There isn’t a weak moment anywhere on the two-disc expanse of Ouro Negro (Adventure), a gripping Moacir Santos retrospective produced by saxophonist Ze Nogueira and guitarist Mario Adnet and supervised by Santos himself. The octogenarian composer and conductor, based in L.A. by way of Pernambuco, remains one of Brazilian music’s leading lights. The 28 tracks herein are new recordings of Santos songs spanning 1965 to 1975, although a smattering of later works are also included. A feast of sublime melody, textural diversity and rhythmic polish, the collection was recorded in Rio in early 2001 with a crack team of studio players and soloists, with guest vocals by Gilberto Gil, Djavan, Milton Nascimento, Joao Bosco and Ed Motta as well as Sheila Smith, Muiza Adnet, Joyce, Joao Donato and even Santos, whose humble murmur takes on a heavenly quality. The aesthetic is something like plugged-in Maria Schneider meets Steely Dan and early Chicago, but Santos’ melodies are singular in their unpredictable beauty.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading

Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time