After Hours Brazilian Jazz

The funny thing about eBay is that sometimes a search will lead me to a seller who has other interesting records that I wouldn't have thought to search for, but I put them in my "watched items" satchel and see what happens. In this case, I lost the auction that brought me to this seller and ended up getting another record from the same seller. The record in question was Manfredo Fest's "After Hours" on Daybreak Records from 1972. Loronix has the full rip here (but let me say I thought the rip to be sub-par, which is why I re-ripped my favorites and am posting for your listening pleasure below)

You might remember the blind Brazilian keyboard player from his solo records in brazil or maybe his stint in the Sergio Mendes mentored group Bossa Rio (I did a post a while back where you can hear Manfredo's organ go head to head with Joao Donato's piano). After Bossa Rio Manfredo settled down in Minneapolis and struck out on his own with "After Hours." He had a couple more solo albums in the 1970s-1990s and passed away in 1999. You can find seven of his albums on Loronix and a full biography here.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this album as it grooves along nicely with solid Brazilian touches, but doesn't try to too hard to come off as authentic. Manfredo's playing is excellent as he switches between Fender Rhodes, Hammon B-3 and acoustic piano. The only original is the killer "Bossa Rock Blues" and the other two are from soundtracks, I believe. Enjoy!
















Manfredo Fest - Amanda
Manfredo Fest - Bossa Rock Blues
Manfredo Fest - Moondust

Celebrating the Absurd!

Q: What's the difference between Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus?
A: They both have beards, except Mickey!

That's my dad's favorite joke and one of the few jokes I can ever remember, so by default it's one of my favorite jokes and also the cornerstone of my appreciation for the absurd. I remember hearing this joke several times as a kid and not "getting it" and then one day I "got it", meaning I finally understood that it's not supposed to make sense and that's why it's funny, though in the case of this joke it's humor is still debatable.

Having moved form New York City to San Francisco, one of the first things I noticed about the cultural difference between the cities had to do with San Francisco's sense of humor. For instance, as democratic, liberal and anti-bush as NYC is, New Yorkers would NEVER bother to "waste" their energy on something like this. Absurdism is an investment. You have to really stand by your joke and see it through to completion and maybe even have to explain it to people who may take it too literally. Sometimes the joke actually develops into something more serious like with San Francisco's proposed renaming of the Sewage Treatment Plant after our Lame Duck du Jour President or with Telex's farcical 1980 entry to the Euro-vision song contest.

The electro-pop band entered the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest with a cheerfully mocking song titled "Euro-Vision." Telex's stated goal for Eurovision -- to finish last -- was thwarted by Portugal, who for reasons not entirely clear, awarded them 10 points. You can watch their underwhelming performance here.

The Eurovision audience seemed unsure how to react to the performance, and after the band stopped playing there was mostly stunned silence, with scattered polite applause; Marc Moulin took a photograph of the bewildered audience. The band walked off amidst sounds of muttering. A mark of the confusion caused by the performance was when vote-counting began, and Greece awarded Belgium three points, the announcer thought she had misheard and tried to award the points to The Netherlands. (Wikipedia for Telex)

Band leader and the reason for today's blog post, Marc Moulin, famously said, "We had hoped to finish last, but Portugal decided otherwise." Marc Moulin passed away on September 26th after a long battle with throat cancer, leaving a long legacy of music as a solo jazz artist, as a member of the Belgian Jazz-Funk group Placebo, as well as one of the founders of Telex. I came to hear about him not much more than a year ago having been tipped off by some crate-digger somewhere about the band Placebo. Sure enough, Placebo's albums are rare as hen's teeth, but worth the hunt for their stark production, emphasis on weird keyboard effects and heavy drums. In a nut-shell: Herbie Hancock meets Can. Listening to these tracks you can hear similarities to the arrangements and production of David Axelrod and even get a sense for why hip-hop legends DJ Shadow or Madlib might be attracted to Marc's musical legacy. I've picked out two favorites of mine from a CD (I have yet to see a Placebo LP in person) called "Marc Moulin: The Placebo Sessions 1971-1974"

Placebo - Humpty Dumpty
Placebo - Balek

Moody Magic from Antonio Adolfo

Antonio Adolfo is difficult to nail down. He started his career as the pianist for a relatively unknown, but much admired instrumental bossa nova trio, Conjunto/Trio 3-D. Later, in the spirit of the times he grew out his hair and started writing songs with composer Tiberio Gaspar and leading a counter-culture-inspired group by the name of A Brazuka. This hippy-trippy band then gave way to Antonio Adolfo the solo artist and session musician and arranger extraordinaire. Now, Adolfo is back in the recording studio and recently released a new album "Bola da Vez" as Antonio Adolfo & Brazil Brazuka. Just click on THIS LINK to see all the references to Adolfo on Loronix just to see how often he comes up as songwriter or pianist or arranger.

Antonio Adolfo e A Brazuca - Transamazonica
This is the very first Antonio Adolfo track I ever heard, gleaned from the excellent "Blue Brazil vol. 2" compilation that I picked up early in my Brazilian obsession. The song stuck out as a monster from the get-go and I was curious about this mysterious band and band-leader . . .


Antonio Adolfo - Venice (1972)
Antonio Adolfo's first solo album is a moody masterpiece even among all of the other moody masterpieces that emerged from Brazil in this magical year of 1972. Competing among Milton Nascimento & Lo Borges' "Clube da Esquina", Caetano Veloso's "Transa", Marcos Valle's "Vento Sul" and Arthur Verocai's legendary solo album, Adolfo's solo record is still a revelation. Stripped of Brazuka's cacophony, Adolfo is left with his pianos (& keyboards), crack session musicians and some very sad songs. Venice is a heartbreaking sketch of a song that I've loved since first hearing the next version on his "Feito Em Casa" album. Listening to these two versions back to back shows them each to be magical. I prefer the keyboard effect on this one though.

Antonio Adolfo - Venice (1977)
This is the first Adolfo album I got and rivals his 1972 album for my top pick. This album is famous because it is basically the first independently produced and distributed record in Brazil (excepting Tim Maia's Racional records, which are BIG exceptions). The story goes that Adolfo was sick of working with the record labels and just wanted to do it on his own, which he did, and this marvelous album sold like crazy and went from having a hand-pressed cover and distribution out of Adolfo's car to mass production.
The version of Venice here is longer and more developed from the sketch it received on his 1972 album.

Antonio Adolfo & Brazil Brazuka - Luizao
This was the first song that I heard off of Adolfo's new album as it was first released on a 7" with a Daz-I-Kue remix on the flip. I missed out on getting the limited pressing of the vinyl, but successfully tracked down a MP3. This song is a dedication to Luizao, one of Adolfo's (among others) sidemen for many years on bass guitar. Basically, the lyric goes that there will be no more happiness without Luizao . . . a sad guy I know, but sometimes sad songs can be more beautiful than happy songs. You probably noticed that this is another Adolfo reinvention, this time of this post's first song, "Transamazonica". You can buy this digital album from Far Out Recordings here or online at Dustygroove.