Digging in Brazil, Part 3: MPB Unplugged

This is one of the more interesting records I picked up on this last trip. I've never seen it before and never heard of it either. It's the kind of record that only someone really geeky like me could enjoy as it includes some rare performances by some of my favorite artists arguably from one of the greatest years for Musica Popular Brasileiro (MPB) . . . 1972. This is one of those annual recap records documenting the biggest news stories in short segments, including a small bit on Caetano and Gil returning from exile, but musically that's the only good part on disc 1. Thankfully disc 2 is chock full of interviews with famous musicians with something like 20 different artists ranging from bossa nova legends Tom Jobim, Johnny Alf and Carlo Lyra to MPB stars Milton Nascimento, Gal Costa and Edu Lobo.


Not only are there interviews, but in many cases the interviewer asks the artist to perform something live in the studio, sometimes accompanied by guitar or maybe just a matchbox for percussion. I've picked my favorites from these interviews for my nerdiest readers.



Erasmo Carlos - Quem Mandou Levar (Samba da Preguiça)
This one is the real treasure in my opinion. It doesn't get much better than Erasmo accompanying himself on guitar in the prime of his career. I don't think he ever recorded this song elsewhere. Anyone know if anyone else ever recorded this songs and if so, what's the actual title?

Paulinho da Costa - Gaurdei Minha Viola
Here we have a Paulinho da Viola classic with his sweet as honey voice and accompanied only by some matchbox percussion. This is the pure essence of Paulinho da Viola.

Gal Costa - Untitled Song
Gal sound drunk and/or high in the interview section, but this little song is sweet.








Caetano Veloso - Tropicália (Live)
This is the one interesting musical section from the news of 1972 from Disc 1. I like his 1972 reinterpretation of Tropicalia.

Luiz Gonzaga - Accordeon Solo
Man, can Luiz wail on accordeon. I wish somebody who makes beats would cut this up and make something cool out of it. Holler if you want a wav file and I'll hook you up.







Rosinha da Valença - De Conversa Em Conversa
Maybe Rosinha recorded this lovely number on one of her albums, but I recognize this tune from João Gilberto's 1969 album recorded in Mexico. Nice stuff.











Milton Nascimento - Untitled Song
I was marginally dissappointed with this one just because I would think that Milton in 1972 would be 24/7 mind-blowing. I think this is a version of another song he does, but can't place it. Little help people?








Edu Lobo - Candeias
Wow. Really digging this one. I guess Edu wrote it, but I know it from the lovely Gal & Caetano album "Domingo".

Mais Verocai

I was mentioning in my Arthur Verocai post that Carlos Dafe killed it on "Pelas Sombras" and a recent email from Mochilla put that video in my inbox.

T.G.I. Mutha Funkin' Friday!

It's about time we leave Brazil and get back to home turf for some smokin' tunes perfect for getting ready for the weekend. I'm still neck-deep in Tim Maiania, but everyone needs a break sometimes. I'm sure he'll be making another appearance here in not too long. Today's post has been in the procrastinating for months, if not years. A while back I chance upon two excellent disco 12"s that had a theme in common - Friday Night! And then I remembered another great Friday song that couldn't be more different in style than disco, but that's why this blog is called "Soul Spectrum", because I don't keep to one genre, but just play what I want, when I want and today its kick-ass Friday tunes!

Black Oak Arkansas - Hot Rod (live)
I got this record back in the glory days of 50 cent records at Everyday Music in Portland, OR. My brother and Mr. Morgan turned me on to this digging "technique" back in the summer of 2001 as I was just beginning to fill out my crates with everything from disco to rock. I found this album and quickly realized that this group was on a whole nother level. If Lynyrd Skynyrd is the poor-man's Allman Brothers' Band, then Black Oak Arkansas is the illiterate, inbred-man's Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fronted by a long-haired hillbilly by the name of "Big" Jim Dandy (who plays electrified washboard), these guys have no shame about their Southern pastimes (Hot Rod) or the Arkansas weather forecast (Hot & Nasty) or their dystopic visions of the future (Mutants of the Monster). I also liked that this live album was recorded in Seattle and Portland, confirming that the pasty-white Pacific Northwest is a not-too-distant cousin of the southern poor-white-trash. This song is all about the opening monologue and is specifically why its starts off today's Friday playlist.

Bell & James - Livin' It Up (Friday Nite)
And now we make the not-so-subtle transition to our disco double-whammy. This one I came across on some "Paradise Garage Classics" mix and managed to score the 12" at a flea market in Brooklyn. Pretty straight-ahead late 70s disco just the way I like it. The instrumental break-down is particularly nice.

The Fantastic Aleems featuring Leroy Burgess - Get Down Friday Nite
I snagged this one for a pretty penny from a friend, DJ Gerald McBoing Boing and though I rarely spend more than a couple bucks on a 12", this one was well worth it. Here we have the identical twins, the Aleem brothers, with some help from boogie-king Leroy Burgess getting us ready for the weekend. I absolutely love the use of the keyboards on this to create a kind of dissonant effect which makes the production stand out all the more.

Freeez - Southern Freeez (LP version)
OK, so this song has nothing explicitly to do with Friday, but I chanced upon it while reorganizing and remembered that I had wanted to blog about it. I have listened to it at least a half dozen times in the past 24 hours and need to share it with the rest of you. Josh Nice bought this for me on eBay and it just arrived unannounced in my mailbox. Many thanks, JC! I was also reminded of this song because I came across this album on the ever-great "My Jazz World" blog. This song is one of those "Greatest Feeling" kinda jams. And I guess that's what makes it a great Friday song. Just get in that ecstatic weekend mind state and rock to this.

Arthur Verocai live with 36-piece orchestra

When I first heard about Mochilla's plan to bring the all-but-forgotten Brazilian musician, arranger and cult-favorite Arthur Verocai to L.A. to perform his self-titled 1972 album live, I was kind of dumbfounded. Really, of all the people to invite, why pick this footnote from Brazilian MPB (Musica Popular Brasil ie "mainstream, sophisticated pop music" think Elis Regina or Milton Nascimento)? Verocai is about as obscure in Brazil as David Axelrod is here in the states, except that Verocai only had one release under his own name until 2005. Having witnessed the performance first hand this past weekend I finally get the vision of Mochilla front-man Brian Cross (and friends) who came up with this idea.

First off, the original album is phenomenal and perfectly suited for this grandiose performance with a string section, horn section, percussionists, two keyboard players, two guitarists and alternating stand-up and electric bass . . . and most importantly the ensemble pulled it off perfectly. The performance sounded great. Secondly, it was staggering to think that this was the first time that these songs had ever been performed live and the second time they have been performed at all (the first time being in the studio and most likely that wasn't all 36 pieces playing live at the same time). Lastly, it was a great concept to take this relatively obscure document from 1972 performed in 2009 and restoring it to its deserved place in history. Bottom line is that this recording may be extremely obscure and therefore considered esoteric, but the music is so good it deserves to be heard and in its original form, or better than that its original form performed LIVE!

Congrats to the entire Mochilla crew for a great show!

Even though he has a new album out on Far Out, called Encore, and his original 1972 self-titled album was reissued by Ubiquity, both are now out of print or at least out of stock at Dustygroove. If you wanna know how much OG Verocai-related vinyl goes for, here's a sampling. I personally know of one person (DJ Nuts) who owns an original Arthur Verocai album.

I can't not mention the universe of stars and legendary musicians that were part of these 36 pieces. You can kind of make them out in the picture, so I'll try to point them out in the picture.

1) Arthur Verocai, man of the hour (center stage in suit, very skinny, clapping in direction of the string section)
2) Airto Moreira (right below the bottom right corner of the screen)
3) Ivan "Mamao" Conti, drummer from Azymuth (middle, clapping hands with white hair)
4) Carlos Dafe (below Airto with "panama hat")
5) Jose Roberto Bertrami, keyboards from Azymuth - played Hammond B-3 for the show (furthest right in white baseball cap)
6) Justo Almario, saxophone (in red shirt on far left clapping and bit blurry)

Arthur Verocai - Presente Grego
This is for the beat-heads. What a great thing to hear those horn swells live!
Arthur Verocai - Pelas Sombras
What I didn't know until recently was that the male vocal on the original recording was noneother than Carlos Dafe and he was in the flesh for the performance as well. He killed it on this one! A soaring and impassioned vocal part that made my hair stand on end!

Arthur Verocai - Caminho da Roça
A chill instrumental from his new album.

Arthur Verocai - Bis (featuring Azymuth)
Azymuth chipped in on a couple tracks on his new album. This is one of my favorites. Overall, the 1972 album is better but this is a very respectable follow up. And when he performed it was difficult to tell the new songs from the old having not memorized either album . . .

I just found this great interview of Verocai from recently explaining his new album "Encore" and his background:


A clip from the performance courtesy of Mochilla:


For more Verocai listening check out Loronix.

Update: Entire Newport in New York album here!

A quick post here to end the week on. I've been out sick with the flu for longer than I can remember being sick for a LONG time. four out of five days and the day I did go into work I had to leave an hour early because I was exhausted. I'm finally feeling well enough to rise out of my flannel sheets and make a quick blog post (or two - check WW&W for some countrified Arthur Russell)

I picked up this LP for cheap some time back mainly for Donny Hathaway's live version of "Valdez in the Country" but I was pleasantly surprised to find a handful of gems on this album. If you're curious about why Newport was in New York, I found this article from Time magazine backinthday. I've included my favorites here.

Ray Charles - Every Saturday Night (live)
Ray Charles in the seventies, still keeping with the times with this funky good times number. I wish ever saturday night was like this in my neighborhood! I'll pass this weekend as I'm still recovering, but this is gonna be my blueprint for next weekend.

Aretha Franklin - Brand New Me (live)

Ray Charles - Just a Man (live)

The Staple Singers - You're Gonna Make Me Cry (live)
My favorite deep soul weeper done to perfection originally by O.V. Wright, but Mavis and fam really stretch out the pain on this one and give an excellent reading.

Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered (live)
Sure, we've all heard this one a thousand times as its been featured in every rom-com in the last two decades, but have you ever heard it live and funky? I didn't think so. There's a bootleg out there of Steve live around this time by the sound quality kinda sucks and I can't say I listen to it very much. I was psyched to hear this, because this is what I would expect Stevie live in 1974 to sound like.

Donny Hathaway - Valdez in the Country (live)
Donny says something at the beginning of this tune about how we all know what "Valdez in the Country" stands for. Sadly, Donny, I for one have no idea what you're talking about. Anyone out there have any clue? Here's a link to an interesting article about Donny's live recordings.

The Staple Singers - And the Lord Will Hear (live)

Chico Mann Live in Brooklyn (and NJ tomorrow night!)

To pick up where I left off, a couple weeks ago I had a Saturday full of live music . . . so after leaving The Sweet Divines' show I headed up to Williamsburg where Chico Mann was having a late show at the Lucky Cat. Like The Divines, Chico Mann is a local group, based out of Jersey City, NJ and their live show features Antibalas keyboard player, Victor Axelrod. Marcos "Marquitos" Garcia, the man behind Chico Mann is also the guitar player for Antibalas.

The show was a bit of a let-down, but I don't fault the band. The sound system at Lucky Cat was a bit messed up and they couldn't figure out how to remove the reverb from the backing track they were using for the drum track. You could feel the band's frustration with the situation and that they couldn't kick it like they wanted to due to technical difficulties. I look forward to seeing them sometime soon and they do have a number of shows coming up, in fact at Maxwell's in Hoboken tomorrow night!My man, DJ Rios (Wax Poetics) to spin the opening DJ set.

Here we have one of many solid tracks off of Chico Mann's debut album, Manifest Tone, Vol. 1

Chico Mann - Soul Freedom

The Sweet Divines

The Sweet Divines with band-leader and song-writer J.B. Flatt

A few weeks ago I experienced a jam-packed Saturday night of live music that started off with the second ever live performance of The Sweet Divines at Union Hall in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I made it to their first show in Brooklyn Heights at the Magnetic Field but arrived just in time to catch the tail-end of their last song and the wonderful treat of the Mighty Hannibal joining them on stage for a surprise cameo. Someone's already written up a very flattering review of the show at Union Hall here, but I will mention that Sharon Jones (of the Dap Kings fame) made a short, but sweet cameo. It's too bad that the Union Hall stage is only several inches above the dance floor because I think most people weren't able to even see that Sharon was there (no offense meant towards Ms. Jones; she may be a soul-singing giant, but she ain't too tall).

The Sweet Divines have a good formula going on. They ain't bad to look at, they can sing, they mostly sing about sex (not explicitly, but it ain't too obscured neither) and they have a great back-up band. Now that I think about it, they've really gone back to the essence of what made so many classic girl groups so great: dance-able songs, pretty faces, taboo topics, and great performances. All of the four vocalists have chops to spare and they all come with their own style. You have to see them live to get the full effect. There are a few shows coming up in the NYC area for those of you who are local.

The funny thing is that when I got to their first show I recognized one of the vocalists, Pamela Quinn, as a friend of a friend of mine from college. Small world. Big up, Georgetown Phantoms!

So I picked up their only release to date, a three-song CD and while all of the songs are solid mid-to-late 60s style soul tunes, "Honeythistle" is the clear standout. Interestingly, from the live show they had several other songs that I liked better than these three, so I can't wait for the full length to appear.

The Sweet Divines - Honeythistle
So, swing by their website and get on their mailing list or check them out at their next show. These ladies are just out of the starting gate and already they are going strong!