Two Sides of Brazil

Here’s an interesting case of how two groups can cover a lot of the same territory and come up with results that are equally compelling but completely different. Basically, Grupo Falso Baiano’s Simplicidade: Live at Yoshi’s is the party; Claudio Roditti’s Bons Amigos is the afterparty. They both play bossa nova jazz, for the most part anyway, and keep the rhythm simple and in the pocket – no hypnotic volleys of booming Bahian beats here. Both represent the classic Brazilian songbook, yet don’t neglect current-day composers. Otherwise, the albums are like two sides of the same coin.

Grupo Falso Baiano – that’s tongue-in-cheek Portuguese for “fake Bahian band” – have Jesse Appelman’s mandolin as a lead instrument, other than when guest Jovino Santos Neto isn’t playing electric piano or flute, which gives their sound a bright, rustic bite. Appelman gets a deliciously resonant, slightly watery tone out of it, much like a Portuguese guitar, alongside Brian Moran on 7-string acoustic guitar, Zack Pitt-Smith on reeds and Ami Molinelli on terse, purist percussion. Their opener here, Caminhando, is typical, a happy samba but with bite, Pitt-Smith’s balmy solo contrasting with Appelman’s spikily caffeinated lead lines. They do the same thing with Jacobo de Bandolim’s bossa nova title track, shifting methodically from pensive to triumphant, Appelman finally ringing out joyously over the final verse.

The thicket of textures from piano, guitar and mando get lush but aggressive on Pixinguinha’s Cheguei – they way they do it, it’s two steps from being a surf song. A trio of Santos Neto compositions follow: first, Feira Livre, scurrying warily with extra thump on the low end from guest percussionist Brian Rice, lit up by an animated Pitt-Smith alto sax solo. Kenne E Voce starts out as a jam with the two flutes floating overhead but then gets a welcome shot of adrenaline as Santos Neto switches back to keys. The third of his tracks is a beautifully expansive ballad, with affectingly starlit piano and pensive alto sax work.

Altamiro Carrilho’s Bem Brasil is done somewhat coyly, with constant rhythmic shifts and a surprisingly slamming outro; Sivuca’s Deixa O Breque amps up its balmy tropicalisms, while Bandolim’s Doce De Coco gets a cinematic, Henry Mancini-ish treatment, building from Santos Neto’s solo piano intro to Appelman’s ragtimish solo. They close with a joyously romping take on Sivuca’s Forro Na Penha.

Where Grupo Falso Baiano work a fast dance vibe elegantly, trumpeter Claudio Roditi reaches for a slightly slower, more cosmopolitan one alongside Donald Vega on piano, Marco Panascia on bass, Romero Lubambo on guitars and Mauricio Zottarelli on drums. Egberto Gismonti’s O Sonho – a prototype for many pop songs, most famously Joe Jackson’s Steppin’ Out – opens the album as a full-band study in dynamic shifts, rising and falling, Roditi taking it out on a surprisingly moody note with a characteristically crystalline solo. They raid a more recent era for Eliane Elias’ bittersweet Para Nade, followed by Roditi’s Bossa De Monk, done simple and proper with the trumpeter emulating a Charlie Rouse-style fluttery/calm diptpych. The title track, a Toninho Horta ballad, gets a warm, wee-hours treatment; after that, they swing Roditi’s own, clever composition Levitation – an artful arrangement of two shifting two-chord vamps – with a carefree, bluesy vibe.

Roditi’s most effortlessly stunning track here, Fantasia (Stella), has the trumpeter holding the center after Vega’s memorably murky solo intro, through wary banks of chromatics and a similarly apprehensive bass solo, Lubambo finally spiraling free of the tension. They end the album with another Elias tune, Amandamada, a playfully syncopated showcase for Lubambo, and then a high-spirited original, Roditi’s own piccolo samba, where he plays animated flutelike cadences on piccolo trumpet.

Both releases have been out since last year, Grupo Falso Baiano on Massaroca Records and Roditi on Resonance.

CD Review: The Real Vocal String Quartet

A cynic might call the Real Vocal String Quartet the happy Rasputina. But that doesn’t give the all-female new music ensemble enough credit – considering the global diversity of styles they play here, a better comparison would be genre-smashing jazz/Americana violinist/composer Jenny Scheinman. Founded by former Turtle Island String Quartet violinist Irene Sazer, the Real Vocal String Quartet blend classical, avant garde, bluegrass, Balkan and African influences; the ultimate result is completely unique. While Sazer writes most of the material, violinist Alisa Rose, violist Dina Maccabee and cellist Jessica Ivry also contribute. Everybody sings.

The album opens with a circular arrangement of Kenyan composer and nyatiti lute player Ayub Ogada’s Kothbiro, alternating rhythmic pizzicato with lush washes of ambience in a striking call-and-response. They follow that with a traditional Appalachian dance done as hypnotic Tinariwen-style desert blues, string quartet style. The single best number on the album is the darkly crescendoing, cinematic instrumental Night Game, which nonetheless finds a way to end on a cleverly playful, upbeat note. A diptych here sounds like traditional Italian folk music,  but it’s actually a couple of covers from the catalog of early Brazilian jazz pioneer Pixinguinha. Green Bean Stand harmonizes high vocalese with the strings, morphing into a hypnotically swaying one-chord dance vamp evocative of the ensemble’s Turtle Island cousins. There’s also a hauntingly rustic country song, the violins playing a guitar chart; a hypnotic, ambient tone poem with strings and vocalese; a tricky art-rock song with rousing harmonies, and a wistful vocal tune that gives way to a stately baroque theme. There’s so much here that it ought to appeal to a lot of fanbases: neoclassical types, world music and chamber music fans, and just your average pop/rock person looking for something good for the ipod.