OBAL VIZ FOTO
DESKA VELMI DOBRY STAV = VG+
ma skrabanecky
muze misty popraskavat
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don't want to tell you about this album. I want to listen to it.
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If you've never heard of Antonio Carlos Jobim, and you consider yourself a music afficionado or someone who knows about cool music, you really don't know shit. Go pick up Getz/Gilberto and this beauty from 1967. A primarily instrumental outing featuring Tom on Guitar, Piano & Harpsichord, this was my introduction to Jobim and Bossa Nova. This is still my favorite of that genre, but Getz/Gilberto and Elis & Tom are making for strong competition.
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Will Brazil ever run out of great jazz albums? This one's no exception.
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Everything Flows
Today this album passes as coffee house music. A few elitists will mock it as elevator jingle, to which die-hard fans may respond by unleashing a left hook filled with all the prejudice in the world. An imaginary confrontation that would not come true due to the inherently pacifist nature of the album. It is this nature that makes the album shine.
As a stand alone album it provides yet another example of the marvelous fusion that is Bossa Nova. Getz/Gilberto may have set off the craze but this album established the instrumental force of this "new trend". As part of a whole the album plays a more important role in the Zeitgeist of the 60s. Even in the face of many hardships in his home town and around the world, Antonio Carlos Jobim managed to come out with an album that musically transcribes the dreams and hopes of a counterculture.
The recording sessions took four days to complete. These sessions were attended by veterans of both genres, most notably legendary double bassist Ron Carter and virtuoso drummer Claudio Slon. Carter and Slon form and dominate the perpetual battery that builds the album. Their technical mastery of dynamics and rhythms musically personifies the essence of Bossa Nova as a fusion of Samba and Jazz. Jobim's guitar coexists with the battery as it forms a new layer to the rhythm section. Carlos uses the rhythm section as a base to expand his melodies. From the brass section to the string instruments, Carlos and his session musicians create multi-instrumental melodies, giving each musician their chance at a solo. It is worth noting that, similar to the natural coexistence of the two genres, recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder and music producer Creed Taylor did magic with the sounds. No one instrument rudely takes the lead before it has to, every instrument has its distinctive production behind it and the songs flow. Mark of a great record producer/engineer pair.
On the same year Wave was released, Brazil, Jobim's birthplace, went from a military nation to a military dictatorship. Oppositions were met with violent often deadly repressions and basic human rights were non-existent. The rest of the world wasn't fairing much better with the Cold War and all its implications (Vietnam) at full blast. Music in the 60s reflected this chaotic and self-destructive state of being. The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Velvet Underground and the Doors composed controversial music with distortion, loudness or brutality as their main tools of innovation. Besides a few distinctive vocal musicians and their controversial lyrics, the decade in music was dominated by violence both in lyrical and sound form. This was juxtaposed with the general message of world peace and universal love the same counterculture that accepted this form of music preached. Jobim, unknowingly, transcribed the message of this counterculture by composing instrumental music for the benevolent human spirit. This is the kind of music that one can sit and enjoy with loved ones, music that pleases the brain, music that doesn't challenge the status quo for the sake of individuality, and music that gives the listener the choice to analyze it or reflect on the state of things without lyrics interrupting (not including Lamento.)
Back then this album represented an ideal for both music and humanity. The short lived Bossa Nova movement managed to fuse two classic genres into one, creating an innovative form of popular music which the world accepted. The unique style musically symbolized the hopes and dreams of the decade, and for many served as an escape from the chaos in the world. Both movement and counterculture faded at the dawn of the 70s but their impact is felt and reflected upon until this day. Out of all Bossa Nova releases Wave is the purest album, lacking almost any lyrics and focusing on the masterfully crafted instrumental compositions that made the genre a staple of modern music.
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