Month: March 2011

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Fruko, El Bueno – Ayunando (1973) Fruko y Sus Tesos

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FRUKO, EL BUENO
“Ayunando”
Released 1973
Disco Fuentes (LP 200748)

01 – Fruko Power
02 – Ayunando
03 – Tu Sufriras
04 – Yo Soy el Punto Cubano
05 – Lamentdo del Campesino
06 – Mosaico Santero: A Santa Bárbara – San Lázaro – A la Caridad del Cobre
07 – El Ausente
08 – Canto a Borinquen
09 – Pa’ Teso Yoi

Vocals: Joe Arroyo and Wilson Saoko
Trumpets: Jorge Gariria, Salvador Pasos
Trombones: Gonzalo Gómez, Freddy Ferrer
Timbales: Rafael Benitez
Conga – Fernando Villegas
Bongo: Jesús Villegas
Electric Piano: Luis Felipe Basto
Bass, arrangements: Fruko

Executive Producer: Jose Maria Fuentes E.
Produced by: Mario Rincon P
Musical Director: Fruko
Recording Engineer: Mario Rincon P.

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, some isolated clicks removed using Audition -> dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced. Tags done with Foobar 2000

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Anyone who has heard the compilations from the likes of Soundway Records or VampiSoul covering cumbia, salsa, or Latin funk sounds has no doubt had the tracks from Fruko jump right out at them. His band went through a variety of sounds over the 70s and I haven’t heard anything I didn’t like yet. Here we see him in a humorous counter-spin on the campy ‘bad boy’ image he had been using (modeled somewhat after Willie Colon’s album covers) on his earlier album art, by becoming the benevolent “Fruko the Good”!

Fruko’s discography is so huge, and I am familiar with such a small portion of it, that it’s difficult for me to say anything of much profundity. However, he is known to a lot of us non-Colombians for some of the funkier stuff he recorded as well as his bad-ass cumbias. But on this record, the only thing funky is the rather creepy and slightly nauseating album cover (thank the stars for the strategic use of glass decanters…) featuring Fruko in his best Bacchus impersonation, and there is no cumbia to had. This is pretty much a straight salsa album with strains of Latin Soul via the Nuyorican scene. Although I prefer Joe Arroyo’s vocals slightly over Wilson Saoko, Wilson definitely knows how to kick it on the more ‘soulful’ bits, and his singing on the wonderful “Lamento del campesino” is fantastic. The idea of having two lead singers in his band — both of them great, really – is just one of the things that makes Fruko and this record special. That, and the disturbing album cover. Check out the electric piano (Wurlitzer, I believe) work on this album too, in place of the more traditional acoustic piano. There isn’t a bad tune in the bunch, with some of my favorites being the title cut, “Mosaico Santero”, “El Ausente” (which has appeared on some compilations), and the tribute to ‘my people’ in Puerto Rico, “Canto a Boriquen.”

Oddly enough there are not just song samples but entire songs from this album available from the website of COLOMBIAN NATIONAL RADIO

I would like to say that personally I find my own vinyl rip much more satisfying to the ears…

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password – palavra chave – senha – magickal invocation – ponto cantado e ponto riscado can be found in the COMMENTS

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Masahiko Satoh & Soundbreakers – Amalgamation (1971)

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Masahiko Satoh & Soundbreakers – Amalgamation
Label: Phoenix Records (ASH3040CD)
Originally released 1971 on Liberty (LTP-9018)
Reissued 6 Dec 2010
1 Side One1 15:50
2 Side Two 21:18

Composed By, Conductor, Arranged By – Masahiko Satoh
Engineered by Rudy Van Gelder
Produced by Creed Taylor

Part 1 recorded August 17, 13:00~19:00 at Toshiba Records 1st studio.
Edited September 18, 13:00~20:00 at Toshiba Records room A

Part 2 recorded August 22, 13:00~19:00 at Toshiba Records 1st studio.
Edited August 30, 10:00~20:00 at Toshiba Records 2nd studio & October 24, 10:00~18:00 at Toshiba Records 2nd studio.

It has almost begun to feel like a tradition that whenever something horrible happens in the world, I have to dedicate a post to the atrocity, tragedy, and heroism of the moment. Over the last week as I’ve followed the BBC World Service and listened to the death toll in Japan rise every day with estimates that the count won’t be over until it reaches the 10,000 mark or higher, I have felt myself grow mute, reverent, and cautious. Cautious not to add my voice to the clamor of pundits; reverent of the magnitude of entire cities lost, generations of families shattered, of spectral genetic memories of nuclear disaster and potential holocaust; mute in the face of the inability of the thousands upon thousands of humanitarian aid workers to do any more than they are doing. Unlike Haiti, this is unfolding in one of the most developed countries in the world, one that has been utterly prepared for such a disaster for decades and whose government, by most accounts, has done a pretty commendable job of dealing rapidly with the disaster. Mute in the face of such enormous human suffering that almost dictates that anything I might say will seem trite. I have no sophisticated, penetrating analysis or discourse to offer.

THE EARTH IS NOT OURS.

So why not leave it to music, once again, to say what I cannot. This album of experimental jazz and psychedelia was completely unknown to me until fairly recently and seems to resonate somehow with all of this. Recorded in Japan in the early seventies by none other than Rudy Van Gelder and Creed Taylor (who seem to have left it off their resumé or simply disowned it), with Detroit drummer Louis Hayes, the record is equal parts terror and beauty, violence and respite. Swells of organ that remind me vaguely of Larry Young engulf noisy blasts of percussion and saxophone and tape loops of what sound like either military exercises of street protests. More stunning still is the realization that this ‘free’ music is fairly tightly composed as well. At times the whole things sounds like it could fit comfortably in a Krautrock discography as well. I’ll include here a review from Julian Cope, because I like his writing more than the usual music-journalist dry filler.

Big thanks to my friend Cheshire for turning me on to this and passing it along.

This preposterous piece of psychedelic avant-jazz sounds like the work of aliens, each with only one foot in our universe. Propelled by cacophonous brassy blasts, volleys of machine-gunning, ecstatically ‘Light Fantastic’ rhythms and moments of Teo Macero-style ‘Mixing Concrète’ (during which the whole track becomes consumed by waves of new sound); the result is the most singular mash-up of inappropriate sounds any listener is ever likely to hear. Over two side-long tracks, shamen Masahiko Satoh sends us through a sonic mind-field, baffling our senses and our sense of gravity. Located at the centre of AMALGAMATION’s giddy sessions was the frantic Detroit drumming of hard-bop legend Louis Hayes, whose role it was to play the bubbling ever unfolding fundament on which Masahiko Satoh’s whole trip proceeded, as though the rhythm section were a magic carpet constantly being pulled out from under the feet of the other performers. Over this rhythmic shaking, Satoh scattered Hammond organ around and ring-modulated* his Fender Rhodes piano solos (*Roland built three especially for the record), added lead guitar from ‘super session’ legend Kimio Mizutani, trumpets and sax from Mototeru Takagi, scat singing from Kayoko Itoh, and strings from the Wehnne Strings Consort. As if to further disorientate us, the composer divided the single fifteen-minute track of side one into ten absurd titles (eg ‘The Atomic Bomb Was Not Follen’ [sic]), and the single twenty-one minutes of side two similarly (‘Here Me Talking to Ya’, ‘Ancient Tales of Days to Come’), though both tracks are intended as single pieces, being encoded thus on CD re-issues. Essential stuff. [Julian Cope]

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Paulinho da Viola – Nervos de Aço (1973)

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NERVOS DE AÇO
Paulinho da Viola
1973 Odeon (SMOFB 3797)
1996 EMI Abbey Road Remasters (85206-2)

1 Sentimentos
(Mijinha)
2 Comprimido
(Paulinho da Viola)
3 Não leve a mal
(Paulinho da Viola)
4 Nervos de aço
(Lupicínio Rodrigues)
5 Roendo as unhas
(Paulinho da Viola)
6 Não quero mais amar a ninguém
(Zé da Zilda, Carlos Cachaça, Cartola)
7 Nega Luzia
(Jorge de Castro, Wilson Batista)
8 Cidade submersa
(Paulinho da Viola)
9 Sonho de um carnaval
(Chico Buarque)
10 Choro negro
(Fernando Costa, Paulinho da Viola)

 

Copinha – Flute and clarinet
Cristovão Bastos – Piano, harpsichord, electric piano
Nelsinho – trombone
Paulinho da Viola – acoustic guitar and cavaquinho
Dininho – electric bass
Drums – Juquinha, Eliseu (on ‘Não quero mais amar ninguém’)
Percussion – Elton Medeiros, Dininhos, Elizeu, Juquinha, DazinhoProduced by Milton Miranda
Musical director – Maestro Gaya
Orchestration and arrangements – Gaya, Nelsinho, Cristovão Bastos,
Paulinho da Viola, CopinhaTechnical director – Z.J. Merky
Recording technicians – Toninho and Dacy
Remix engineer – Nivaldo Duarte
Album artwork – Elifas AndreatoRemastered at Abbey Road, London, May 1996 by Peter Mew
Under supervision by Paulinho da Viola
Projecto Coordinator – Sonia Antunes

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This is another classic of Paulinho da Viola’s illustrious discography and of samba more generally. As with most of his albums, when not featuring his own material Paulinho choses to reinterpret tunes by masters of the genre to whom he owes spiritual and musical debts. On this record we get Lupicínio Rodriguez (the title track), Cartola & Carlos Cachaça, Wilson Batista, and — a more contemporary master – Chico Buarque. Of the originals there is “Não leva o mal” which is an open critique of the flaws and crises in the directorship of his beloved Portela samba school. The song also features the harpsichord, NOT a traditional samba instrument, which at first sort of through me off as being unnecessarily ‘innovative.’ I am still not sure how I feel about it but I have made my peace with it being there. The song is a classic, plain and simply, but when I get my hands on the master tapes I am going straight back to Abbey Road and mixing out that damn harpsichord.

Another odd original on this is “Roendo as unhas” (Nail-biting, biting your nails, etc) which has a nervous tension and angular structure that sounds like it could have been found on a Tom Zé album (such as, for example, Estudando o Samba). “Comprimido”, appearing earlier on the album, also has a somewhat adventurous arrangement. “Cidade submersa” has some gorgeous electric piano work on it from Cristovão Bastos. The album ends with an elegant instrumental “Choro negro.” All in all, the original compositions on this album are not Paulinho’s best work (my opinion of course, divergence and arguments are welcome), but his reinterpretations/reinventions of the other composers here are top-notch. The album seems to have been received well by the public and the critics, nevertheless Paulinho took a break from recording for two years after this album.

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Novos Baianos F.C. DOCUMENTARY (Solano Ribeiro) 1973

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Novos Baianos F.C. (1973)
Directed by Solano Ribeiro
co-produced with TV Bandeirantes with German TV (?)

Another Carnaval is over and I am free to write about non-Brazilian music but I’d been thinking of posting this for months and months now, so here it goes.

This 30-minute documentary filmed at Novos Baianos’ own commune in the western part of Rio de Janeiro, a place they called the ‘Sitio de Vovô’ in Jacarepaguá, is a riveting glimpse into this once-in-a-universe band at the peak of their creative and musical powers. A musical band deciding to ‘drop out’, go “off the grid” or whatnot, and live communally is not in itself unique. I refer the reader to any of the coveted albums of Father Yod and The Source Family. However while those albums are mind-blowing in their utter unworldliness, with some of them falling squarely in the ‘outsider artist’ category and verge on sheer unlistenable excruciating aural abuse, Novos Baianos made some of the most coherent, flexible, and just damn beautiful music you’re likely to ever hear. They were all top notch musicians with a profound knowledge of and respect for their musical predecessors in Brazil, but expanded on those roots with all the splendor of a sprawling jaqueira or pé de manga tree. Perhaps one that’s been injected with 1000 µg of LSD-25.

Although this documentary made the rounds at some film festivals a few years ago, I have yet to know about an official release of this valuable relic. So instead I am presenting here the full documentary in the same quality you can find on YouTube, sadly, but at least here it is all in one place for ease of viewing. And the sound is pretty decent as well.

There are some interested interview segments but the highlights are the musical performances. Even though the segue from futebol into an ‘impromptu’ performance of ‘Preta Pretinha’ seems utterly contrived and staged to me, I still think it’s cool as hell and some great film-making. Incidentally, the film ends (after the final credits) with a full-tilt acid rock jam that as far as I know never appeared on any albums and which I suspect may not even have a name. It wouldn’t sound out of place on an Amon Duul album. It’s pretty jarring, with some bizarre still shots of the band hanging around doing nothing particular besides sitting in window frames or behind potted plants or other oddities.

Oh yes, I have to mention that I find Baby Consuelo incredibly sexy throughout the entire thing. Even though she seems to have ingested a half pound of Psilocybin before filming, and I suspect I would probably have had a hard time finishing a conversation with her, I don’t really care. She was beautiful and completely unique, just totally charismatic in the way she seemingly just didn’t give a shit about how an MPB star or rock singer was supposed to comport themselves. Also, she is from another planet, which is always a turn on for me.

Novos Baianos continued to make great music during the rest of their existence as a band, but this is a truly special document of a time before egos and business got in the way of it all.

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*note that some sources (including the overlay on this file itself) put the date at 1975. Perhaps that was the broadcast date but I have no doubt that was filmed around 1973.

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Paulinho da Viola – Paulinho da Viola (1978)

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Paulinho da Viola
1978 EMI-Odeon (062 421133)
1996 Abbey Road Remasters Series
(Peter Mew remaster)

1 – Sentimento perdido (Élton Medeiros – Paulinho da Viola)
2 – Atravessou (Paulinho da Viola)
3 – Mudei de opinião (Casquinha – Bubú da Portela)
4 – Coração leviano (Paulinho da Viola)
5 – Sofrer (Paulinho da Viola – Capinan)
6 – Uma história diferente (Paulinho da Viola)
7 – Cenários (Catoni – Jorge Mexeu)
8 – Pelos vinte (Paulinho da Viola – Sergio Natureza)
9 – Apoteose ao Samba (Silas de Oliveira – Mano Décio da Viola)
10 – Sarau para Radamés (Paulinho da Viola)
11 – Nos horizontes do mundo (Paulinho da Viola)
12 – Miudinho (Tradicional – Adaptação: Bucy Moreira – Raul Marques – Monarco)
Participação: Bucy Moreira, Raul Marques e Monarco

Produced by Fernando Faro
Production director – Mariozinho Rocha
Recording technician – Dacy
Mixing engineer – Nivaldo Duarte
Mastering and cutting – Osmar Furtado
Album cover by Elifas Andreato
Photos by Ivson and Paulinho da Viola

Recorded at Odeon studios, Rio de Janeiro in September 1978

Remastered at Abbey Road, London, in May, 1996 by Peter Mew
Supervised by Paulinho da Viola
Project Coordinator – Sonia Antunes

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How does a person review a Paulinho da Viola album anyway? “It’s really great!”. Probably the best I can offer you. And for the 1970s it’s true of every single release. This album has Paulinho incorporating more of the choro and chorinho styles that were on his previous couple records before this one, continuing his writing partnerships with Elton Madeiros and Capinan, and interpreting other samba masters like Casquinha. Like the album artwork and brief blurb written on the inside jacket make clear, this album is like an homage to wooden acoustic instruments and the sound is steller between the original production from Fernando Faro and Peter Mew’s great remastering. One of the big standout tracks that became a samba staple here is ‘Coração Leviano’. Another special treat is the final cut featuring Monarco and others (but mostly Monarco), a `traditional` tune called `Miudinho` that’s been recorded, well, a lot. “Atravessou” critizes Paulinho’s own Portela for its morbidity and stagnation (as he saw it) in the late 70s, calling on his `camarada` to save it from itself. “Sarau para Radamés”, an instrumental chorinho, is a favorite of a friend of mine but I personally find it kind of stale and isn’t a high point for me. Again, it is hard to pick highlights in Paulinho’s 1970s discography given the consistently high quality of it all, but this one definitely stands out.