Antonio Adolfo - Chora Baiao

[GA Russell]

I enjoyed his last album, so I'm looking forward to hearing this. I got this press release in the mail today.

"Chora Baião," New CD by

Brazilian Pianist/Composer Antonio Adolfo,

Set for September 27 Release

Repertoire Focuses on the Compositions of

Chico Buarque & Guinga

(& Antonio Adolfo)

August 24, 2011

Antonio Adolfo has long been an integral and influential behind-the-scenes player as a producer, composer, arranger, label entrepreneur, and educator -- in his native Rio de Janeiro and beyond. In recent years, however, he has thankfully been devoting more time to recording his own music. First came a critically acclaimed collaboration with his vocalist daughter, 2007's Antonio Adolfo and Carol Saboya Ao Vivo/Live. Last year's Lá e Cá (Here and There), also featuring Saboya, tapped into standards by Americans and Brazilians such as Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

For his new CD, Chora Baião, which will be released September 27 on his AAM Music label, Adolfo chose to focus on the Brazilian music styles choro and baião, specifically the works of two brilliant and innovative Brazilian composers, Guinga and Chico Buarque.

"I wanted to record an album of material that forces me to play differently," Adolfo says. "My passion is for their harmonies and melodies, which are not just sophisticated, but quite unusual in Brazilian music. When you play American or Brazilian standards, you tend to stay in familiar territory. But with their harmonies you cannot use clichés. It requires you go into some really different directions."

The fact that Adolfo's original pieces ("Chicote," "Chorosa Blues," "Chora Baião") fit so comfortably alongside the music of Guinga and Buarque shouldn't be surprising. From Stevie Wonder, Dionne Warwick, and Herb Alpert to Elis Regina, Beth Carvalho, and Sergio Mendes, some of the world's most popular artists have recorded his songs. His title track announces the thread of choro and baião running through the album, drawing on both forms while opening with a bracing jolt of maracatu percussion.

"This is a different kind of music, not Jobim," Adolfo says. "Guinga is very inventive with choro and baião. Before Guinga everyone played choro very traditionally. He uses chords like Piazzolla. He's never been played by jazz musicians, but his harmonies are very unexpected."

As for Buarque, "I wanted to show him as a musician," says Adolfo. "There's no doubt he's one of the three most important lyricists in Brazil, but he's also a composer who ranks alongside Jobim and Edu Lobo. He chooses different chords and different bass lines. You can hear in songs like 'A Ostra e o Vento' (The Oyster and the Wind) that the harmonies are very sophisticated. As a composer, as a musician who writes songs, he and Guinga do things that nobody else does in Brazilian music, with chords and melodies that are unexpected."

Produced and arranged by Adolfo, Chora Baião features the same basic cast heard on last year's Lá e Cá: Uruguayan-born guitarist Leo Amuedo (a frequent collaborator with Ivan Lins), bassist Jorge Helder (often heard with Chico Buarque and Maria Bethânia), drummer Rafael Barata (Edu Lobo, Rosa Passos, Mônica Salmaso), and -- on two tracks -- vocalist Carol Saboya. The formidable Marcos Suzano (Lenine, Gilberto Gil, Zizi Possi) is added on percussion.

Besides his prolific work as a pianist, composer, and arranger, Adolfo, 64, continues to be a leader in music education. The Centro Musical Antonio Adolfo in Rio and a new experimental Brazilian music school in Hollywood, Florida, where he resides, are a big part of his current professional life.

"Nadia Boulanger and all the other teachers I had were my inspiration to become a music educator myself," says Adolfo. "My involvement in education is a result of my interest in always trying to go deeper and to deal technically with different music subjects, which has helped my own development and growth as a musician."

Photos: Paul Constantinides

Antonio Adolfo Web Site:

www.antonioadolfo.info

"Morro Dois Irmãos" (comp. Chico Buarque)

[GA Russell]

Well, on the one hand, this is just the sort of album I enjoy listening to on a quiet Sunday in the fall and winter. There's not a bad song, and the music is consistently peaceful and pleasant.

On the other hand, there's not much here to get excited about. If you want to sit down and concentrate on the music, this isn't the album for you. Very nice, but not very inspired.

[seeline]

Really?

http://musicabrasileira.org/antonioadolfo/aachorabaiao.html

[mikeweil]

Yes it's not an "exciting" album. But it is a very nice listen. If you want some relaxed but nonetheless engagingly played Brailian music, this is very nice - the whole album plays when you go to his website.

[seeline]

I get what you guys are saying (just bought it from emusic last evening), but... A.A. is right about the harmonies in Chico Buarque's songs.

And I am a big fan of Guinga's work, though I wish A.A. had chosen at least one of his medium-tempo pieces.

That said, if you know the "songs" (meaning: pieces originally debuted as such, not as instrumentals) this is going to be a very rewarding listen (imo).

But you're right - it's quiet and reflective, which is (again, imo) a characteristic of both Buarque's and Guinga's work.

Edited October 2, 2011 by seeline

[Teasing the Korean]

I love the Alolfo Brazuca stuff from the early 70s. Especially love the funky spacey numbers with rhodes. No idea what he's done for the past four decades or so. That's what I get for being fixated on the vinyl era.

[seeline]

He's been doing some great work, but it's quite different than the records that you like, for the most part.

See the opening post for some more info.