A Trip Around Brasil - A New Brasil Mix

O Embaixador - Viagem Pelo Brasil
Just made this mix last night and it's far from perfect, but I think you might enjoy it. I started out with a few songs I was planning on including, but then it just kinda became a stream of consciousness style mix. Notable on this mix is the three-in-a-row Brasilian tunes by way of A&M records including some promo only Tamba Trio and Sergio Mendes. We also have some funky northeastern tunes, before delivering a dose of samba and then some Brasilian boogie before coming back home to samba. I might be convinced to create a track-list if enough people wanna know what's what. I hope you dig it.

Promo Only! These jamz are not for sale.

Here are two great sides from A&M of the Brazilian variety that for whatever reason never made it out as a commercial release. The promotional only white label release is an interesting thing as the reason for its limited release can be a result of a number of different situations. Maybe they tested them out as promos to see if there was interest and there wasn't . . . Maybe the group switched record labels, which could be the case for both of these as the Sergio track was supposedly recorded during the sessions for the "Primal Roots" album on A&M and the following album, Love Music, came out on Bell in 1973. Tamba 4 released two albums on A&M before moving back to Brazil and while I have no idea when this single came out, I think it was after their two albums as the song "California Soul" didn't see the light of day until 1968 when the 5th Dimension and Marvin & Tammi recorded it. We may never know why these records were never released commercially, but I think it's fair to say it wasn't because of poor quality.

Sergio Mendes & Brazil '77 - The Crab (Karan - gai - jo)
This song is great for a number of reasons: 1) It's a Joao Donato original tune that was far as I know was never recorded by anyone other than Sergio's troop; 2) It comes from the sessions for one of Sergio's most underrated albums "Primal Roots" which saw Sergio getting back to roots and its the one album that actually sounds like some other stuff being released in Brazil from the same time period; and lastly, 3) It's freakin' weird. Listen to that strange scream in the background!

Tamba 4 - California Soul
Sure, there's no shortage of cover versions of "California Soul", but how many feature whispy portuguese accented vocals and strange organ sounds? Just this one.

Tjader Tjams

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time waxing poetic about these set of 1970s Cl Tjader recordings on Fantasy. I've been really working on filling out my Tjader discography as of late and when going through all of his albums, I'm really drawn to this period of his work. After the Skye record label that he founded in partnership with Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo, he returned to his original record company, Fantasy. I feel like this blog post is a aural response to the wikipedia entry for Tjader that subtitles his 1970s output as the "Lean Years." His early seventies Fantasy output is consistently excellent with his top notch band really stretching out into longer cuts with electric piano, stellar percussion work and some well chosen cover tunes from a wide range of sources, including Tito Puente, The Rolling Stones, Donovan, Joao Donato, as well as revisiting some of his older recordings in this funkier format.

Cal Tjader - Ran Kan Kan
A great take on a classic Tito Puente jam. We already listened to two tracks from this album on a previous Soul Spectrum post.






Cal Tjader - Mambero
This album might just be my favorite Tjader album. He does to awesome Donovan covers (who would have thought?) and this smoking latin jam. I usually avoid anything with a reference to "Mambo", but this track is a monster!

Cal Tjader - La Murga Panameña
A killer take on the Willie Colon classic from around the same time. And while I don't have the album jacket with me now to check, this album features some arrangements or production from none other than Tito Puente. The whole album finds Tjader really embracing the burgeoning New York Salsa sound, and keep in mind this album came out close to the birth of this scene in 1970.

Cal Tjader - Manteca (Live)
Tjader recorded no fewer than three live albums during this period, this being the first. On this cut he reinterprets an older tune of his and really stretches out with his band. Al Zulaica on electric piano, as he is one many of these albums.

Cal Tjader - Never Can Say Goodbye
On this album it seems as if Tjader is trying his best to match the sound and feel of the contemporary CTI recordings. He features a fuller band with guitar, strings and some poppy tunes. This album does sound a bit "lighter" than the others from the same "lean years" era, but I find the arrangements and song selections to be tasteful and really fun to listen to.

Cal Tjader - Amazonas (Live)
I couldn't post Tjader without a nod to his sometimes bandmate, friend and collaborator, João Donato. This is Tjader's extended take on the Donato classic.

New Heights of Record-Nerdery

Being a collector makes you do crazy things, like buy an expensive Japanese-only Live album by a group that you don't even particularly like just because it happens to have your all-time favorite Brazilian pianist on it. Yes, that's right . . . João Donato is playing on this 1970 live album recorded in Japan. I heard about this album from the man himself when I had the chance to interview him. He explained that Bossa Rio's regular piano player could not get a visa to play the 1970 Expo show in Japan and that Sergio Mendes (Bossa Rio's founder and manager) asked Donato if he would play the show. Knowing Donato, he was probably broke and looking for work, so he jumped at the gig. But step back for a second and consider that Donato is one of THE fathers of Bossa Nova and Sergio, surely, was an early fan and owed a great debt to the man and now he was playing nearly anonymous piano in Sergio's second-tier band.


Here we see Donato in the middle of the band, injecting his unique style of playing into any setting. I've picked three songs form this pretty-darn-nice Live album. Donato shines more on the second two, though this being a "pop" band, there was not much room for soloing. Though the story goes that the owner of Blue Thumb records signed Donato for an album based on his economic, yet moving playing from this performance. The resulting album would be his lone album on Blue Thumb, "A Bad Donato".

Bossa Rio (Featuring João Donato) - Irene
A fresh, bossa-fied take on the great Caetano tune that had been released within the year.

Bossa Rio (Featuring João Donato) - What a Pity (Que Pena)
A cool english language version of this classic Jorge Ben tune.

Bossa Rio (Featuring João Donato) - Quem Diz Quem Sabe
This is the lone Donato composition on the album and one of the only in songs in Portuguese.

Essential Brazilian album courtesy of Loronix

I made a decision when starting this blog to focus on quality over quantity with the music I post. This means I will only rarely post an entire album. This is not to say that I don't love the blogs out there that do post entire albums, but that's just not going to be my "thing" at Soul Spectrum. However, some albums are just perfect with no sacrifice in quality across a greater quantity. I was in the process of piecing together a list of essential albums, Brazilian and otherwise when I saw that Loronix had reposted one of my all-time favorite Brazilian albums, "Orlandivo" Self-titled from 1977. It is also sometimes known as "Orlandivo Com Joao Donato" because of J.D.'s signature touch on all sorts of keyboards and all over the arrangements. To me, this is like the third album in the Joao Donato series that began in 1973 with "Quem e Quem" and continued in 1975 with "Lugar Comum." Truly essential in all of its funky, laid-back, jazzy glory. And be sure to cruise around Loronix if you haven't already, its a treasure trove of lost Brazilian music.

Loronix

Orlandivo post