Laurindo Almeida - Chamber Jazz (1979)

When I spoke with Jorge Mello about my limited knowledge on the work, career and discography of Laurindo Almeida, I worried look and a piece of advice that I’m following since then, carefully listening to Laurindo Almeida albums kindly provided by Jorge Mello to our community.

My knowledge is improving, but there is a lot to know about this great musician. I am providing below Chamber Jazz liner notes, which I found that up to Chamber Jazz launching, Laurindo Almeida had already released more than 100 albums between classical and popular. Laurindo is a privileged musician and this album is very nice. Let’s see.

This is Laurindo Almeida – Chamber Jazz (1979), for Concord Records (USA), featuring a repertoire blending classical and popular music and Laurindo Almeida backed by two great musicians, especially the bassist, Bob Magnusson. As I told you, I will let you with Chamber Jazz liner notes and I wish a nice weekend to everybody. Tracks include:

Liner Notes:

Laurindo Almeida started the exodus of musicians from Brazil (and Argentina) more than 30 years ago. Now, in his early 60s, he is comfortably ensconced at his home in California's San Fernando Valley — in Sherman Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb — and he looks back on a career which has seen almost 100 Almeida albums produced.

This one, he assures us, is different.

One reason is Almeida's choice of material. You'll find no contemporary pop rock tunes in this program. Nor are there any of the hundreds of dated, over-recorded standards which dominate all too many of the recorded out¬put of solo guitarists today.

Almeida chooses works which are not performed by other guitarists, a repertoire which ranges from Brazilian melodies through Chopin and Debussy.

And assisting him, with sensitivity, are Jeff Hamilton on drums and Bob Magnusson, playing upright acoustic bass.

Let's not skip over Magnusson's contributions. The San Diego musician, a French horn player for 12 years and, more recently, featured on bass with Sarah Vaughan and Joe Farrell's Quartet, achieves a radically different sound with Almeida. His glisses resemble the sound of a trombone at times. Throughout this album, his contributions are enormous.

All nine selections, in addition, benefit from Almeida's arranging skills.

Four of the nine works are Brazilian. Odeon and Turuna are from the pen of Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1937), a man whom Almeida idolized when Laurindo was a child in São Paulo. Laurindo later played with radio orchestras in Rio de Janeiro and, for a time, conducted his own band before he moved north to Los Angeles and became a valued member of Stan Ken¬ton's Orchestra in 1947.

J.D. San-Macdony's Dingue Le Bangue and You And I (Você e Eu) by Vinícius de Morais-Carlos Lyra are yet other Brazilian melodies favored by Almeida here. Claude Debussy's Claire de Lune and Frederic Chopin's Chopin a la Breve based on one of the Polish pianist's most engaging waltzes mesh with Bach on two others. The only American melody programmed is Melissa, a composition of Minette Allton of Los Angeles.

Unaccustomed Bach is adapted from a prelude and transformed into a Brazilian baiao; Bourree And Double is Almeida's adaption of a violin solo, in eight movements, which classicists will recognize as Bach's B Minor Partita.

The guitar which Almeida favors is a six-string instrument hand-crafted for him by Julius Guido of Los Angeles, a cutaway which gives Laurindo four more frets than the conventional Spanish guitar.

That's the background on a man and his music. An extraordinary man who, for all his success through the decades, remains humble, ever-amiable and eager to deliver to the world music he considers valuable.

—DAVE DEXTER, JR.
Chief copy editor of Billboard Magazine, Los Angeles, and author of the book, "Playback."

Personnel

Laurindo Almeida
(violao)
Bob Magnusson
(bass)
Jeff Hamilton
(drums)

Track List

01 - Dingue Le Bangue (J. D. San / Macdony)
02 - Unaccustomed Bach (Johann Sebastian Bach)
03 - Odeon (Ernesto Nazareth)
04 - Bourrée And Double (Johann Sebastian Bach)
05 - Melissa (Minette Allton)
06 - Você e Eu (Carlos Lyra / Vinicius de Moraes)
07 - Claire de Lune Samba (Claude Debussy)
08 - Chopin a La Breve (Frederic Chopin)
09 - Turuna (Ernesto Nazareth)