   
|
||
 April 15, 2007 Adventure Music Most of us know the music of Brazil, if we know it at all, from the series of bossa nova albums Stan Getz made in the mid-1960s for Verve. As good as those records were, it would be silly to assume that they represented more than a slice of what Brazilian music had to offer, even then. Mike Marshall, one of the cofounders of Adventure Music, points out that while bossa nova introduced Brazilian music to America, it "was almost created for an American audience." My brief conversation with Marshall made me realize that I’ve been missing a lot of great music from the country that gave us such respected musicians as Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Dom Um Romão, and Hermeto Pascoal. Adventure Music is introducing to the US many Brazilian musicians, such as Mario Adnet, Vittor Santos, and Philippe Baden Powell. The label is a labor of love for Richard Zirinsky, Jr., Robert Corroon, and Marshall, a virtuoso mandolin player who has worked with Edgar Meyer, Béla Fleck, Joshua Bell, and many others. Marshall didn’t really have his eye on being a record-label executive, but a series of events led to the founding of Adventure Music. In 1999, Zirinsky, who owns a successful New York real estate business and is the label’s president, was getting married, and his business partner, Corroon, wanted Marshall to play at his friend’s wedding. When Marshall met Zirinsky at his house, he discovered that the businessman "had the most incredible record collection I’d ever seen." According to Adventure Music’s website, www.adventure-music.com, Zirinsky "owns one of the largest collections of Brazilian recordings in the world." Zirinsky told Marshall that he’d always wanted to start a record label, and he asked for the musician’s advice. "I tried to dissuade him," Marshall says, "but he was determined. I spent a year educating him on all the aspects of establishing a label. Richard had such good business instincts that he was able to learn quickly." Zirinsky, Corroon, and Marshall launched Adventure Music in 2001. The company began to release titles, often licensed from Brazilian labels, by artists the three owners admired. Soon musicians from Brazil, many of them young and virtually unknown in the US, had a record company that was committed to introducing them to American listeners. "There was a list of fantasies, artists we hoped to work with," Marshall told me, "and I’ll be darned if we haven’t chipped away at it." Each of the label’s discs comes in a beautifully designed Digipac, a reflection of the respect Zirinsky feels the music deserves.
Jobim Jazz is enjoyable and relaxing, but it isn’t mere easy listening or smooth jazz. The arrangements are intelligent and complex, and the soloists bring passion and flair to their work. Adnet’s choice of French horn, flugelhorn, and bass trombone for "Rancho nas Nubens (Ranch in the Clouds)" gives the song a full, warm foundation, but the voicings of all the instruments on that track and many others are a constant delight. Among the soloists on the disc, trombonist Vittor Santos, pianist Marcos Nimrichter, and tenor saxophonist Marcelo Martins stand out, but all the players are so good that I hope those not already signed to Adventure will soon have CDs available here.
Another Center abounds in delightful juxtapositions. Christian Galvez’s "A Tonada for My Little Girl (Tonada Para Mi Niña)" features a beautifully constructed piano solo from Taubkin and a moving accordion solo from Carlos Aquirre. Many tracks show a pronounced jazz influence that mixes easily with more traditional South American music forms. The excitement of Another Center comes from the ways the musicians blend, and how well they integrate the rhythms and harmonies of their cultures with the language of jazz.
A disc featuring such gifted and dazzling players could easily bog down in empty displays of speed and dexterity. While New Words Novas Palavras has plenty of awe-inspiring passages from both musicians, it never becomes a cutting contest. Even when Marshall and de Holanda play at full speed, there’s a feeling of kinship and joy in the music. It’s the sound of two musicians excitedly exchanging ideas. The disc also contains moments of great tenderness and beauty, especially in Marshall’s "Egypt," de Hollanda’s "Valsa em Si," and Hermeto Pascoal’s "São Jorge." Most of Adventure Music’s Brazilian discs were recorded in studios in Rio De Janeiro, and the sound quality is uniformly high. "We’re really interested in keeping the quality up," Marshall told me. "I’m always very conscious of that. I’ve been amazed at the things they’ve been recording. They still have musicians in booths, tube mikes, and good mixing.
All ten albums I’ve heard so far from Adventure Music bear out Marshall’s assertions. You can find out about more Adventure Music releases at their website. In the meantime, here are a few more recommendations: Philippe Baden Powell: Estrada De Terra (Dirt Road) Baden Powell’s piano style takes in the romanticism of Bill Evans and, especially on the Fender Rhodes, the funkiness of Herbie Hancock. Excellent supporting players throughout.
Santos is a fluid, warmly musical trombonist and a gifted arranger. He and the other soloists (including Philippe Baden Powell and Hamilton de Holanda) improvise brilliantly over swinging Brazilian rhythms.
This astonishing pianist has lived in the US for the past 12 years, but returned to Rio De Janeiro to record this disc of exciting jazz, which mostly comprises his own compositions. The other members of his trio, bassist Rogerio Botter Maio and drummer Marcio Bahia, are also exceptional players, and it’s an unalloyed joy to hear the three interact. Guest performers on some tracks add spice to an already delicious mixture. Roda Carioca (Rio Circle) was nominated for a Grammy in 2006, for Best Latin Jazz Recording. …Joseph Taylor
|
||
|
Guitarist-arranger Mario Adnet has
released two discs on Adventure, From the Heart and the recent Jobim Jazz.
Adnet made his name as a producer and arranger in Brazil beginning in the 1970s, but From
the Heart was his first US solo release. Jobim Jazz is his tribute to the great
Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. Adnet had done some arrangements for Jobim, who
died in 1994, and conceived Jobim Jazz as a celebration of the composer’s 80th
birthday. Many other Brazilian musicians are on hand to help Adnet interpret 13 of
Jobim’s songs, and the result is as enchanting as Getz’s bossa nova recordings,
but is, as Adnet writes in his liner note, "absolutely Brazilian in its approach to
rhythm and musical conception." "Quebra Pedra (Stone Flower)," for example,
emphasizes the baião and maracatu rhythms of northeastern Brazil.
Pianist Benjamim Taubkin
has often wondered "why Brazil has such little contact with other South American
countries." After coming into contact and developing friendships with other South
American musicians, he formed Contemporary America, whose ten musicians come from seven
South American nations: Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and, of
course, Brazil. The group’s first release, Another Center, chooses songs from
each of those cultures and lets the musicians bring their own talents to the group’s
interpretations. Colombian singer Lucia Pulido offers a "women’s song with
ritual origins from Colombia’s Atlantic coast." Flutist Alvaro Montenegro
contributes a piece based on a saya-caporal rhythm, which is used heavily in
Bolivian folk music. Another Center’s ten tracks vary
tremendously, yet the disc coheres because of the talent and open-mindedness of the
participants.
Mike Marshall’s fifth disc on
Adventure Music is a collaboration with Hamilton de Holanda, who is a master of the bandolim,
a Portuguese version of the mandolin. The bandolim has a flat back, in contrast to the
mandolin’s curved one, and de Holanda has added a fifth pair of strings. New Words
Novas Palavras shows off the versatility of both musicians, whose experience and wide
musical interests reveal themselves as much in the variety of songs they’ve chosen as
in the quality of their performances. "Receita de Samba" is their tribute to its
composer, Jacob do Bandolim, who brought the mandolin to prominence as a solo instrument
in Brazilian music. The following track, "Blackberry
Blossom/Apanhei-te-Cavaquinho," joins together an Appalachian fiddle tune and a
Brazilian choro with startling results.
"We’re about real musicians
playing their music," Marshall continues. "No sequencing, no drum machines. I
fundamentally believe people can tell whether it’s real or a piece of cheese.
Somebody put their heart and soul into this. The real stuff will rise to the top."
Vittor Santos: Renewed
Impressions 
Jovino Sanos Neto: Roda Carioca
(Rio Circle) 