1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die

Further Still: Brazil Duets

The creative flowering that happened in Brazil beginning in the late 1950s through the 1970s remains an underappreciated marvel in the history of popular music.

Not only was it sparked by a composer who routinely distilled the “soul” of his country into an elegant (and entirely self-contained) musical language – Antonio Carlos Jobim – but there were also singers and musicians of abundant interpretive gifts, and artists whose embrace of rock and funk created persuasive new combinations. It was impossible to capture every step in this torrid evolution in a book like 1000 Recordings: There are too many great recordings, and unfortunately many of them (like the amazing Quarteto Novo, which I blogged about here) still have not seen proper release outside of Brazil. The samba and bossa nova and MBP records spotlighted in the book can be considered at best a “highlight reel;” from that starting point, it’s possible to go forty or fifty records beyond them and still not hit a “clunker.”

One interesting path to take through an “Essential Brazil” discography is to focus on the many collaborative projects involving famous names: The titans of Brazilian music didn’t just make their own masterworks, they often found themselves as part of unusual “teams” for the purposes of exploration. Some of these, like the legendary pairing of Jobim and Elis Regina, entitled Elis & Tom, have the feeling of summit meetings. Others have less starpower wattage, but are no less musically vibrant. Here’s an annotated playlist featuring flat-out astounding collaborations:

Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto: “Corcovado” from Getz/Gilberto (1000 Recordings, pg. 308). The template for countless feisty, musically adventurous collaborations from Brazil.

Maria Bethania/Edu Lobo: “So Me Fez Bem” from Edu Lobo/Maria Bethania. Singing in an almost inconsolable heartbreak rasp, Maria Bethania seizes every emotional ripple lurking within this Edu Lobo ballad.

Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes: “Canto de Ossanha” from Os Afro Sambas. This meeting of dastardly guitarist Baden Powell and poet Vinicius de Moraes is one of a series of originals based on folkloric melodies. They're aimed at rousing various deities, and powerful enough to move mountains.

Frank Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim: “Once I Loved” from Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim. (1000 Recordings, pg.708). The chairman of the board wasn’t from Brazil, but he certainly gets inside the Jobim songbook, charting a path followed by countless singers from around the world

Miucha & Jobim: “Samba do Aviao” from Miucha & Antonio Carlos Jobim. This is arguably the all-time best interpretation of a tragically underloved Jobim gem. Though her voice has a cigarette toughness, Miucha, the sister of Chico Buarque and mother of Bebel Gilberto, sings as though gliding.

Wanda Sa with Sergio Mendez & Brazil 65: “So Nice” from Brazil ’65. Before Mendez and crew made it big, they worked with the amazing Wanda Sa, whose voice illuminates every corner of this oft-heard tune.

Elis Regina & Toots Thielemans: “Wave” from Aquarela do Brazil. A typically playful and intervallically daring reading from Elis Regina; the harmonica master does OK, too.

Gilberto Gil & Jorge Ben: “Quem Mandou” from Gil & Jorge. A loose, off-the-cuff energy pervades everything on this classic one-off, which helped establish the foundation for early Brazilian funk.

Elis Regina & Antonio Carlos Jobim: “Inutil Paisagem” from Elis & Tom (1000 Recordings, pg. 398). A semester’s worth of schooling on the art of ballad singing in three minutes.

Edu Lobo/Chico Buarque/Milton Nascimento: “Beatriz” from O Grande Circo Mistico. The album, which involves many Brazil luminaries, is uneven, but this track features a transfixing Milton Nascimento vocal.

Edu Lobo & Antonio Carlos Jobim: “Moto Continuo” from Edu & Tom. Another structurally complex labyrinth-like tune from Edu Lobo (with Chico Buarque), this 1981 duet is one of Jobim’s best late-career performances.

Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil: “Desde Quo O Samba E Samba” from Tropicalia 2. The 1994 reunion of two enfant terribles of Tropicalia travels from simple acoustic settings to busier electronica; this languid, impossibly beautiful tune leans affectionately toward tradition.

Wanda Sa & Roberto Menescal: “Chega de Saudade” from Eu e a Musica. If you ever need to be reminded that bossa nova is eternal, cue up this easygoing recent rendition of a Jobim classic, which reunites the amazingly evocative Sa and her first guitar teacher, the composer Roberto Menescal.

Recordings of Interest, from The List

• Getz/Gilberto - Stan Getz and João Gilberto | Buy

• Elis & Tom - Antonio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina | Buy

• Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim - Sinatra, Frank and Antonio Carlos Jobim | Buy

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Levon Helm, 1940-2012

The loss of Levon Helm, who died on April 19 after a battle with throat cancer, represents the end of a few long heritage lines in American music.

Helm was one of those rare American singers, almost all of them gone now, whose voice conveyed and embodied the hardships borne by previous generations. It wasn’t just the inviting roughness in his tone – you can tell, instantly, that his singing came from a particular place and stood for a constellation of values. It carried deep knowledge of work and the sound of toil, and also the tired pride that comes with a job well done. Like Ralph Stanley (another conduit to a fast-disappearing era in music), Helm was a plain and humble singer – there are no fancy curlicues or embellishments in his best performances. Instead there are cracks and jagged edges, imperfections that become integral to the tales, part of the “romance” he laced into simple tunes that tell about the challenges of maintaining grace under duress.

That's not the only "end of the line" element at work here. Helm was also a master of the “revue” – most famously as an architect of the Band, with its strangely haunted sense of folklore and unusual revolving-door group chemistry. But he didn’t give up on revue-style entertainment when the Band disbanded in 1976 – in fact, his next project, the RCO Allstars, was in some ways an even more elaborate endeavor. This group, heard best on a live performance from New Year’s Eve in 1977, included Dr. John (still another survivor with a time-traveling voice), legendary Stax guitarist Steve Cropper, and Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass and blues harmonica master Paul Butterfield. Though the group was short-lived, the chemistry on display throughout this live record is flat-out ferocious: Here, in a whirlwind set, is a rollicking tour of American roots that suggests an appreciation for rhythmic nuance and a sense of swing that few ensembles in the history of American music have ever attained. This is directly the result of Helm’s instincts as a leader: Over and over, he assembled sensitive and stylistically diverse musicians into roaring, world-changing bands. Want proof? Check “Milk Cow Boogie” on this playlist.

Helm continued to be a revue-maker throughout his post-Band career – with the ad-hoc Midnight Rambles he organized in upstate New York as well as his remarkably strong Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt solo projects. The appreciations of his work rightly focus on the Band and its many contributions; here’s hoping that when future generations look back on the work of Levon Helm, they’ll spend a minute on the solo output, too.

Recordings of Interest, from The List

• The Band - The Band | Buy

• Gris-Gris - Dr. John | Buy

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