Two recent Mario Adnet releases from Adventure Music

Adventure Music , the label started by Mike Marshall that continues to expose North Americans and the rest of the world to great current Brazilian music, has released a torrent of great music, which I hope to cover over several blog entries. In the meantime, the latest release is from Mario Adnet, and is entitled Jobim Jazz. The CD focuses on brass arrangements of thirteen Jobim compositions. Yet, despite the big band sound, the rhythm section, driven along by Adnet's guitar work, remains distinctly and authentically Brazilian. In this sense, Jobim Jazz manages to truly combine the jazz and Brazilian idioms without promoting one aesthetic over another.

So, while there is a jazzy aesthetic to pieces such as "Tema Jazz" or "Surfboard," they are far above the sound of many hackneyed arrangements of this type of music heard at the time of its popularity in the U.S. in the late '50s and early '60s. These are really fresh-sounding arrangements by a musician who understands Jobim's work from a Brazilian cultural perspective very well.

The brass effect can be striking, as on the opening "Domingo Sincopado," which basically recalls American big band performances based on Latin rhythms that were suave, urban, and sophisticated. At other times, as on "Quebra Pedra" it can be more subtle, with the horns trading off lead voice with accordian and Adnet's guitar. This is a masterful CD that anyone who enjoys Jobim or Brazilian music will enjoy. Ditto if you like big band Latin or are interested in arranging.

Last year Adnet released a disc of his own original work entitled From the Heart. That disc featured Adnet playing new arrangements of his tunes from mostly the 1970s, with one brand new track (the title track). Joining Adnet is a stellar cast of musicians, including pianist Marcos Nimrichter, percussionist Armando Marcel, trombonist Vittor Santos, guitarist Ricardo Silveira, and many others. Santos is a welcome presence with his warm trombone sound (Santos also has a disc under his own name on the Adventure label--more about that in a subsequent post).

"Walking Song," a recent composition, makes excellent use of Joao Donato's piano work and some gentle flugelhorn and trumpet playing by Jesse Saddoc. "I started to write this song at the end of the 90s" says Adnet in his liner notes, "and I could imagine, even then, the touch of Joao Donato's piano." Other standout tracks include "Salsatlantic," a previously unrecorded composition, and two compositions by others--Claudio Santoro's "Paulistana #1" featuring the gorgeous wordless vocals of Monica Salmaso, and Guarnieri's "Danca Negra."

Along with other artists who keep Brazilian music alive at its roots while finding new ways to express themselves musically, Mario Adnet shows the staying power of Brazilian music. I think Brazilian music works so well in a jazz context because, like jazz, it is a combination of many elements, some of which it shares with jazz. There are African and Carribean influences, and on top of that there are Portuguese elements as well as influences of indigenous peoples. Like jazz, Brazilian music finds ways to bring new musical elements in without diluting the main vein of whatever it is that defines the music.

More Mario Adnet releases

Brubeck Festival 2007, Stockton, California

(Stockton, California, February 20, 2007) Dedicated to jazz, contemporary concert music, lectures and symposia, Brubeck Festival 2007 will be held from April 11-15 in Stockton, California. An annual event that celebrates the musical, intellectual, and philosophical ideas of Dave Brubeck, this year’s festival is entitled Words with Music and honors the words and music of Iola and Dave Brubeck.

In its sixth year, the five day festival includes nine concerts, symposia and lectures centered on the University of Pacific campus. The festival’s centerpiece performance is on April 13, with an evening entitled “The Dave Brubeck Songbook.”

The concert will open with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Grammy-nominated vocalist Roberta Gambarini ("* a true successor to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McRae" Boston Globe) and concludes with a performance of the Cannery Row Suite, commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival in 2006 and to be performed at Brubeck Festival 2007 by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Triple Play (including Chris Brubeck) and others.

Cannery Row Suite is “based on the John Steinbeck novel about the drifters and workers of old Monterey. . . [the work] includes a roadhouse blues number, a sing-along sea chantey and a pair of arias, wickedly difficult to pull off (Brubeck said he derived them from 12-tone rows) yet sounding a little like Gershwin” (San Jose Mercury News). The concert will be preceded by a presentation by Susan Shillinglaw, Scholar in Residence at the National Steinbeck Center.

Dave Brubeck, designated a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, continues to be one of the most active and popular musicians in the world today. Brubeck Festival 2007 is sponsored by the Brubeck Institute, which was established by the University of the Pacific in 2000 to honor its distinguished alumni Dave and Iola Brubeck. The mission of the Institute is to build on Dave Brubeck's legacy and his lifelong dedication to music, creativity, education, and the advancement of important social issues

New Marsalis Music Honors Series Releases

MARSALIS MUSIC CONTINUES HONORS SERIES BY CELEBRATING TWO GIANTS OF NEW ORLEANS

CAMBRIDGE, MA – For the second set of recordings in its Honors Series, Marsalis Music places the focus on two of the most steadfast voices of New Orleans, the hometown of label head and producer Branford Marsalis. The discs, one of which features clarinetist Alvin Batiste and the other drummer Bob French, will be released on April 10 by Marsalis Music/Rounder Records.

“Watching the post-Katrina flood wash away so much of the city, my love for New Orleans was painfully confirmed,” Marsalis says. “These recordings are a tribute to just a small portion of the music my city has to offer.”

Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste is the first recording in over a decade for the legendary clarinetist, composer and educator. In keeping with the Honors Series concept of bringing veterans together with musicians at the start of their career, Batiste is joined by pianist Lawrence Field and bassist Ricardo Rodriguez as well as guitarist Russell Malone, vocalist Ed Perkins and two former Batiste students – drummer Herlin Riley and Marsalis, who sits in on tenor sax. The program leans heavily on the original compositions with which Batiste redefined notions of New Orleans music. “Along with my father and a few others,” Marsalis notes, “Alvin was part of a small group of Crescent City musicians dedicated to playing modern jazz in a city as far away from the urban environment where modern jazz thrived as any you could imagine. His playing and writing prove that, at any age, true `modernity’ is more than a harmonic exercise – it’s a philosophical construct.”

The sounds are more traditional on Marsalis Music Honors Bob French, as befits the drummer, vocalist and radio personality who is about to lead the Original Tuxedo Band into its second century of continuous performance. The program, filled with classic compositions associated with the Crescent City, confirms Marsalis’ comment that “Bob’s recording should remind everyone that New Orleans is one of the only cities in our country with its own music.” French assembled a band for the occasion from among several generations of his musical associates, including his contemporary Bill Huntington on banjo; young protégés Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown on trumpet and Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews on trombone; a pair of longtime associates in bassist Chris Severin (another Batiste pupil) and vocalist Ellen Smith; and two men who French has known and encouraged since they were kids – Marsalis, heard here on soprano sax, and pianist Harry Connick, Jr.

“I felt honored myself that both Alvin and Bob would allow me to share the stage with them in these recordings,” Marsalis admits. “Both discs are very special to me, because they pay tribute to two men who have inspired me, Harry and generations of other musicians with their tutelage, their wisdom and their friendship.”

The Honors Series, launched in 2006 with volumes featuring drum giants Jimmy Cobb and Michael Carvin, is designed to spotlight veteran musicians whose contributions often get taken for granted in multi-generational settings of their choice. The initial releases were extremely well received, with Marsalis Music Honors Michael Carvin being selected as one of the ten best jazz discs of 2006 by The New Yorker. As with the initial releases, the covers for the new volumes feature the images of noted photographer Lou Jones.

Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste and Marsalis Music Honors Bob French join other recent releases on the label, including the Branford Marsalis Quartet’s Braggtown and Harry Connick, Jr.’s Chanson du Vieux Carré (the third volume of the Connick on Piano series), in showcasing diverse approaches that all represent the best in jazz music.

Bob French and his band (w/special guests Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.), Alvin Batiste and his band, and the Branford Marsalis Quartet will be featured in the Jazz Tent at this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 6. Harry Connick, Jr. will close the Festival on the Main Stage.