SAMBA “DEMAIS”
Marcos Valle
1963 Odeon (MOFB 3376)
Reissue 2011 in Boxset `Marcos Valle Tudo` (EMI 026460-2)
1 Vivo sonhando
(Tom Jobim)
2 Amor de nada
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
3 Moça flor
(Luiz Fernando Freire, Durval Ferreira)
4 Canção pequenina
(Pingarilho)
5 Razão do amor
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
6 Tudo de você
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
7 Sonho de Maria
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
8 Ela é carioca
(Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes)
9 Ilusão à toa
(Johnny Alf)
10 Ainda mais lindo
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
11 E vem o sol
(Paulo Sérgio Valle, Marcos Valle)
12 A morte de um Deus de sal (Roberto Menescal, Ronaldo Bôscoli)
BONUS TRACKS
13. Amor de nada (instrumental version)
14. Ainda mais lindo (instrumental version)
Marcos Valle – vocal, acoustic guitar
Eumir Deodato – piano, organ, arrangements
Sérgio Barroso – bass
Juquinha – drums
Ugo Marotta – vibraphone
Roberto Menescal, Geraldo Miranda – acoustic guitar
Marçal – percussion
Copinha – flute
Hamilton and Edson Maciel – trombone
Maurilio Santos – trumpet
Jorginho – alto sax
J.T. Meirelles and Cipó – tenor sax
Alberto Gonçalvez – baritone sax
Produced by Milton Miranda
Flabber general blurb about this boxset: IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME. At least half the albums in this box have been out of print for years, another shameful legacy of an unappreciative middle class (the only Brazilians with disposable income for non-pirated CDs) and an industry more concerned with quick profits than preserving its own legacy.
There have been a boat-load of career retrospective boxsets released in Brazil over the last year or so. I have not heard all of them, nor do I have interest in hearing all of them — but of the ones I own or have heard, this is by far the best. Marcos Valle was directly involved in the project with Charles Gavin and it seems like a real labor of love. The sound is nice and warm (it is hard for me to compare to original vinyl, since I have only heard one of these on vinyl in my entire life and would probably have to sell a kidney to buy one. Or, kidnap a street urchin and sell HIS kidney.) Each album except one includes bonus tracks – in many cases, just instrumental mixes of the same takes used on the album, in other cases B-sides to singles, and in still others alternate instrumental mixes.
Marcos also wrote introductions for each album (except one) – short but informative and adding a nice personal touch that is missing from boxes such as, for example, the Jorge Ben box.
This is not a *complete* discography for this time period. It is lacking three albums that I know of: “Samba 68” recorded for Verve in the United States, “O Fabuloso Fittipaldi” from 1973, a rare-as-fuck film soundtrack that I’ve never heard, and “Vila Sesamo”, the TV soundtrack for the Brazilian version of Sesame Street, which I uploaded a long time ago here. These were all released on different record labels, which surely accounts for their being left out of this box.
Marcos Valle and his brother Paulo Sérgio worked with a truly mind-blowing number of first class musicians and arrangers, as we will see as this boxset ‘unfolds’ on the tracker. Literally, too many ‘heavy weight’ figures to list here without the tracker rejecting my upload (again).
But perhaps the biggest testimony to Valle’s integrity is the inclusion of a bonus disc of a totally unreleased album. Not a collection of outtakes, b-sides, or rarities included on compilations or soundtracks. A full album that actually went unreleased, because it was never completed (we’ll talk about why not when we get to it). And what is *particularly* noble about this is that whereas many artists would have decided to ‘finish’ the album by recording new tracks to “complete their vision” (Brian Wilson and “Smile”, anyone?), Marcos made the commendable choice to… do nothing at all. He presents the album just as it was when it was abandoned — only a couple songs have vocal tracks, the rest leaving it to our imaginations. And it’s great.
——————–
MARCOS IN HIS OWN WORDS (free translation by Flabbergasted Enterprises LTD)
My first musical influences were in the northeastern music of Luiz Gonzaga and Jackson do Pandeiro, so much so that (many years later) I would begin to play the accordion. Afterwards came samba, Ravel, Debussy (at six years old, when I began to study piano and classical music), rock, jazz, black American music, and bossa nova. But on my first album `Samba “Demais”` what dominates is the influence of bossa – I was fascinated by the music of Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Carlos Lyra, Johnny Alf, Roberto Menescal, Sérgio Ricardo and others.
I have a certain special affection for this album – it contains ‘Sonho de Maria’, my first composition to be recorded, also in 1963, by the Tamba Trio. The lyrics are by my brother Paulo Sérgio (it was the beginning of our partnership) and the arrangements are by Eumir Deoodato (he was already immensely talented and alter we became great friends).
With ‘Samba “Demais”‘ I received my first accolades as an emerging composer and interpreter.
-Marcos Valle, 2011
FLABBER review of *this* album:
Valle’s debut record, which I believe has stayed in print pretty consistently, is solid, quality bossa nova, but it is not among my favorites in his catalog or in the genre. It got great reviews at the time and was nominated for several awards. It’s a strong album, really it is. My problems with it are quibbles, really. Released when Marcos was all of 20 years old, it is the only of his albums to feature other composer’s work: one of the most remarkable things about his discography is the immense number of songs written by him and his brother Paulo Sérgio Valle, when the standard in Brazil at the time was for singers to rely heavily on other composers. And while the compositions on this record are fine in themselves, his SECOND album really blows me away, so I can’t help thinking of this as a ‘first step’, which obviously it was (being a debut album, duh..). And although the material of other composers is well chosen, some of the lyrics (including some of Paulo Sérgio, who would only get better and better over the years) are fairly trite drivel.
The lyrics on this album ask the question: How many different ways can you compare a woman to a flower? Rhyme-laden, saccharine lyrics like those on ‘Moça Flor’ are probably what artists like Nara Leão and others had in mine when they criticized bossa nova for a sentimentalism that was increasingly out of touch with the turbulent times and vast social inequities and injustices of the 1960s:
“Moça flor
Tem a cor do amor
Seu olhar a brilhar
E essa lágrima leve querendo chegar”
… I tried to translate this into English but every time I started, I would throw up in my mouth a little bit. Let me try my own bilingual musical criticism instead: Cada um tem seu gosto, mas… isso é uma grande merda. // Everyone is entitled to their own taste, but… this is total crap. Still, apparently a lot of people DO like this song as its been recorded quite a few times.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
A look at the musician and arranger credits should be enough to convince any fan of Brazilian music to give this a try if you don’t already know the album. The arrangements from Eumir Deodato are first-class and the musicianship is superb. If the album as a whole doesn’t blow you away on first listen, don’t worry – his albums kept getting better, and we’re going to listen to a bunch of them together! This is a strong start for one of Brazil’s most prolific talents.
in FLAC:
MIRROR ONE or MIRROR TWO
password in commentarios
password:
vibes
Was never a fan of the "finished" Smile, but I find it hard to begrudge his reasons for doing it. It seemed more like an effort to get over a difficult period in his life + also putting the Smile legend to rest than an actual return to what was going on in the original Smile sessions.
Looking forward to more Marcos Valle too. I've always liked Samba '68 which is all I've heard so far. Thanks!
Yeah, you're spot on Havard — it was a flippant comparison and I should probably edit it out (but, its there now, so I guess I'll leave it). The 'finished' Smile was more about Wilson exorcizing his demons and, as you said, putting a legend to rest. The unreleased album in this boxset comes nowhere close in *any* way — nobody has really ever heard about it, and it in no way represents an 'unfinished masterpiece' the way that Smile did… So, help me find a more apt comparison, because comparing Marcos Valle's incomplete album album to Smile is really pretty stupid of me! I don't know, there's a bunch of examples but I just can't remember any now. Maybe the album "Nashville Sessions" from Townes Van Zandt where they went back 20 or 30 years later to put overdubs and new arrangements on unfinished sessions.. You get the idea of what I mean, I guess
I'm racking my brain to think of something, but it's easier to pick apart what's already been written! You're right it seems like there should be many examples, though.
Oh my god! A Marcos boxset, that's just heavenly!
You bastard, already telling us about a prev. unreleased album and letting us wait probably weeks until you'll share it – pure sadism ;-))
I agree that after one has heard "O Compositor e o Cantor" the first album pales in comparison. But hey, "O Compositor" is brimful of tunes that became classics.
At one point i've started collecting cover versions of Valle tunes and it seemed that every album issued in Brazil in 1965 contained at least one song from "O Compositor".
Should you want to hear the "O Fabuloso Fittipaldi" ost, i can upload a mp3@320 rip. It's 50% talking though.
Big thanks for this! Looking forward to the bonus tracks coming with the other albums.
Thanks Flabbergast, and looking forward to the unfinished album 🙂
btw here's "O Fabuloso Fittipaldi" :
http://the-manchester-morgue.blogspot.com/2007/04/marcos-valle-azymuth-o-fabuloso.html
Flab, I agree totally with your comments. This album is nice enough, but it’s definitely the one I listen to the least of the Odeon discs. The Jobim covers in particular, while competent, are a bit of a slog to get through. To be fair, though, Moça Flor which you cite is not an original either. The highlight of the version I have, the 2002 Japanese remaster, is the bonus Vamos Pranchar, which was the non-album B-side of Samba de Verão, and is already shows a leap in sophistication over this album.
A question: are there any other liner notes in the set? The booklet seems a little basic, especially compared to the Japanese edition. That one has a brief introduction in Portuguese by Marcos, in which he says pretty much the same thing as in the box set, plus 7 pages of liner notes (in Japanese, sadly), including notes on each of the songs. I’ve yet to find a Japanese speaker who can translate it for me.
hey there pawylyshyn, always nice to get your input! Although actually the one I am listening to the least is "Braziliance!", recorded in the US but also released here in Brazil.
And yeah, I picked on a non-original tune simply because the lyrics jump out at me as everything that was `stale` about bossa nova by 1963… I thought I had mentioned that Paulo Sérgio had nothing to do with the insipid lyrics.
Regarding the Japanese pressings — I am unaware of them, never having had the dispensable $$ to collect Japanese pressings. I'll be sad if all the introductions in this box are basically the same as ones he wrote for previous releases, I was feeling all warm and fuzzy that Marcos had done something "special" for us.. But the answer is – no, there are no additional notes other than what he writes for each individual release, which isn't much at all. It's definitely another reflection on the quick-cash mentality of the record business. Not that this is anything new but it seems to have gotten worse with the recent spate of Brazilian box sets — Compare the Wilson Simonal boxset from 2004 or so(I think) which came with a HUGE book full of cool photographs and notes, and sold for basically the same price as this box if I'm not mistaken.
I would be interested in hearing your opinion on any differences between the Japanese and Brazilian mastering. Those Japanese pressings always sound so good!
@Simon666 (the antichrist), I actually received a personal correspondence from our mutual friend Quimby passing me a link to that soundtrack. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet and am not sure if its the same rip as what you are offering, so I'll check them both out!thanks
You're right, those instrumental versions on Braziliance sound pretty cheesy. I revise my opinion: that's my least favourite.
The Japanese remasters did cost a fortune. I had to think twice, but it proved to be worth it to be able to enjoy some great music for all these years. But the sound has lots of imperfections. Some problems, like channels dropping out suddenly, may exist in the original masters; I'm waiting to see when I hear this box set. But others are clearly the fault of the mastering, like digital distortion here and there.
By the way, know anyone who speaks Japanese? If so, I can scan the booklets and we can make our own liner notes for the box set!
I have the score in Japanese Issue if you'd care for my rip?
hey there JT! By "score" do you mean the booklet? I think the problem is that none of us can read it. If its a musical score, perhaps some here would like that, but I can`t read music either, alas…
Thank you very much for the first CD of the Valle boxset. I hope the others will follow, especially "O compositor e o cantor" with "Vamos
Pranchar" as a bonus track and the lost sessions CD. The sound of disc one is great. I hope they used the original master tapes for "Brasiliance" too. The sound of this record in the Odeon 100anos CD series was not very good.
Frank-Oliver
Great upload!
Please keep on with the box, the seventies albums are masterpieces.
thanks, thanks, thanks, and thanks, too.
romain
O Fabuloso Fittipaldi OST – Japanese Remaster (2000)
Greetings from Scotland. I discovered Marcos Valle several years ago and have been spreading the word ever since. I love "Garra", "Previsao do Tempo" (especially Mais do que valsa, which is an astonishing track) and "Marcos Valle" best.I look forward to hearing the rest of the boxset.
Great Blog! congratulations. Marcos Valle is such a great artist. Thanks for posting his masterpieces, always with great sound quality and lots of information. I'm having a lot of fun with it!
arghh !!!
downloaded 2 times, always the same problem: wrong CRC or incorrect password
295 912 Ko
maybe the file is corrupted ?
cheers
I'll check it out ric, thanks for commenting. Rapidshare kind of sucks so I'll probably find another solution..
downloaded 3rd and last time, to be sure. File is corrupted..
re-uploap 320kbps mp3 please!!!
done.
Other invalid link