.. I have only come across the book once and wish I had bought it, since I am too lazy to remember to order a copy. It has a discography in it that appears almost identical to the one found on the Jackson do Pandeiro ‘official’ website — it appears that one was copied directly from the other, but I won’t point fingers. A great deal of the material here appears to have been recorded with Britinho e Sua Orchestra as his backing band — Britinho was a pianist whose band was sort of the house band at Columbia for putting out popular dance records, mostly samba, in the 50s.

This is usually the point where Flabbergast begins complaining about the quality of audio mastering or packaging or whatnot. Well today I am going to cut Discobertas some slack, because they have done a bang-up job on recent reissues from Beth Carvalho and Elza Soares. This was their second release (not sure which was the first in their catalog)… Armed with only a single photo of Jackson (from the ‘personal archive of the family’), reproduced about five times, they give us the following weird disclaimer in the CD insert: roughly translated, “All efforts were made in the attempt to locate the musicians, composers and photographers involved in the historic material that this project finally makes available. Any corrections will have to be made in subsequent editions (pressings).”

Kind of a weird thing to say on your own record, no? Seems like these guys had as hard a time putting together solid info on Jackson as even the casual listener, which is kind of discouraging.. They do, however, provide the precise catalog numbers of all the releases on 78 and the few that appeared on LPs. As far as I can tell, Jackson had two full length releases (LPs) on Columbia, the majority of which was material already released on 78 with a few new things thrown in. Thus, this seems to be *everything* for Columbia right here on these two discs.

Interesting side note- the producers thank Erasmo Carlos in the liner notes… Maybe just for being a cool guy, or a friend, or maybe they showed up at his house to look at his record collection in desperate need??

Another note — I can’t figure out the source material for this reissue — original tapes, or vinyl? Although the notes above this mention the old standard disclaimer of ‘these original recordings were made on magnetic tape between 1958 and 1960, every technical resource available has been made to improve the audio quality…”, they never come out and say ‘mastered from the original master tapes’. Instead they do a good job of tucking that information away under “Digitalização e pre-edição – Marcelo Fróes” which doesn’t really specify what was digitized. A lot of the tunes too crystal clear to have been done from anything besides tape, but then a lot can be done with pristine copies of original vinyl (such as one might find in Erasmo Carlos’ house..). Usually, working from the original master tapes is something people like to brag about, so the jury is out until they ‘come clean’. But it sounds good to my ears, and this stuff is pure gold musically.

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Sidney Miller – Línguas de Fogo (1974)

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LÍNGUAS DE FOGO
Sidney Miller
1974 Som Livre 403.6037
Reissued 2005 under direction of Charles Gavin
Remastered by Luigi Hoffer

1 Cicatrizes
2 Um dia qualquer
3 Línguas de fogo
4 Dos anjos
5 Alô
6 Pala palavra
7 No quarto das moças
8 Sombrasileiro
9 Espera
10 Alento
11 Dois toques

This record is as compelling and enigmatic as Sidney Miller himself. The only other thing I have by him is one song a soundtrack record for the 3rd Festival da Músical Popular Brasileira from 1967, in which he sings his “A Estrada e o Violeiro” with Nara Leão, a song for which he won an award for the lyrics. Miller was somewhat set up to be “the next Chico Buarque”, with his compositions being lauded by the likes of Nara who recorded a ton of his songs on her “Vento de Maio” (1967) album. Miller would release his own album on Elenco that year on the strength of the single “A Estrada e o Violeiro”. That album is something of a rarity to track down, but not as hard as his second LP, the quasi-Tropicalista-post-bossa-nova album “Do Guarani ao Guaraná” which had some heavy friends on it like Paulinho da Viola and Jards Macalé. Released in `68, that would be his last album for the next six years. He would spend the following years doing some arranging for Nara Leão’s famous (and also famously rare) “Coisas do Mundo” album, and composing for theatre and cinema, some songs of which became hits on Trilhas Sonoras (soundtracks) to telenovelas. And then in 1974, he puts out this completely weird album.

The record is dreamy, hazy, psychedlicized, progressive MPB that evokes early Lô Borges, or Beto Guedes, or the first Nelson Angelo/Joyce album. In fact it sounds like a ‘lost’ album from the whle Mineiro bunch surrounding the Clube de Esquina, but is actually out on a whole other trip once you start listening closer. The arrangements are all great, balancing his relaxed, almost sedated vocal lines against taught double-tracked flute harmonies or funky electric piano or keyboards or fuzzy electric guitars that sometimes sound like it was plugged straight into the mixing board and using the input as an overdrive. His voice is gorgeous, and while his lyrics may not be as Buarqueian as some of his earliest champions may have been hoping for, they are sophisticated, resonant, and beguiling. This album is very deserving of that tag of “lost masterpiece” that gets thrown around a little too freely these days. Because this really is an exceptional work of music supported by great audio mixing, smart lyrics, and solid experimental folk-rock arrangements that occasionally goes off on some crazy guitar jams. I love everything on this album with the exception of ‘Dos anjos’.

This was the last album Sidney Miller would ever make. He worked for the arts foundation known as FUNARTE for a few years, had plans to make another record, but died at the age of 30 from an apparent cardiac arrest. Rumors were that he had committed suicide. Not sure what to make of that. The melancholic beauty here is stunning, and hints at a soul that had a lot more to say to us.

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