April 2004

Two For Brazil
Take Five
Jazzmin

By Javier Quinones

Take Five (Jazzmin), from Two for Brazil, is a guitar and tenor sax/flute duo, biggie-sized by the guitarist's vocals. Stringsman Paulinho Garcia and reedist Greg Fishman make Dizzy Gillespie, Toninho Horta, Luis Bonfa, Djavan Caetano Viana, Jobim, Paul Desmond, Chico Buarque and others, their sujets d'musique. Perhaps jazz's noblesse oblige led them to Brubeck and Desmond's jazz standard as their banner. Nevertheless, their brief version is close to the original recipe with some extra crispy bits as Fishman has quite an inviting and sure-footed tone, with agility characterizing his ideas and attack. Garcia, on the other hand, becomes drummer, vocal instrumentalist and chordal master of taste alongside his flutist partner. On "Anos Dourado"-originally conceived as a theme song for a TV show-and "O Grande Amor," Fishman ages most of his passages as one is soothed by the seducing pizzazz of Garcia's singing. Even so, "Januaria" rivals both in rhythmic and harmonic perky sexiness. Theirs is not so much a "Batida Diferente" as it is an admirable reassessment of it.