Brazilian Horizons, Vol. 2 - Artículo Breve

Latin Beat Magazine, April, 1999

VARIOUS ARTISTS

(Milestone)

When John Coltrane's quartet recorded a Cuban-tinged, pre-bossa cover of Ary Barroso's Bahia (Na Baixa do Sapateiro) in 1958, the U.S. public was not ready to assimilate said musical concept, despite Paul Chambers' marvelous arco playing. Something entirely different happened a few years earlier, when Charlie Byrd became the first North American carrier of the bossa virus.

The aforesaid developments are reflected in the second volume of Brazilian Horizons. Although it is mostly dedicated to the 1960s bossa nova or jazz-bossa idioms, there are also various samples of the 1970s post-bossa styles which emerged in the U.S. The final result is a collection of "jazz-imbued Brazilian music and Brazilian-inspired jazz," according to its carioca producer, the one and only Arnaldo DeSouteiro, who is quite determined to examine how a wide range of U.S. jazz (and even Latin jazz) players, as well as their Brazilian counterparts, imported the work of Jobim, Gilberto, Bonfá, and other authors from South America's singular musical superpower.

This compilation documents how the Brazilian-American connection has been often derived from a meeting of the minds: Kenny Burrell and Moacir Santos, Mongo Santamaría (or Dave Pike) and Joao Donato, Gary McFarland and Tom Jobim, Bola Sete and Vince Guaraldi, Cal Tjader and Charlie Byrd, etc. Furthermore, some of the masters who never received proper recognition are finally identified. It is not widely known, for example, that Dom Um Romao's mid-70s New York sessions featured such outstanding players as Claudio Roditi, Ronnie Cuber, Sivuca, Ron Carter and Sonny Fortune. Not to mention the underestimated contributions of Joao Donato, Bola Sete, Moacir Santos and other west coast pioneers. (LT)