Assorted Reups Oct.5 – Jackson, Maysa, Fuentes, Purdie, Donato, Ben

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I’ve been fixing dead links on this site piecemeal and decided to announce at least a few of the ones that have received requests.  I don’t always publish comments from people reporting dead links, because most of the time they can’t be bothered to even say ‘thanks for this post’.  Anyway here are a handful of fixed posts with more to come in the near future

Jackson do Pandeiro – Os Grandes Sucessos de …
Maysa – Maysa, Amor… e Maysa (1961)
Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes 1960-1976
Pretty Purdie & The Playboys – Stand By Me (Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get) (1971)
João Donato – The New Sound of Brazil / Piano of João Donato (1965)
Jorge Ben – Raridades e Inéditas (2009)

Trio Mocotó – Trio Mocotó (1973)

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Trio Mocotó
Released 1973 on RGE

Fritz Escovão (Luís Carlos de Souza)- cuíca and vocals), Nereu Gargalo (Nereu São José)- pandeiro and vocals) e João Paraíba (João Carlos Fagundes Gomes) drums and vocals

with Amilson Godoi (piano), Olmir Stocker (guitar), Itiberê (bass), and Bira (percussion)

Arrangements and orchestration by Rogérgio Duprat, Sérgio Carvalho, João Carlos Pegoraro, Waldemiro Lemke

SIDE ONE
01. Desapareça, Vá, Desapareça
02. Nó na Garganta
03. Vem Cá, Meu Bem, Vem Cá
04. Recordar
05. Não Vá embora
06. Desculpe

SIDE TWO
07. Maior é Deus
08. Samba da Preguiça
09. Palomares
10. Swinga Sambaby
11. Tô Por Fora da Jogada
12. Gotas da Chuva na Minha Boca


Feeling hungry? Help yourself to a steaming plate of mocotó. Trio Mocotó to be precise. These guys are more famous for being the percussion section underpinning some of Jorge Ben’s greatest records than they are for their own material. And it’s easy to understand that – as good as this album is, their original tunes are rather lackluster and their flat, boring vocals would have made them very popular with the hipster crowd in present-day Olinda or Recife. Which is my way of saying that their vocals are bloody awful and rather irritating (with the exception of Não Vá Embora and Palomares). Trio Mocotó excels at creating a groove, but without a musically-charismatic frontman like Jorge Ben to lead them, their stuff can feel a little uninspired. But this is still essential listening for anyone interested in the samba-soul, samba-rock scene of the mid-70s and has some wonderful moments. As you can see from the album credits, there were a TON of arrangers working on this album; Unfortunately their credits are not specified as to which songs were arranged by whom, but I am willing to guess that Rogério Duprat arranged “Nó na garganta” and possibly “Palomares.” The latter tune is easily the high point of the record — Once you make it through the chord changes of the first verse, you may say to yourself, “boy these guys really took a page from the Jorge Ben textbook of songwriting”, until you look at the album credits and see that it IS actually a Jorge Ben song. Kind of a throwaway tune, as he had songs to spare. He would end up recording it himself sometime in the 90s. Get this album just for this tune, if nothing else, and you will find the rest of the songs growing on you after a while. Other strong cuts here http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifinclude ‘Maior é Deus’ (NOT the Paulo César Pinheiro tune, by the way), the mellow sentimentality of ‘Recordar’, and Ben-like “Swinga Sambaby”, and the propulsive opener, ‘Desapareça’, which features nice Hammond B3 as well as an uncredited saxophone solo. It’s a very short solo, perhaps they just grabbed a sax player from the corridor of the recording studio and asked him to play a few bars and forgot to ask his name when they payed him.. If you are like me and find Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs to be cloying potential suicide-triggers, don’t even THINK about listening to the final song, the ridiculous closer “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Cuica.”

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Elis Regina – Em Pleno Verão (1970)

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Elis Regina
“Em pleno verão”
Released 1970 Philips (R 765.112 L)
Reissue 2005 (811 467-2)

1 Vou deitar e rolar (Quaquaraquaquá)
(Baden Powell, Paulo César Pinheiro)
2 Bicho do mato
(Jorge Ben)
3 Verão vermelho
(Nonato Buzar)
4 Até aí morreu Neves
(Jorge Ben)
5 Frevo
(Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes)
6 As curvas da estrada de Santos
(Erasmo Carlos, Roberto Carlos)
7 Fechado pra balanço
(Gilberto Gil)
8 Não tenha medo
(Caetano Veloso)
9 These are the songs
(Tim Maia)
10 Comunicação
(Édson Alencar, Hélio Matheus)
11 Copacabana velha de guerra
(Sergio Flaksman, Joyce)

This is a fun album that sees Elis taking herself a bit less seriously than would be the case in years to come. Beginning with the beautiful photo on the album cover, it’s sunshine all the way through. Recorded and released in 1970, it sits on a precipice of musical history sort of like the proverbial time capsule left for the extra-terrestrials to tell them about contemporary MPB. With consistently interesting and flawless arrangements from Erlon Chaves, Elis rips through a repertoire of songs that couldn’t get much better spanning Bossa Nova, Jovem Guarda, Brazilian Soul and Tropicália and spinning them into a weirdly unified whole. A delirious take on “Vou deitar e rolar (Quaquaraquaquá)” from Baden Powell and Paulo César Pinheiro has Elis unable to restrain herself from laughing through most of it, which is a cue to the listener to lighten up a bit. Two fantastic tunes from Jorge Ben nestle nicely with tunes from Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil – “Fechado pra balanço” stands out in particular and is a testament to the stylistic strengths of both composer and interpreter here, as their different personalities are completely intermingled and simultaneously distinct, a talent that was an uncanny ability of Elis. She also continues her tradition of lifting up new talented writers by concluding with a song by a young Joyce (“Copacabana velha de guerra”) and especially the inclusion of Tim Maia’s “These Are The Songs” on which she brought him into the studio to sing. This was the same year that Tim’s debut album would come out, and his inclusion on an album by the reigning queen of MPB helped him to explode on the scene.  But for all the great material on here, currently my favorite cut is “As Curvas da Estrada de Santos” in which she is able to out-swagger Roberto Carlos, with big help from her backing band who really work it out. (Wilson das Neves on drums?? I don’t have musician credits for this one..) Although this album doesn’t seem to have any of the titles that would come to be Elis’ “signature songs” associated with her during the remainder of her short life, it’s a nice solid slab of great music in her discography.

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VA – O Fino da Bossa (1964) (Alaíde Costa, Jorge Ben, Nara Leão, Zimbo Trio, Oscar Castro Neves, Wanda Sá)

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“O Fino da Bossa”
O show “O Fino da Bossa” recorded at the Paramount Theatre in São Paulo, 25th of May, 1964.
Original LP produced by Walter Silva
CD repressing on RGE 1994
featuring:
Alaide Costa
Zimbo Trio
Rosinha de Valenca
Ana Lucia
Paulinho Nogueira
Jorge Ben
Wanda Sá
Nara Leao
Oscar Castro Neves
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Some interesting photos included in the packaging, which feature a young Flora Purim and Toquinho, neither of whom seemingly participated in the recording, but they sure do look pretty
01 – Onde Está Você (Oscar Castro Neves / Luvercy Fiorini) – Alaíde Costa
02 – Garota de Ipanema (Tom Jobim / Vinicius de Moraes) – Zimbo Trio
03 – Samba Medley | Gosto Que Me Enrosco (J. B. da Silva “Sinhô”) Agora É Cinza (Alcebíades Barcelos “Bide” / Armando “Marçal”) Duas Contas (Garoto) Bossa na Praia (Pery Ribeiro / Geraldo Cunha) – Paulinho Nogueira
04 – Tem Dó (Baden Powell / Vinicius de Moraes) – Ana Lúcia
05 – Consolação (Baden Powell / Vinicius de Moraes) – Rosinha de Valença
06 – Chove Chuva (Jorge Ben “Jorge Benjor”) – Jorge Ben
07 – Desafinado (Tom Jobim / Newton Mendonça) – Wanda Sá
08 – Maria Moita (Carlos Lyra / Vinicius de Moraes) – Nara Leão
09 – Berimbau (Baden Powell / Vinicius de Moraes) – Oscar Castro Neves
As the liner notes explain, this concert was recorded less than two months after the military coup that plunged the country into twenty-plus years of repression and censorship. Brazil already having undergone its share of rapid power shifts across the first half of the twentieth century, a lot of people still thought (or hoped) it was a temporary state of affairs. (Actually the generals who took over the country promised to hold elections after they had the situation ‘under control’, which of course never happened except in the most artificial of ways years later). It is surprising to read in these notes how this show was not only sold out but — being that the Paramount only held about 2000 people or so — that people were breaking the glass in doors and windows to force their way in! ! Anyway, the music here is excellent and has some real rarities. Alaíde Costa, still the most underrated of the bossa nova chanteuses, opens the recorded set. Zimbo Trio, led by bassist Luiz Chaves, run through a ripping version of ‘A Garota de Ipanema’ that makes me forget how tired I am of hearing that song — I could be mistaken but I believe that they were the first bossa-jazz trio to play an instrumental version of the tune… Paulinho Nogueira provides a solo acoustic guitar medley of tunes that probably goes on for too long. I have a couple of Nogueira’s albums on vinyl and I like him well enough, they are enjoyable, but he often comes across as a diluted and derivative version of Baden Powell or sometimes João Gilberto (when he sang) combined, without the inspiration or innovation of either of those two. He did however bring a different type of finger-picking style to the way he played samba that is different from Baden.
A nice thing about this record is that we get some of the less famous bossa nova singers who haven’t been canonized into musical sainthood like their brethren, names like Ana Lúcia, Rosinha da Valença, and Wanda, whose records can be hard to track down. Jorge Ben’s live version of “Chove Chuva” is slower and more jazzed-out than the album version, and its quite a treat given how early in his career this is. Note that this track was NOT included in the 2-CD set of rarities that was part of the boxset ‘Salve, Jorge!’ from 2009. Nara Leão is amazing as always singing Maria Moita, and the sound quality on this track is amazing. In fact the whole record sounds great but this one stands out for some reason. The album closes with ten minutes of Oscar Castro Neves’ group giving a majestic treatment of “Berimbau” that includes a full orchestral arrangement in the middle. Too bad all the musicians are uncredited, especially since the guitar sounds.. familiar. Almost like it might be Baden Powell. Who played on a lot of albums uncredited. Hmmm…

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Jorge Ben – "O Bidú" – silêncio no Brooklin (1967)

O BIDU – SILÊNCIO NO BROOKLIN
1967 on United Artists (LP 70.006)
This pressing, Atoll Music, France

1 Amor de carnaval
2 Nascimento de um príncipe africano
3 Jovem samba
4 Rosa mais que nada
5 Canção de uma fã
6 Menina gata Augusta (Jorge Ben, Erasmo Carlos)
7 Toda colorida
8 Frases
9 Quanto mais te vejo (Jorge Ben, Yara Rossi)
10 Vou andando
11 Sou da pesada
12 Si manda

All songs by Jorge Ben unless otherwise noted.

This post is dedicated to the guy in Madison, Wisconsin, who requested but then found it elsewhere before I got around to making this post. He’s a cool guy and regular visitor to Flabbergasted Vibes, so he deserves a shout-out, especially because he doesn’t live in New York. You see, hoje em dia, there is a large population of hipsters living in Brooklyn, raising rents (if not quite raising hell) by running around in their skinny jeans and messenger bags and generally thinking they are the center of the universe. Well unfortunately this record is one more feather in their ironic caps. I would like to take pleasure from telling these people that this Jorge Ben album is NOT named after their new occupied territory. But the truth is actually somewhat worse – it is named after an entire neighborhood in São Paulo that was named after their hip occupied territory. The neighborhood was christened thus by the Canadian-owned São Paulo Tramway, Light and Power Company, which also – in an interesting reflection on Canada’s bizarre tendency towards self-effacement – named handfuls of streets after famous cities in the United States.

The only record Jorge Ben ever made for United Artists, this was left out of the recent Salve, Jorge! box set. Like many rarities by major artists, its reputation probably exceeds its actual quality. It’s not a bad album, but it’s also not a great one. Some of the tracks are trying a bit too hard for jovem guarda caché for my tastes. This isn’t a slag against jovem guarda, it’s just that I think Jorge Ben was in a transitional phase trying to figure out where he wanted to go next, and this record just kind of proves that he hadn’t found it yet. Or, possibly, that it was recorded in a hurry while trying to renegotiate his expired contract with Philips.

It most certainly has some gems on it – the first two tracks open up the record with plenty of energy, and I’m particularly fond of the celeste (although it could be a vibraphone, I prefer to believe its a celeste) on the “Nascimento de um principe africano”. The track “Toda colorida” belongs among the ranks of any of Ben’s best stuff from this period, as does “Frases”, which was reworked by Caetano Veloso and renamed “Olha o menino” on his 1977 ‘Bicho’ album. But aside from these tracks, there isn’t too much that stands out. “Rosa mais que nada” is, unsurprisingly, a rehash of ‘Mais que nada’, and while the final track ‘Si Manda’ may be an upbeat number to close out the album, it is also just a rehash of the first track “Amor de carnaval.” Still, any Jorge Ben from this period is essential, at least to us Jorge Ben fans, and others may of course feel differently about this record than I do.

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