Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Podcast: "João Palma" by ArnaldoDeSouteiro

Ao longo de seis décadas de carreira, o baterista João Palma gravou discos históricos com Sergio Mendes (inclusive o mega-hit "Mas Que Nada"), Antonio Carlos Jobim (com quem fez a gravação original de "Águas de Março", além dos álbuns "Stone Flower", "Tide", "Urubu" e "Matita Perê"), Frank Sinatra, Paul Desmond, Milton Nascimento, Walter Wanderley, Egberto Gismonti, Michael Franks, Ithamara Koorax, Astrud Gilberto, Stanley Turrentine e muitos outros. Era um dos bateristas prediletos de arranjadores como Claus Ogerman, Don Sebesky e Eumir Deodato, tendo feito muitas gravações também ao lado de Herbie Hancock e Ron Carter. Esta brilhante trajetória é relembrada por Arnaldo DeSouteiro - seu amigo pessoal, e com quem trabalhou em dezenas de shows e gravações - neste podcast da série "Legião Estrangeira", produzida pelo site Na Agulha do Vinil.
The legendary Brazilian drummer João Palma recorded fabulous recordings with Sergio Mendes (the smash hit "Mas Que Nada" and the albums "Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66", "Equinox", "Look Around"), Antonio Carlos Jobim (the original version of "Waters of March" plus the albums "Tide", "Stone Flower", "Matita Perê" and "Urubu"), Frank Sinatra ("Sinatra & Company"), Paul Desmond ("Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Milton Nascimento ("Courage"), Walter Wanderley ("When It Was Done", "Moondreams"), Egberto Gismonti ("Água & Vinho"), Michael Franks ("Sleeping Gypsy"), Ithamara Koorax ("Love Dance", "IK Sings Getz/Gilberto"), Astrud Gilberto ("Gilberto With Turrentine"), Stanley Turrentine ("The Sugar Man") and many others. He often recorded alongside Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter on many of those sessions, and became one of the favorite drummers of such arrangers as Claus Ogerman, Don Sebesky and Eumir Deodato. The record producer and NARAS-Grammy voting member Arnaldo DeSouteiro, Palma's friend for over four decades, discusses his brilliant career on this podcast. 
(João Palma, Claus Ogerman, Antonio Carlos Jobim and engineer Frank Laico, seated, during the recording sessions of "Waters of March/Matita Perê")




(Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66: Mendes, João Palma, Bob Matthews, José Soares, Lani Hall, Janis Hansen)
(José Soares, Anamaria Valle, João Palma, Marcos Valle, Sebastião Neto, Sergio Mendes)
(Lennie Dale with Eumir Deodato, Ugo Marotta, Sergio Barroso, Roberto Menescal and João Palma at Au Bon Gourmet)
(José Roberto Bertrami, Ithamara Koorax, João Palma and Sergio Barroso during the sessions for the "Love Dance" album)
(Fabio Fonseca, João Palma, Ithamara Koorax, Arnaldo DeSouteiro)
(Jorge Helder, José Roberto Bertrami, João Palma &Arnaldo DeSouteiro during the sessions for "Marcos Valle Songbook")

(João Palma with Gastão Junior, Haroldo Jobim, Alfredo Cardim)
(João Palma, Haroldo Jobim, Gastão Junior)
(Carlos Malta, Carlos Pingarilho, Ithamara Koorax, João Palma)
(João Palma and Rodrigo Lima during the sessions for the "Saga" album)

Monday, November 16, 2020

Podcast: "Dom Um Romão" by Arnaldo DeSouteiro

                              https://soundcloud.com/naagulhadovinil/dom-um-romao
Um dos maiores bateristas e percussionistas da história da música, Dom Um Romão integrou os grupos Weather Report (durante quatro anos, gravando quatro álbuns antológicos) e Blood, Sweat & Tears. Sua discografia vai de Frank Sinatra a Marcelo D2, passando por Jorge Ben (com quem fez a gravação original de "Mas Que Nada"), Dorival Caymmi, Tom Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, Tony Bennett, Roberta Flack, Ron Carter e McCoy Tyner. É também um dos artistas brasileiros mais sampleados e remixados pela geração hip-hop. Sua trajetória é contada neste podcast por Arnaldo DeSouteiro, produtor de seus três últimos discos e que o dirigiu em várias turnês internacionais. 
Vinhetas de abertura e encerramento: Michel Freidenson 
Edição :Guilherme Kobayashi

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Press release for Hank Crawford's "Down On The Deuce"

Press release written by Arnaldo DeSouteiro for Hank Crawford's "Down On The Deuce" (Milestone/PolyGram, 1986) 




Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Dave Brubeck reminiscences

 Twenty years ago, my much missed friends Dave Brubeck and Iola Brubeck sent me a bunch of lead sheets (manuscripts) saying: "Arnaldo, please feel free to add lyrics to any of these tunes." Most of them were new instrumental songs dedicated to Michael Brecker, Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman. Others had English lyrics by Iola, and they wanted me to write Portuguese lyrics, like I did for "Broadway Bossa Nova". And many other tunes had never been performed nor recorded. This is a real treasure! #davebrubeck #piano #composer #iolabrubeck #michaelbrecker #royhargrove #joshuaredman #davebrubeckquartet #jazz #music #art #culture











Monday, November 9, 2020

Trombone legend Papo Vásquez releases a new album this next Friday

Known for an iconic career that spans 40 years, GRAMMY-nominated Latin music luminary Papo Vázquez is releasing "Chapter 10: Breaking Cover," a new album with his band Mighty Pirates Troubadours. Due out this next Friday, November 13th via the artists own Picaro Records, "Chapter 10: Breaking Cover" features a varied program of Vázquez’s original music that displays his signature fusion of jazz and Puerto Rican folkloric music. On his tenth release as a leader, Vázquez swiftly demonstrates why he is one of the leading voices of the contemporary Latin jazz scene.  

Vázquez was described by The New York Times as “brash and precise... helping to drive the music, giving it snap and ferocity.” His deep knowledge of the indigenous music of the Caribbean peoples, intertwined with his decades long dedication to jazz (sparked by a love for John Coltrane and J. J. Johnson) affords him to be an expert in fusing these two idioms. On "Chapter 10: Breaking Cover," Vázquez’s exquisite musical breadth is on display as he seamlessly moves through various rhythms (Holande, Bomba, Cuembe) and styles (Jazz, Latin Jazz), fusing them together as only he can. 

The music on "Chapter 10: Breaking Cover" is informed by his eclectic career that began in his native Philadelphia. Vazquez spent his early years in Vega Baja  Puerto Rico before settling back in Philly, where he was raised. After earning his stripes with local Latin bands, the precocious musician moved to New York at age 17. He quickly ascended the musical ranks as he built up a robust resume with legendary salsa stars such as The Fania All-Stars, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Grupo Folklórico y Experimental Nuevayorquino, Eddie Palmieri, Larry Harlow, and Hector LaVoe. He cut his teeth at New Rican Village, a tiny artist-run space in the East Village, where he and other adventurous players would jam without restrictions, reframing Latin music within jazz and vice versa.  

Concurrently, Vázquez’s reputation as a jazz musician grew, as he became a leading player in New York’s burgeoning Latin jazz scene of the late 1970’s. He was a founding member of Jerry Gonzalez's Fort Apache Band and Conjunto Libre, as well as Puerto Rico’s popular Latin fusion band Batacumbele. With Batacumbele he performed, composed, arranged and recorded on several albums from 1981 to 1985. During this time, Vázquez first began experimenting with “bomba jazz”; a fusion of jazz and traditional Puerto Rican bomba rhythms. Upon his return to New York, he joined Tito Puente's Latin Jazz Ensemble, traveling with them as principal trombonist, and toured Europe with Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra.

For the next two decades, Vázquez appeared on countless albums as a recording artist. Among the dozens are Wayne Shorter’s Alegria"; Ruben Blades’ Amor y Control, Antecedente, and Caminando; Dave Valentin’s Tropic Heat; Bebo Valdez’s Bebo de Cuba; Arturo O'Farrill’s Bloodlines; and many, many others. In 1993, Vázquez released his debut as a leader, "Breakout," and in 1999 and 2000, he released "At the Point, Vol. 1" and subsequently "Vol. 2," with the group that would eventually become known as the Mighty Pirates Troubadours. In 2008, he released "Marooned/Aislado" with the expanded Pirates Troubadours (a 19-piece Afro-Puerto Rican Jazz Orchestra) which went on to receive a GRAMMY nomination for Best Latin Jazz album. "Chapter 10: Breaking Cover" follows the group’s 2015 album "Spirit Warrior," which was referred to as “a superb album by one of the most expressive voices in Latin music” by Raul da Gama of Latin Jazz Network. 

Vázquez’s latest release is a true product of the COVID 19 era. Conceived before the coronavirus was on anyone’s mind, Vázquez plans to record this past April were derailed when lockdown regulations came into effect. Finally in June, when gatherings of 25 people or less were approved in the tri-state area, Vázquez and his Mighty Pirate Troubadours “broke cover” to rehearse (socially distanced, of course), and eventually record. As writer Ben Ratliff says in his liner notes: “Papo’s music contains a lot of the past, in salsa and jazz and jíbaro music and bomba and plena; as one of this country’s greatest musicians, he has a lot to summarize. But the circumstances behind this serious and wise record—as well as the life- force of Papo’s playing, arranging, composing, and the decisive way he moves through the world—inevitably convey the present.”

"Chapter 10: Breaking Cover" not only displays Vázquez’s mesmerizing facility on his instrument, but also his prowess as a composer and arranger. His talents in this arena have long been admired; he was the first artist to receive a composer’s commission (Iron Jungle) for the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, then a resident orchestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center. His first classical composition, “Palomita – Afro-Caribbean Suite” (which to this date, the first time Bomba and Plena were performed with a Chamber Orchestra) in the USA, was commissioned by the Bronx Arts Ensemble and premiered at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in the Bronx in 2000. In 2009, Vázquez premiered his composition “Oasis” with the Bronx Arts Ensemble which then expanded to the Oasis Project.  In 2010, the Oasis Project premiered at the renowned Pregones Theater and earned him a prestigious honor from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Master Artist award from Pregones Theater.   He was commissioned by Wynton Marsalis to compose music for Jazz and Art series, conducted and performed with JALC orchestra in August 2019.

Vázquez’s forthcoming release features a varied program. As Ben Ratliff says in his notes: “El Cuco/The Boogeyman” is built on a piano riff Papo wrote a few years ago; he realized that it could stand for the knock on our psychic doors we all started hearing in March. It isn’t possible to think of “Shadows,” the ballad, as unrelated to those lost during the first spike of the virus. In the rumba “No Te Rindas” (“Don’t Give Up”) the vocalist Jose Mangual Jr., who worked with Vázquez in Hector Lavoe’s band back in the 1970s, improvises in honor of departed rumberos. One’s past is one’s present, too.

Celebration and togetherness can be imagined: the journey of “Mr. Babu” from Africa, the killer-elite dancers conjured in “New York Latin Jazz Mambo,” the Puerto Rican family music of “Saludo Campesino” and “Fiesta En La Sanse,” named after the carnival in Old San Juan, suggests the party we will have when this is over.

The moniker “Mighty Pirates Troubadours” takes inspiration from Vázquez’s family - his father, grandfather and uncle were troubadours who regularly filled his living room with música jíbara; a traditional style of folk music that grew in the mountain regions of Puerto Rico. The current iteration of the septet includes Vázquez at the helm, with saxophonist Ivan Renta, pianist Rick Germanson, bassist Ariel Robles, drummer Alvester Garnett and percussionists Carlos Maldonado and Reinaldo DeJesus. Augmenting the group are invited guests: vocalist and percussionist Jose Mangual Jr., saxophonist Sherman Irby, bassist  Dezron Douglas, guitarist Antonio Caraballo and trumpeter Antoine Drye.

(Photo by Michael Benabib)

"A Trip To Brazil" reminiscences

 "A Trip To Brazil" compilation series produced by Arnaldo DeSouteiro (5 volumes +1 EP + 1 single)