"Cadence" - April / May / June 2009

"Cadence" Magazine / Apr - May - June 2009
Vol. 35, No. 4-5-6
To read the featured stories, please click on the image above to enlarge it.

This issue includes a rave review of the Peter Scharli/Ithamara Koorax collaboration in tribute to my dear late friend Dom Um Romão, whom I miss so much.
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Peter Scharli with Ithamara Koorax
"Obrigado Dom Um Romao"
(TCB 27702, distributed in the USA by Allegro Music)
Review by David Dupont

One of the virtues of "Obrigado Dom Um Romao," the best of these sessions, is the willingness of the principals to push beyond that sense of equanimity. And that's surprising because though the session pays tribute to the late Brazilian percussionist, the ensemble of trumpet-bass-guitar trio with vocalist Ithamara Koorax lacks percussion.
That trio format usually inspires lyrical flights, but trumpeter Peter Scharli will not be so constrained. He's not afraid to turn on the brass as witnessed by his blistering conclusion to "Manha de Carnaval." Thanks to an old recording Romao gave Scharli, the honoree does appear here, playing lively berimbau over which the trumpeter blows a lusty version of the Bonfa standard.
He lets loose as well in the band's cover of "Love for Sale." The A section of the Cole Porter classic is delivered by Koorax over a vamp with the bridge bursting forward in Swing time. Scharli's solo, though, boils over the vamp as he builds the tension pushing the harmonic limits more and more until Koorax reenters on the bridge, again with Swing. The track ends with a long tag that has the singer and the trumpeter cooing and sighing and moaning in duet.
"Love for Sale" is a sensual tour de force for Koorax, showing the kaleidoscope of colors she can elicit from her voice. At one point she builds to an upper register wail, only to drop two octaves to complete the phrase.
The format lets the clarity and color of her voice shine through with little distraction. Guitarist Markus Stadler and bassist Thomas Durst set an evocative, vibrant nest of sound. Given the exuberant work of Scharli and Koorax it'd be easy to overlook the quieter, yet still intriguing work of the guitarist. His solo on "Two and One" employs sequences that balance a sense of order with a sense of the unexpected. It adds yet another level of enjoyment to a fine session.