Teasing the Korean

At the time I first heard it, I had a decent assortment of bossa, MPB, samba, tropicalia, and hard bossa piano trios. Not an exhaustive collection by any stretch, but an OK start at experiencing a range of 60s and 70s stuff. I approached Brazilian music at the time - as I do now - without a whole lot of stylistic expectations, because Brazilians generally seem to have a very natural, unforced way of moving between genres. At the time I got Afro Sambas, I knew two of the songs from other interpretations. (Tamba 4's "Iemanja" remains a favorite). Still, the album immediately struck me as not fitting neatly into any of the categories that existed, or that I had constructed. Ten years later and I feel much the same way.

Nothing other than the fact that there is no other record like it for me. To my ears, it's much more than a samba record. I've listened to sound clips of a couple of re-records, including Baden's own, and these versions for me convey neither the spirituality nor the reckless abandon of the original. Take a great set of songs, throw in the personalities of the participants, the production values, and whatever they were drinking, and you get something magical. I've come across other people for whom this album has had the same effect, but I don't expect everyone to feel that way, of course...

Yes, I have lots of samba, and I understand that's what they were going for. Still, the Q gals come off completely different on that record than they do on their pop records.

No, I was approaching it from the technical side. There are technically great singers I love and admire who wouldn't do the right job in certain situations. And vice versa. That doesn't address the issue that the Quarteto em Cy on Afro Sambas is not the Quarteto em Cy on Quarteto em Cy albums.

Curious to hear what you think of QeC's vocals on that album. It's interesting that they range from intricate spot-on four-part harmonies to out-of-tune unison mayhem. Very different feel and mood from albums released under their name. I also like the contrast of the heavy reverb on their vocals in some passages to the complete dry sound in others. The difference in QeC's vocal performances/effects creates a big part of the earthy/spiritual dichotomy on this album, for me at least. Vinicius or Baden don't sing any worse than they do on parts of the album, at least.

I respect where you're coming from. This can lead to a larger discussion of what constitutes "good singing," and whether a "good singer" in the technical sense of phrase is necessarily the best singer to deliver the performance. To me, the ragged vocals of the 1966 Afro Sambas album are a huge part of what makes it compelling. It sounds at times like it's ready to fall apart at any moment, but it never does. It simultaneously has an intense spiritual quality and a rowdy drunken quality to it. I'm not sure that a better "performance" of this album would make it better, for me at least. That said, I've had the original for about a decade, and I'm now open to hearing the other versions. I can't imagine that they'd ever replace the original, though.

Didn't mean to be misleading. In terms of the vibe and the spirit of the 1966 album, though, I think the clip is closer to what the album is about than a stage or TV performance would have been. I probably just got a little over-excited when I found the clip.

I thought I recognized one of them, I could have been wrong. Still, I'm pretty sure that Vinicius and Baden Powell are in the crowd someplace.

Japan 1966 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AoeM3V0LDg

Why haven't more of you commented on that AMAZING CLIP of VINICIUS and BADEN POWELL doing OS AFRO SAMBAS tunes? THIS IS THE GREATEST ALBUM EVER MADE!!! You need to watch it, srsly, k thnx bai.

Are we including albums originally on other labels that now fall under the Blue Note umbrella in this discussion? Or are we talking only sessions that originally came out on BN?

Not to hijack my own thread but: Last night - as often happens to me on Friday nights - I found myself awake way past my bedtime, having drunk too much red wine, and scouring Youtube for interesting music. I came across this ten minute clip from a film I'd never heard of before, featuring segments of VINICIUS, BADEN POWELL and QUARTETO EM CY PERFORMING SONGS FROM OS AFRO SAMBAS: BTW, I have a room that filled with LPs and CDs, God knows how many I have, but if I can take only one album with me to the afterlife, I will not hesitate to choose "Os Afro Sambas," the original 1966 version at least. YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS CLIP IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT ALREADY.

Easily in my top ten favorite jazz pianists ever. For a few decades there, he the pianist on virtually every album recorded in New York that Dick Hyman wasn't on. Between the two of them, it must have been very hard getting work in NY as a session pianist! He did a solo piano album in the late 70s or 80s that I really love called "Tiptoe Tap Dance." Hideous cover art (as was common by that time) but superb music. Happy belated birthday to this master.

A space-age bachelor essential. I've not played this in years, much more enjoyable than I remembered. Excellent album. I am pretty awed by Michel Legrand. I would be amazed enough at his composing and arranging, but he's also one hell of a pianist and a very good, if idiosyncratic, singer.

I have a fair amount of Villa Lobos buy I'm not familiar with the string quartets. How do they compare to his orchestral or other chamber music? Can they be described stylistically?

Agreed, I posted a similar observation one page back.

How good are my cables? Let me ask the high school kid at Radio Shack who sold them to me.

A space-age bachelor essential.

Very Nice! Now, if I can only find out how she moves the records to open the closet door, I'll be set!

Thanks all. I started googling different combinations of names and keywords that took me all over the interwebz. The person that I may be thinking of is an arranger, not an A&R man: Howard Biggs. I found out my parents are on an early Johnny Hartmann session on RCA that Biggs arranged. I'll see what else I can dig up. Thanks again!

Thanks, but the part that I thought was racist was what he said about the background singers, not the concept of "race records." The name Lester Melrose does indeed ring a bell, but that article has him working primarily out of Chicago. Is there any evidence of him doing sessions in NY during any of those years that I previously posted?

My parents were both professional group singers in New York, singing on commercial jingles and providing oohs and aahs behind singers on radio, records and TV. Sadly, they are no longer of this realm, and there are a lot of things I'd like to ask them that I've either forgotten or didn't know enough to ask in the first place. Here's my question: My Dad told me on a few occasions that he'd hooked up with a producer/A&R guy from RCA Bluebird in New York and sang backup on a number of so-called "race records" on that label. I had never heard this term until he used it. I'm guessing in this case we're talking proto-R&B/jump blues. I don't remember the A&R guy's name, but if I remember correctly he was African-American. My Dad was (primarily) white. This will sound racist from today's perspective, but the producer told my Dad that "You have to have some white singers in the group or no one will understand what the hell they're saying." (These are the producer's words according to my Dad; not mine). Based on my Dad's time in New York, his service in WWII, and what I know of his work history, these recordings must have occurred between 1938 and 1943 (recording ban notwithstanding); and/or between 1945 and 1950, maybe even as late as '52 or '53 (He had more regular gigs by this time and did less freelancing). As stated, I don't know the name of the producer or the artists involved. I know this may be vague, but can anyone provide educated guesses as to: 1 - Who the producer/A&R guy might be; 2 - Who the artists may have been 3 - If any of this stuff has been collected on CD. Thanks in advance for any direction you may provide.

When I was 16, circa 1980, my Dad took me to see George Russell and Max Roach live. It was at the University of South Florida in Tampa. George conducted the jazz department's jazz orchestra and Max played drums, both with the orchestra and also for some small group and solo pieces, IIRC. While I of course knew jazz from records and radio, this was the first "real" jazz concert I ever attended. The adventurousness of GR's arrangements and the incredibly melodic nature of Max's drumming truly made an impression. At the time, the community radio station WMNF played a lot of jazz in the evenings between 7 and 11. From the perspective of a teen, the station was a true oasis for experiencing "real" jazz, as opposed to the fusion stuff that was so prevalent at the time (I'm not necessarily knocking fusion, it's just that a lot of it was bad by then). This coincided with a period where I had a little bit of spending money from my busboy gig, and lucky for me a lot of classic Blue Note and Impulse albums were showing up in the Peaches cutout bin for very little money. All of this together, at an impressionable age, sent me off on a long and rewarding path, which has now resulted in my need for extra shelving in my packed-to-the-gills record room (see the vinyl forum). Over the years, I've accumulated a decent amount of George Russell's stuff from between, say, the late 40s and late 60s. Really love all this stuff, always discover something new, and I always remember that concert that my Dad and I went to. I'm also a certified exotica freak, as you know, and the early George Russell track "Fellow Delegates" shows up on my "Buried Treasures" compilation series of exotica one-offs buried on non-exotica albums. Thanks George, RIP.

If you need direction on what to seek out or what to avoid, I'm your man.

Ooh, thanks for sharing that important tidbit. And thanks all for the replies. Most of my albums are on these discontinued modular units that Home Despot used to sell. They are these white wooden stackable things with a movable shelf in the middle. I've stacked these floor to ceiling and reinforced them on the tops with brackets. I break up the monotony of record spines by having occasional squares filled with outer space toys like Major Matt Mason and Lost in Space robots. It has a very Euro early-70s feel. I don't know why they discontinued these shelving units. I've had them for more than ten years and there's never been a problem. Maybe Chuck's solution is best. Still, even if I unload the Herb Alpert and Ferrante and Teicher, I've only freed up space for about 20 albums.