Month: August 2020

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Tamba Trio – Tamba Trio (1975)

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Tamba Trio
(self-titled)
RCA 888430906624
Original release 1975
Reissue 2014 (EU)

1 – 3 Horas Da Manhã  (Ivan Lins, Waldemar Correia) 2:42
2 Visgo De Jaca (Sergio Cabral, Rildo Hora) 2:35
3 Ou Bola Ou Bulica (Aldir Blanc, Joao Bosco) 2:12
4 Beira-Mar (Ivan Lins) 2:19
5 Olha Maria (Amparo) (A.C. Jobim) 4:45
6 Chorinho No. 1 (Durval Ferreira) 1:44
7 Jogo Da Vida (Sidney Miller, Danilo Caymmi) 3:15
8 Sanguessuga (Fernando Brant, Toninho Horta) 3:47
9 Janelas (Ivan Lins, Ronaldo Monteiro) 1:38
10 Contra O Vento (Ana Borba, Danilo Caymmi) 2:45
11 Beijo Partido (Toninho Horta) 2:28
12 Chamada (Helio Delmiro, Paulo Cesar Pinheiro) 2:10

Arrangements, piano, Fender Rhodes, Arp Synthesizer, Vocals – Luiz Eça
Bass, Percussion, Flute [In C And G], Vocals  – Bebeto
Percussion, Drums, Vocals – Hélcio Milito

With Hélio Delmiro (guitar)

Also featuring João Bosco (guitar and vocal on Track 3); Toninho Horta (guitar on tracks 8 & 11); Danilo Caymmi (guitar, tracks 7 & 10); and Rildo Hora (harmonica, track 2).

Recorded and mixed by Nestor Vitiritti, RCA Studios, Rio de Janeiro

Artwork By – Ney Tavora
Artwork and Photographic Effects– Sérgio De Garcia
Coordinator, Directed By – Raymundo Bittencourt
Design – Carlos Guarany
Photography – Ivan Klingen

 

This is a very solid record, and Tamba Trio was doing a fine job of updating their sound to stay contemporary with developments in MPB. So instead of Jobim & Vincius compositions, we have Aldir Blanc and Joao Bosco (who also guests on the record), Fernando Brandt and Toninho Horta (another guest), Danilo Caymmi, Ivan Lins (yet another guest), Paulo Cesar Pinheiro — only top shelf stuff here, it’s like reaching for the blue Johnny Walker bottle instead of the black or the red.  Another nice touch is the neo-chorinho composition by Durval Ferreira here.

But this is obviously no longer a trio configuration of the group, and the album doesn’t have the exuberance or urgency of their early records.  It does have the mature confidence of guys who have been playing together for over a decade and invited a bunch of their talented famous friends over to create new textures on their new album.  Bassist and flautist Bebeto sings on this record, and his voice is what I imagine Chico Buarque might sound like if he were suffering from dengue fever, with that microtonally desafinado (out of tune) quality so characteristic of bossa nova which – if you aren’t quite in the mood for it – can make a person feel a little seasick.

Mirror 1 || Mirror 2

 

16-bit 44.1 khz

Mirror 1 ||  Mirror 2

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival (1972/1996)

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Roy Ayers Ubiquity – Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival
Original release 1972 Polydor (Japan)
1996 CD reissue Verve Records 314531641-2

Dipping back into the Roy Ayers Ubiquity catalog, this live performance hails from pretty early in their trajectory, and this version was expanded from the original LP to include 4 extra tracks for what is probably a pretty complete representation of their set.  (more below the break) Continue reading

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In memoriam, Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995)

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Twenty-five years ago, when Jerry Garcia passed on this day in 1995, I was jaded and angry. Still reeling with unprocessed grief from the death of my only sibling a few years earlier, I had distanced myself from the scene I had once felt an affinity to (which had grown increasingly sketchy in the 1990s anyway). I refused to leave my apartment, stayed in bed most of the day, steadfastly avoiding the vigil in the park down the street from me filled with people tearful over somebody they “knew” as an abstract entity.  He was deified as a free-spirited messenger of peace and harmony while nursing a decades-long heroin addiction, the antithesis of freedom.  I felt like that dichotomy between a starry-eyed expanded consciousness and a hedonistic enslavement to the pleasure principle could have very nearly ruined my own life if it hadn’t been for the actions of a few people, my lost sibling among them, which took me off that path.  Famous musicians driving themselves into early graves through hard living — Garcia was barely 53 but looked about 80 when he died – was nothing new. I couldn’t or wouldn’t empathize with the collective eulogizing because all I could think was that it seemed in some way profoundly stupid for people who “had everything in life” to careless throw it away – I’d thought the same thing about Kurt Cobain’s suicide a year earlier even though I had only a passing interest in his music — while all over the world, parents had to bury children lost to horrible circumstances – accidents, diseases, murders – inverting the “natural order”, things weren’t supposed to happen that way. Those families, and mine, didn’t have crowds holding vigils in the park. They got awkward attempts at soothing from friends or relatives, often with platitudes like “he / she is in a better place now” or “God has called home another angel” and insipid shit like that.  Continue reading