Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roberto Menescal was born on October 25, 1937 in Vitoria (ES) Brazil and by eighteen the guitarist and vocalist was making his debut as a professional along with Elis Regina, Silvia Telles and others. By the late 50s he spawned a brilliant career as a composer being in good company with Carlos Lyra, Tom Jobim and Ronaldo Boscoli.
Menescal was important to the founding of the Bossa Nova movement in which many of his songs are references to the sea, such as his best-known composition “O Barquinho” (“Little Boat”). He was one of the musicians who promoted the swing of bossa nova around the world with his compositions “The Barquinho”, “You” and “We and the Sea” and was a part of the famous 1962 Bossa Nova Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Choosing to return to Brazil to raise a family, his fame is mostly relegated to his home country and with bossa nova fans around the world. Roberto very easily moves between musical mediums playing Latin, Brazilian pop, Musica Popular Brasiliera, Bossa Nova and Samba. He provided music for the film Bye Bye Brasil and was nominated for a Latin Grammy for his work with his son’s bossa group Bossacucanova in 2002.
With a career spanning over 50 years, he has worked with the likes of Paul Winter, Toots Thielemans, Herbie Mann, Lucio Alves, Caetano Veloso, Joao Bosco, Maysa and Alcione. Donning his producer and arranger hats he has recorded Elis Regina, Leila Pinheiro, Wanda Sa, Chico Buarque, Emilio Santiago, Fagner, Gal Costa, Nara Lion, Jeanne, Ivan Lins and Oswaldo Montenegro who are a fraction of a long list of artists.
From 1970 to 1985, Menescal was at Polygram Records as producer, director and general manager but left to found his own production company – Albatross. Since the late Nineties he has been a part of “Tokyo-River Road” to Japan, was musical director for “Nara – A Lady Say” that ran five months in Rio de Janiero, and released a three instrumental CD “Zen” set of bossa nova, bolero and jazz.
In 2008 Roberto not only celebrated his 50 years of bossa nova but also the 50th anniversary of the music genre. That same year he was the musical director for the show “50 Years of Bossa Nova” held on Ipanema Beach to an audience of over 60,000 people. Composer, producer, arranger, guitarist and vocalist Roberto Menescal is also an educator, who between performances and recordings conducts numerous workshops at universities, conferences and musical events around the world.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Luiz Floriano Bonfá was born on October 17, 1922 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He studied weekly with Uruguayan classical guitarist Isaías Sávio from the age of 11, spending five hours traveling to and from the guitarist’s Santa Teresa home. However his extraordinary dedication and talent for the guitar, Sávio excused the youngster’s inability to pay for his lessons.
Bonfá first gained widespread exposure in Brazil in 1947 when he was featured on Rio’s Rádio Nacional. He was a member of the vocal group Quitandinha Serenaders in the late Forties. As a composer his first compositions such as Ranchinho de Palha and O Vento Não Sabe were recorded and performed by Brazilian crooner Dick Farney in the 1950s. His first hit song was De Cigarro em Cigarro, recorded by Nora Ney in 1957.
Farney introduced Luiz to Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, the leading songwriting team behind the worldwide explosion of Brazilian jazz/pop music in the late 1950s and 1960s. He collaborated with them and with other prominent Brazilian musicians and artists in productions of de Moraes’ anthological play Orfeu da Conceição, which several years later gave origin to Marcel Camus’ film Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro).
Bonfá wrote some of the original music featured in the film, including the numbers “Samba de Orfeu” and his most famous composition, “Manhã de Carnaval” (of which Carl Sigman later wrote a different set of English lyrics titled “A Day in the Life of a Fool”), which has been among the top ten standards played worldwide.
As a composer and performer, he was at heart an exponent of the bold, lyrical, lushly orchestrated, and emotionally charged samba-canção style that predated the arrival of João Gilberto’s more refined and subdued bossa nova style. Bonfá became a highly visible ambassador of Brazilian music in the United States beginning with the famous November 1962 Bossa Nova concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Luiz worked with Quincy Jones, George Benson, Stan Getz, and Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley sang his composition Almost in Love with lyrics by Randy Starr in the 1968 MGM film Live a Little, Love a Little. His composition The Gentle Rain with lyrics by Matt Dubey, and Sambolero have been recorded by numerous jazz musicians of the decades.
Guitarist and composer Luiz Bonfá, who played in a polyphonic style, harmonizing melody lines in a manner similar to that made famous by Wes Montgomery, passed away at 78 in Rio de Janeiro on January 12, 2001.
More Posts: guitar
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Laurindo Almeida was born Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto was born in the village of Prainha, Brazil on September 2, 1917. A self-taught guitarist, during his teenage years, he moved to São Paulo, worked as a radio artist, staff arranger and nightclub performer. At 19, he worked his way to Europe playing guitar in a cruise ship orchestra. While in Paris, he attended a performance at the Hot Club by Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, who became a lifelong artistic inspiration.
Returning to Brazil, Laurindo composed, performed and became known for playing classical Spanish and popular guitar. He moved to the United States in 1947 when one of his songs “Johnny Peddler” became a hit record by the Andrew Sisters. Once in Los Angeles, Almeida immediately went to work in film studio orchestras.
Almeida was first introduced to the jazz public as a featured guitarist with the Stan Kenton band in the late 1940s during the height of its success. His recording career enjoyed auspicious early success with the 1953 recordings now called Brazilliance No. 1 and No. 2 that was widely regarded as “landmark” recordings. Almeida and Shank’s combination of Brazilian and jazz rhythms in which Almeida coined the term “samba-jazz”. He would go on to have a classical solo recording career with Capitol Records beginning in 1954, winning a Grammy at the first awards ceremony.
Almeida won five career Grammys, toured, recorded and performed with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Byrd, Baden Powell, Stan Getz, Herbie Mann, Larry Coryell, Ray Brown, Shelly Manne and Jeff Hamilton to name a few. In addition he performed on more than 800 motion picture and television soundtracks such as The High Chaparral, Peter Gunn, Funny Girl, The Godfather and Unforgiven. He has been inducted into Fanfare’s Classical Recording Hall of Fame, received the Latin American & Caribbean Cultural Society Award and was awarded the “Comendador da Ordem do Rio Branco” by the Brazilian government.
Guitarist, composer and educator Laurindo Almeida was taught, recorded and performed until the week before passing away on July 26, 1995 at age 77 in Van Nuys, California.
More Posts: guitar
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Paulo Moura was born on July 15, 1932 in Sao Jose do Rio Preto, Brazil. His father, a maestro of a marching band, encouraged his son to train as a tailor but Paulo instead studied in the National Music School and performed with the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra.
He was the first black artist to become first clarinetist in the Municipal Theatre Orchestra. He appeared at Bossa Nova night at Carnegie Hall in 1962 with Sergio Mendes and both were featured on Cannonball Adderley’s 1962 album, Cannonball’s Bossa Nova.
From 1997 to 1999, Paulo was on the State Council of Culture in Rio de Janiero, a Councillor of the Federal Council of Music, and President of the Museum Foundation of Image and Sound. In 2000, Moura became the first Brazilian instrumentalist to win the Latin Grammy.
He won the Sharp Award for the most popular instrumentalist of the year in 1992. His CD “Paulo Moura e Os Oito Batutas” was listed by Barnes & Noble as one of the top 10 recommendations of the year for 1998. Clarinetist and saxophonist Paulo Moura passed away of lymphoma on July 12, 2010 just three days before his 78th birthday.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ivan Lins was born on June 16, 1945 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He began studies at the Military College in Rio, received an industrial chemical engineering degree from the Federal University and spending several years in Boston, Massachusetts with his naval engineer father, he continued his graduate studies at M.I.T. He considered a career in volleyball before discovering his considerable musical talent.
As a pianist Luiz Eça and João Donato influenced Lins. While in college he performed in a jazz-bossa trio. In 1970 Ivan started his music career by winning second place in a competition with the song “O Amor É o Meu País” and that same year famed Brazilian singer Elis Regina recorded his composition “Madalena”. He would host the TV Globo show Som Livre Exportaçã, partner with Vitor Martins and the two would become MPB history with romantic verses and political anthems.
His influence of jazz and bossa nova became evident in his music and an invitation from Quincy Jones brought him to international attention. Quincy recorded “Velas” (Sails) which won a Grammy, and George Benson recorded his Love Dance, and Paul Winter recorded “Velho Sertão”, renaming it Common Ground. It wasn’t too longer afterward that jazz artists like Patti Austin, Herbie Mann, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Pass, Diane Schuur, Manhattan Transfer and Ella Fitzgerald were recording his melodies.
He has recorded three-dozen albums, won two Latin Grammy awards, has won Best MPB Album of the Year, and many of his tunes have been part of Grammy winning albums and is one of the three most recorded Brazilian composers outside their native land.
