Curumin's JapanPopShow!
Monday, November 10, 2008
Quannum Projects continues to roll out dopeness for your ears and of course their newest, Sao Paolo's Curumin, is definitely no exception. JapanPopShow is his sophomore and it's hittin' ears eveywhere. It's hard to keep things underground when you got elements of experimental funk, beats, and those undeniably relaxed samba sounds...oh yea not to mention contributions from label mates Gift of Gab and Lateef amongst others. Personally I believe anything that contains heart beats of beautiful Bossa instrumentation and Samba soul deserves your attention. The album dropped last week and is available here! Be on the look out for a US tour in January! Give your ears a taste!
Compacto
Sambito
Labels: Experimental, hiphop, samba
Case Of The Mondays With Nicola Conte!
Monday, March 31, 2008
The Italian captain of all things cool has recently selected his favorites for Viagem, a super dope compilation of '60s-'70s Brazilian Bosa Nova and samba jazz music from Far Out Recordings. This is the first in a series of DJ compilations to help celebrate and promote 50 years of Bossa Nova! That's right, 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of the beautiful Bossa Nova sound. Renowned producer Nicola Conte has shown us once again that thoroughly reflecting on the orginal sound is very important and necessary. These renditions, done by some of the most amazing artists, are nothing short of vintage fresh. It's over 40 minutes of seminal traditional Brazilian World, vibrant Samba Jazz, Grooves, Afro-Samba, and energetic to soft instrumentals.With Conte's innovative and experimental jazztronic development expertise, you can bet that this 15-track release is right on point. Check out Nicola's other releases via Blue Note. We have a couple songs for you and some remixes from Nicola. Buy Viagem here!
Tenorio Jr - Samadhi
Claudia & Brazilian Octopus - Gusto Deser Tomo Sou
Nicola Conte - Kind of Sunshine
Mo'Horizons - Foto Viva (Conte Mix)
Koop - Tonight (Conte Nu-jazz Mix)
Happy Monday!
Dith Pran died recently. Read all about this man.
Labels: bossa nova, jazz, samba
Mayra Andrade's Navega Debut Album!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
23 year old Mayra Andrade has made some strange moves. She was born in Cuba, but she grew up in Cape Verde, which is an archipelago colonized by Portugal in the 15th Century off the western coast of Africa (this is a geography lesson). After moving around Africa and Europe she finds herself living and recording in Paris, France. Her music is a beautiful mixture of influences from Brazillian Sambas and jazz to French chanson (is there any other kind?!). She somehow keeps it mixed up while making the sound traditional and often times upbeat. The sunny vocals in Cape Verdean Creole are well introduced with heavy poetic substance in the lyrics. Navega ("upon the waves") was debuted in 2006 when Mayra was 22! It is hard to tell that she's a newcomer. I was really thrown off when I found out this was her debut. We are definitely anticipating a sophomore out hopefully sometime in 2008. You can dance to her music or be listening on a train as a soundtrack to beautiful scenary. None of these songs are worth skipping over. Get the album here. Stream Navega here. Live videos here. Songs below!
Tunuca
Poc li denté é tcheu
Nha Nobréza
Luciano Sauza's New Bossa Nova
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
I haven't written much about Jazz for a while, but the truth is that the Jazz world is thriving and it's really good to see that. I see a broader appreciation for Jazz even though many of the greats have passed on. There isn't a day that passes by where I don't find myself wanting to look for other jazz lovers and see their reactions when they describe how a certain song makes them feel. I love it. I was sitting with a nice older lady at a Border's talking about her favorite 50s Ella Fitzgerald LPs and her sharing almost alleviated my alienation, conversely it was ironic because she was a lot older. Good stuff, I will go more often. A part of Jazz that I love is the Bossa Nova, literally "New Trend" which I won't even begin to go into the maticulous details of it's origins or it's 60s wave of immense popularity growth here in the U.S. Recently I was working on a television show and one of our audience guests was Brazillian there with his mother. I would name a popular Bossa favorite and she would sing it. It was a 20 minute dream come true. One of the reasons why I love it so much is because it tells not only stories of love, but of culture simply because it's birth is synonymous with the culture in which is "derived" from. I could go one for days.
There are so many awesome new artists and bands out there but I recently re-discovered the solace vocals of Luciana Souza after digging around in search for something good. She is no lightweight. She's been nominated 3 times for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocalist and continues to do work with renowned Jazz musicians. Her 7th album, "The New Bossa Nova" is her first from The Verve record label and probably one of her most interesting. It's definitely good but this seems to be an unfamiliar approach from Souza. The album has two originals and then several generally more jazz classic songs that are pushed with a Bossa twist. Souza also used a full band with her that takes on the task of re-creating classics and pop songs. It's something old but different. These pop-bossa-remakes of Elliot Smith, Sting, Joni Mitchell and others are awesome for any Bossa Nova lover.
The album came out 3 weeks ago! I just got my copy today. If you like what you hear below, go out and get it. My favorite song on this album is her re-make of "Aguas de Marco" by the late legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim. Again, it's just good stuff.
Alright that's all for me, I'm heading out of the office with this fresh peach green tea. You gotta get some! Oh yea we also got a new mp3 player thanks to the genius of our new friend Dan Kantor. Also check out this wonderful review/article written by our friend Ernest which goes into detail about the Braziliam music documentary film "Moro No Brasil."
Labels: bossa nova, jazz, Music, samba
bbqchickenrobot
WideEyedEggplant
The GOOD Pants
2Scoops
El-izzle
Open Mike
