JLU 27.xi.11 tasty

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Claire Martin with concert music featuring jazz legend McCoy Tyner recorded at the 2011 London Jazz Festival. Kevin Le Gendre profiles Tania Maria's classic album 'Come With Me' in 'Now Is The Time', plus concert music from saxophonist Gilad Atzmon recorded at this year's Scarborough Jazz Festival.

good programme agenda ....

[Ian Thumwood]

I used to be a massive fan of Tania Maria's music when I was a teenager in the 1980's. She made a series of five albums for Concord which started off as almost typical, ascoustic West coast Bossa material before taking a far more "funky" approach with the album "Come with me" which effectively set the style for following decades. In fact, her music represents the polar opposite of something like the Getz / Giberto which was a bit of a compromise between the musics of North and South America. Although performed by American, West Coast musicians, her approach was acknowledged to hve been influenced by the more rura traditions from NE Brazil and therefore eschewed the more cosmopolitan approach of Cariocas such as Gilberto or Joyce. There are some fabulous tracks on this record includes one called "Sementes, graines and seeds" which must still rank as one of the most blistering pieces of Brazilian / Jazz fusions ever committed to record. Never managed to play this track without being tempted to pressd the replay button. Always wished I had snapped this up on CD as the record is absolutely terrific. There is something special about this disc. Usually Brazilian music was seen as something cool and sophisticated but, to Tania Maria's credit, she was instrumental in creating a type of jazz which raised the temperature several notches until the compositions reached a point of frenzy. Rythmically, the music is impossible to resist and for me, her music helped sum up one particular element in jazz. The follow up "Love Explosion" basically ditched the jazz feel for a pop production but there is a live album called "Wild" that followed afterwards around 1985 which bursts with life and energy probably not seen since the days of Lionel Hampton. Subsequent albums have flirted with pop and then returned to jazz but "Come with me" is very much an album that sums up the better aspects of 80's jazz and still stands the test of time nearly thirty years later. For many Getz / Gilberto epitomises the mixing of jazz with Brazilian influences. However, anyone who grew up in the 1980's listening to this music will feel that Tania Maria's music fulfilled a similar function during this decade. In both cases, the fusion had an effect of reaching out to a "pop" audience .

[Serial_Apologist]

By coincidence Claire M is discussing Tania Maria with her invited guest this moment as I write. I well remember catching Tania Maria at the 1985 Bracknell Festival - if I remember she was first on, and instantly electrified the atmosphere in the big tent. But, surely she wasn't alone in doing as she did at that time? Though I hadn't heard any of her stuff previously, the area she clearly epitomised seemed already familiar. Strangely enough the Polish-born singer Urszula Dudziac was doing similar music at that time, and creating within the genre some of the most amazing scat I have ever come across.

But... this is maybe going to ruffle a few feathers... but, what on earth has happened to McCoy Tyner? He seems to heffalump his way through his numbers like an out-of-control juggernaut. The man who was so on the number back in the 60s and 70s has become a lumbering copy of Horace Silver.