Adventure Music label

[GA Russell]

My most pleasant discovery of the year just past was a small and relatively new record label called Adventure Music. It appears that nearly everything they put out is Brazilian.

In July I was given a 2 CD set called Antonio Carlos Jobim - Symphonic Jobim, recorded by members of the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo. This was a concert recorded in December, 2002. All the songs were written by Jobim, but I was familiar with only a few of them.

The album came out in Brazil in 2003, and in the US in 2005. The sticker says that it won a Latin Grammy award.

When I saw it I thought right away of the albums Jobim made with strings for Warner Bros. and A&M in the 60s. This is not like that. This album's sound is more like classical music. The first time I heard it I didn't like it, but it quickly grew on me, once I got used to the idea of Jobim as classical music.

This was one of my Top Ten most listened to albums of the year. I still listen to it almost every Sunday afternoon.

In September I got an album by mandolin player Mike Marshall called Brazil Duets. I like it. It's not jazz. There is no improvisation. But it is very enjoyable to listen to.

I did a search on Marshall at AAJ, and found a number of press releases. He has been around since the 70s, playing various types of music. He started the Adventure Music record company along with partners.

Brazil Duets is made up of 17 songs, each of which is a duet with piano (Andy Narell), banjo (Bela Fleck), bass, violin, saxophone, or something called a cuatro.

I am familiar with only one composer, Hermeto Pascoal, who wrote my favorite piece on the album, Spock on the Stairs.

Marshall is quite good. If you're looking for something different and easy to relax to, I recommend it.

Finally in October I got something by Modern Traditions Ensemble called New Old Music.

This is a quintet, with the clarinet and the acoustic guitar leading the mandolin, piano and percussion. The album was recorded in June, 2003, but not released here till last year. Although the group is Brazilian, the music seems to me to be more likely something you might hear in Buenos Aires. Maybe that's just my ignorance showing. I don't think any of the nine songs qualify as sambas, which is why I don't think of it as a Brazilian sound.

All instruments are acoustic; and like Brazil Duets, the album is easy to relax to.

I wouldn't peg any of these three albums as jazz. I guess they should be considered world music. But I try to keep an open mind about music, and I sure do like what I have found in the Adventure Music record label. I look foward to hearing more of what they have to offer this year.

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Edited December 15, 2006 by GA Russell

[GA Russell]

I've found another gem from this label. It's by a Brazilian composer named Moacir Santos called Choros & Alegria.

There are 15 songs totalling 58 minutes. All are light, perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

There are 24 musicians, 23 Brazilians and Wynton Marsalis. Surprisingly, Marsalis is not featured; he's just one more player. The album was recorded in Rio last spring, and I wonder if Marsalis happened to be in town on a tour, and agreed to join in the recording session.

A number of the tracks are big band, but the majority are small group. It seems like no two tracks have the same personnel, giving every song a different sound. Many of the small group songs feature the clarinet, giving them a sound similar to that of the Modern Traditions Ensemble mentioned above.

It looks to me like the album was recorded for a Brazilian label called Adnet Musica. I wonder if Adventure Music waited to hear the results before agreeing to put it out here in the US.

Good stuff.

[mikeweil]

Moacir Santos is great - the previous release, Ouro Negro, is highly recommended - it's kind of a career retrospective. Moacir is the only composer I know who has not the slightest trace of darkness in his music.

[Jim R]

GA, didn't you say you never open the "Hard Bossa" thread? I have a feeling you should, as it includes a variety of recommendations of Brazilian music. I started it with a focus on Bossa/Brazilain jazz groups (especially some of the early piano trios), but it's gone beyond that somewhat. Anyway, just a thought.

I don't really keep track of all the labels and who's releasing what, but I agree- there are some gems to be had from Brazil... past and present.

[GA Russell]

Jim, I'll give it a try. I guess I thought it was about some of those Blue Note samba albums from '62 that never appealled to me.

[GA Russell]

It's been three months since I opened up the Moacir Santos, and I'm still enjoying it. I still listen to it regularly.

Now that the warm weather is upon us (92 degrees here today), it's time for me to break out all of my Brazilian music. I enjoy bossa nova more in the spring and summer than I do in the fall and winter.

The Moacir Santos was one of the few things I opened up between Christmas and Easter that I liked. Since Easter there have been a number of good ones, and I'd like to mention one now.

A week ago I opened a new album that came out a couple of months ago. It's by a Brazilian pianist named Jovino Santos Neto called Roda Carioca. Santos Neto is from Rio, but has lived and worked in Seattle for the past twelve years.

Unlike the albums listed above, this is an indisputable jazz album. Santos Neto reminds me of Manfredo Fest.

The band consists of the core piano, bass and drums trio, which is augmented by six guest musicians, including Hermeto Pascoal and Joyce on vocals (one track each). Santos Neto wrote nine of the eleven songs. Pascoal wrote one, and the other is the song Nana which I have been familiar with but never knew that it was written by Moacir Santos over forty years ago.

The various instruments in addition to the piano trio are melodica, flute, accordian, mandolin (which seems to be a staple on this label, I suppose due to the fact that its owner plays the instrument!), acoustic guitar and percussion.

I expect that I'll be listening to this one all summer long. I recommend it.

[Chuck Nessa]

Is this a division of Concord?

[GA Russell]

Chuck, you are making me laugh!

No, Adventure is a small independent label with no connections to a larger company that I am aware of. Most of what I know about it I gleaned from the press releases at AAJ.

The main man there is a mandolin player named Mike Marshall. I think there are two other principals, whom I expect do not do anything except supply the money.

[GA Russell]

Marcos Amorim is an acoustic guitarist with a new album called Seven Chapels.

The guitar is backed by bass, drums and sometimes flute.

Of all of the albums in this thread, I would say that Seven Chapels is the prettiest and the least interesting. Amorim wrote all ten of the songs, totalling 50 minutes. He is an excellent guitarist, but I'm not impressed with his melodies.

It's a very quiet album. I expect to play this on Sundays and late at night when I'm winding down. It's very romantic, and would be appreciated by a woman who doesn't have a passion for jazz. Very good background music, but doesn't fit the bill when you want to sit down and listen to something.

[GA Russell]

Daniel Santiago - On the Way

Uh oh. I'm concerned that Adventure Music might be losing its way.

The first five albums in this thread I would give four or five stars. But this new one by Daniel Santiago and the last one I can't give more than two stars.

Like Marcos Amorim, Daniel Santiago is an acoustic guitarist backed by bass and drums. On the Way has a lot in common with the Amorim. It's not jazz, bossa nova or samba. There isn't the character in the music which makes me think of South America.

The sound of the guitar is lush, but the music being played isn't very interesting. The songs here are a little more interesting than those of the Amorim, but not enough to recommend this.

There are a lot of people in America who would like this music, but not us.

[GA Russell]

Hamilton de Holanda Quintet - Brasilianos

This is more like it! After those last two guitar albums, I was afraid that Adventure Music had lost its way. I thought that I would play them from time to time, but I never do. The others from this label I still listen to quite a bit.

I've been listening to Brasilianos a lot the past week, both in the car and at night before I go to bed. It's uptempo, interesting music.

It's another mandolin album. The other instruments of the quintet are acoustic guitar, electric bass, drums and harmonica. De Holanda wrote all of the songs except two. The group is tight, and the runs on the mandolin are fast and furious.

Like the other albums from this label, the music doesn't have a blues base, so I can imagine that Stanley Crouch would say that it's not jazz. Whatever, it's good.

I would rank this behind Brazil Duets and the Moacir Santos, but I'm sure that I'll be listening to this one regularly for the rest of the year.

[GA Russell]

Moacir Santos has died. Here's his obituary from the L.A. Times:

Moacir Santos, 80; Composer, Arranger of Brazilian Pop Tunes

By Jon Thurber, Times Staff Writer

August 12, 2006

Moacir Santos, an influential arranger and composer of Brazilian popular music, has died. He was 80.

Santos died Sunday at an assisted living facility in Pasadena of complications from a stroke he suffered some years ago, according to a publicist for his record label, Adventure Music.

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Though not widely known to American audiences, Santos was well regarded among musicians in his homeland of Brazil and in the United States.

"He was a musician's musician whose work was very under-recorded," said Tom Schnabel, producer and host of the radio program "Café LA" on KCRW-FM (89.9) and program director for world music at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall. "His work was far less known than the compositions of Antonio Carlos Jobim because he didn't write for the voice."

Born in rural poverty in northeast Brazil in the 1920s, Santos showed musical acumen at an early age. By 14 he was able to play a number of instruments, most prominently the baritone saxophone. He worked for a time in a traveling circus. By the late 1950s, he was living in Rio de Janeiro and composing music for live programming on Brazil's Radio Nacional.

His most musically fertile and productive time came in the mid-1960s, when he released the album "Coisas" on the Forma label and composed music for a number of Brazilian films.

According to Schnabel, the coisas — which means "things" in Portuguese — were "densely structured" pieces that went beyond the framework of bossa nova, the musical genre most associated with Brazil. He gave each piece a number, with "Coisas No. 5" becoming his biggest hit.

Writing in the Village Voice some years ago, critic Larry Blumenfeld said that "Coisas No. 5" mixed "African and march rhythms, and a splendid melody…. [it] became so popular that it was recorded more than a hundred times during the 1960s."

In Blumenfeld's view, "Coisas" was "a brilliant record" that represented "the best of Brazilian jazz."

On the strength of his album and movie work, Santos moved to Southern California in the mid-1960s, hoping to break into film.

While continuing to write music, Santos taught music in Southern California but never achieved the wide recognition here that he was seeking.

His work has continued to draw the interest of aficionados of Brazilian music over the last few years. A two-CD set of his work, "Ouro Negro," was released in 2004 on Adventure Music.

He is survived by his wife, Cleonice; son, Moacir Santos Jr.; and three grandchildren, all of Pasadena.

A memorial Mass will be said at 11:30 a.m. Monday at St. Andrew Catholic Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena.

[mikeweil]

R.I.P.

Moacir's music holds a special place in my heart - I loved it from the first instant I heard it and woud certainly take it to the desert island.

Obrigado for your beautiful music!

Edited August 19, 2006 by mikeweil

[marcoliv]

i should recommend the DVD Ouro Negro from Marcio Santos. a couple of months ago there was a concert in Rio and Moacir was is very bad shape but it was a very special moment to him having his music celebrated on his native land in the late years of his existence.

MCO

[GA Russell]

The mandolinists Mike Marshall and Hamilton de Holanda mentioned above have issued a new duet CD + DVD album entitled New Words Novas Palavras. The CD was recorded in 2005. The DVD is three songs from the CD performed in concert in Savannah in March of this year.

Marshall plays the mandolin. De Holanda plays something called the bandolim, which looks like a lute with a circular body and sounds to me like a ukelele. No other musicians are on the discs.

If you think that Coltrane and Johnny Griffin were fast on the sax, you should hear these two, especially de Holanda. Thirty-second notes galore! All lines are played as clean as can be. The two take turns within each song playing lead and rhythm.

Ten of the thirteen songs are Brazilian tunes. The other three are Autumn Leaves, a Bela Fleck song and a Marshall original.

Like the other albums from Adventure Music, these songs are not based upon the blues, so for me the album makes a nice change of pace.

But it is the technical virtuosity of the two artists that sells this record. Really amazing. The performances command your attention. They are not background music. I would not want all of my collection to be as busy as this, but I highly recommend this if you are in the market for a tour de force.

edit for typo

Edited December 15, 2006 by GA Russell