Category: Jazz Bossa

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Dora Lopes – Enciclopédia da Gíria (1957 Mocambo)

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Dora Lopes – Enciclopédia da Gíria
Mocambo / Rozenblit 1957

Is this a Pride Month post?  Sort of, because Dora Lopes was possibly the first “out” singer in Brazilian popular music.   But this record was  before anyone outside Rio scenesters knew or cared about her sexuality, and even before she was the proprietor of O Caixotinho, one of Rio’s first lesbian nightclubs that served the Copacabana area beginning in the second half of the 60s.  This 1957 album is notable for other reasons, like being released on the small Recife imprint Mocambo, and for the fact that Dora gets composer credits on all but a couple songs here in a era when women songwriters were not the norm.  The songs and arrangements fit more in the jazz-samba world than the nascent bossa nova scene. Continue reading

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Walter Wanderley Trio – Chegança (1966) (1971 reissue)

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The Walter Wanderley Trio – Cheganca
Original release 1966 on Verve
1971 Reissue MGM Records
Series: MGM Latino Series – 10,010 MGS 610

Like many musicians looking for reprieve from the turmoil of mid-60s Brazil, keyboardist Walter Wanderley had left the country and settled in the United States.   He emigrated at the behest of Creed Taylor and made half a dozen albums for Verve. Most of them can be classed under ‘lounge’ or ‘exotica’ music, which has its own charms, although often as sweet as the half ton of bagged sugar featured on the front of this album.  But “Chegança” is more like the bossa-jazz records Wanderley made in Brazil and has much less of the Creed Taylor background-music schmaltz factor.   The whole band grooves together.  There is appropriately unsubtle cuica playing on O Ganso (“The Goose”)  The highlight, though,  is still the organ playing.  Have a listen to the solo in “Você e eu” below. Continue reading

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Herbie Mann – Do The Bossa Nova (1962) (Atlantic 1397, Mono pressing)

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Herbie Mann
Do The Bossa Nova
1962 Atlantic 1397
Mono pressing

Before bossa nova became the semiotic index for the synthetic happiness of mass consumer culture and alienation (and long before it was featured in the supermarkets and the Commander’s dinner parties in the current adaptation of A Handmaid’s Tale), bossa nova was  associated with the cool and cosmopolitan, with goatee-sporting hep cats like Herbie Mann.  For this record, he went to Rio and actually recorded with a bunch of the leading lights of the movement, which sets this apart from a lot of the contemporary North American jazz-bossa crossovers of the time.  The personnel includes Baden Powell, Paulo Moura, Tom Jobim, and Sérgio Mendes. A fun version of Clifford Brown’s ‘Blues Walk’ gives it a Brazilian twist.

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Tamba Trio – Tamba Trio (1962)

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Tamba Trio
Tamba Trio
1962 Philips – P 632.129 L
Mono pressing / Jazz, Latin, Bossa nova

Tamba (Luiz Eça)    2:38
Batida Diferente (Durval Ferreira, Mauricio)     2:00
Influência Do Jazz (Carlos Lyra)     2:25
Samba De Uma Nota Só (Antonio Carlos Jobim, Newton Mendonça)     1:36
Alegria De Viver (Luiz Eça)     1:58
O Barquinho (Roberto Menescal, Ronaldo Boscoli)     2:24
Minha Saudade (João Donato)     1:47
Nós E O Mar (Roberto Menescal, Ronaldo Boscoli)     2:18
Samba Nôvo (Durval Ferriera)    2:47
O Amor Que Acabou (Chico Feitosa, Luiz F. Freire)
Mania De “Snobismo” (Durval Ferreira, Newton Chaves)    2:43
Batucada (Murilo A. Pessoa)    1:54
Ai, Se Eu Pudesse (Roberto Menescal, Ronaldo Boscoli)     1:54
Quem Quizer Encontrar O Amor (Carlos Lyra, Geraldo Vandré)     2:56 Continue reading