This is a picture I took from the deck of the QE2 at 6 in the morning on the day we docked in Rio de Janiero harbor.
Thanks to the elemental restorative powers of Brazilian music, I am thrilled once again to be writing, practicing, and playing.
Not that the dealings with the big band weren’t fantastic. Getting to record charts by me and my dad with Butch Miles is not an honor to be sneezed at. And capturing the artistry of Tony Campise on a recording that will endure is an honor I’ll think about whenever I write a tenor solo’s hashmarked chord symbols from here onward.
But something happened, something that sapped all my musical energy and a considerable amount of life energy as well. No, I’m not going into that here, but it’s just the ancient story of trust betrayed writ large and personal. I had to find something that would revive me. Astute readers of this blog know that I have health issues that are complicated by stress, and if MUSIC means stress, music must go. Or, alternately, music must change. I chose the latter, reinforced by the passing of my 59th birthday.
And that’s when I remembered that Bruce and I have been talking about getting something Brazilian together for a very long time. Almost since we met, perhaps when we were still plowing the field of Mr. Fabulous, when I heard Bruce sing the Girl from Ipanema the way it ought to be sung, in Portugese, we’ve been talking about exploring the rich contradictions of Brazilian music. By that, I mean this: How can a country so intrinsically sad produce so much music that is uniformly happy? Why are there songs whose titles use the word Triste—sadness—but whose bouncy rhythms and elegant harmonic language is nothing if not happy.
By the time I called Bruce, I’d already written a couple charts. If nothing came of it, I’d just be using them to practice on my own. The charts were chôros, a style of music that was in vogue in Brazil roughly from the 1920’s to the 1950’s. I had been pulled in by a recording of chôros by flutist Paula Robison called Brasilierinho which Ginger Von Wening pointed me to. She had set up a band called Double Coyote in Houston, playing chôros and bossa novas, but had just recently moved back to California.
I figure if the worst that could happen is I’d have some new parts to ‘shed, that’d be just fine. So I called Bruce and I called Monte Mann and asked them over to rehearse a few things to see how they sound. The three of us were very pleased with how things went, and I remembered just how much fun it is to play with guys who know how and don’t bring their shitty little sideshows into the music with them. We rehearsed around 10 tunes in 2 hours.
Pleasantly glowing from the experience, we I sounded 2 more possible recruits for what was becoming a project.
Jimmy Shortell, who plays jazz trumpet and accordion, was the first. I ws thinking how great it would be to add his playing to the stringed instruments, and how he could lighted the load of every member by being able to play chords and solos. I kid him mercilessly about that accordion, but the fact is that it fits into the folkloric thing about chôros, which have roots in the streets of Rio. Jimmy can read like nobody’s business. So off I went to rewrite all the charts I’d written for the first core, adding accordion and trumpet parts.
We had some ideas for a percussionist, but I remembered Fernando Ledesma, who was the drummer in Double Coyote, Ginger’s band in Houston. I called to get his number, and rang Fernando to find he wasn’t busy and he was always ready to play Brazilian music. Fernando’s played with the band Opa in the seventies and, through an association with Uruguayan pianist Hugo Fatturoso, with Airto, Flora Purim, and Hermeto Pascoal. This guy’s the real deal!
Last night was our first rehearsal with the five guys, and it was fantastic! I’m inspired to diligently practice and I need to keep writing to keep everyone interested until we get a couple gigs happening. Booking a 5-piece Brazilian band is lots easier than booking an 11-piece big band!
And even so, Marilyn’s been working some dialog up from an outline I wrote for the Mineshaft Canaries, which we’ll be rehearsing on March 10th. Seeing all of the Canary charts are written for my rather unique instrumentation, I might be headed back to the big bands sooner rather than later. But it won’t be the center of things again.
