MILAGRE ("Miracle") is the debut ZOHO release by one of the most exceptionally soulful Brazilian jazz singers of our time, Maucha Adnet, and her duo partner, one of the foremost lyrical and swinging virtuosos of contemporary jazz piano, Helio Alves, and it is truly a labor of love and wonder, on many levels, and in many ways.
This heartfelt and continually miraculous recording represents the culmination of two great artists working together in a variety of musical contexts over the course of two productive decades, for the first time ever in the musically demanding "vocals and piano" duo format.
On MILAGRE, Maucha and Helio explore the inner and outer boundaries of 14 classic anthems of love, loss, longing, and life's celebration by Brazilian master musical story tellers such as Dori Caymmi, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Hermeto Pascoal, Edu Lobo, Moacir Santos, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and others.
Milagre most literally translates from Portuguese into English as "miracle," and this dynamic duo constantly reminds us here of one of the most miraculous possibilities of human life and song.
For the final decade of the legendary composer Antonio Carlos Jobim's illustrious life, from 1984 to 1994, Maucha Adnet performed and recorded with Maestro Jobim and his group Banda Nova. For the past twenty years, Maucha has been singing and playing all over the world with her own ensembles, as well as being a special guest soloist with Trio Da Paz, Claudio Roditi, Duduka Da Fonseca, Helio Alves, Oscar Castro-Neves, Slide Hampton, Herbie Mann, and Randy Brecker.
The exciting Brazilian pianist and composer Helio Alves began performing with singer Maucha Adnet shortly after he moved to New York City following his musical studies in Boston in 1993. Helio is one of the most in-demand sidemen in all of jazz, having worked extensively with Joe Henderson, Paquito D'Rivera, Gato Barbieri, Joyce, Airto Moreira, Rosa Passos, and many others.
Dori Caymmi and Nelson Motta's O Cantador was one of the first two songs that Maucha and Helio performed as a duo, and Maucha's relationship with Dori Caymmi dates back to her earliest days with Jobim, when Dori was playing guitar with the Maestro in 1984 at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro. This profoundly moving melody speaks about the unstoppable power of a soul's song to transcend our pain and human limitations.
Maucha explains, "I have a special love for a lot of Gilberto Gil's songs. Ever since I first heard Joao Gilberto's recording of Eu Vim da Bahia, which means 'I came from Bahia, to sing, to tell, a lot of the beautiful things that Bahia has. It has my ground, my sky, my sea. I came from Bahia, but I'll be back there, one day I'll be back there again."
Maucha has such a passionate affinity with Gilberto Gil's music that she is going to be recording a project in 2013 exclusively devoted to Gilberto Gil compositions, with members of her extraordinary Brazilian family including her composer/guitarist brother Mario Adnet, pianist Chico Adnet, and singer Muiza Adnet.
This marks Maucha's first recording of Antonio Carlos Jobim's iconic Waters of March with its psychedelic lyrics in English, which was the idea of her husband, the outstanding drummer and bandleader, Duduka Da Fonseca. Maucha remembers that "it was very challenging to make the words feel like totally my own words, and at first I didn't like the way I was sounding. Then little by little it developed with practice and letting it flow and our daughter Alana helping me by just telling me to do it naturally as I would speak. And I finally started feeling the same joy I feel when singing in Portuguese. And I was very inspired by the way Jobim used to sing it himself."
Jobim wrote Gabriela for the hit 1983 Brazilian film "Gabriela, Cravo e Canela," based upon Jorge Amado's romantic novel, and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sonia Braga. Maucha points out that "I used to sing this beautiful song with Jobim and the band. This arrangement is by Antonio Carlos and his son Paulo Jobim, and I just thought it would sound great for Helio and I to do it as a duo."
Read more: http://www.zohomusic.com/cds_detail.php?cds_id=120
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