Trio Nagô — Prece ao vento
from Trio Nago (1955)
Let’s stay on the sunny shores of Brazil, Forteleza to be exact, with this track by Trio Nagô, three fellows with soothing voices, active in the 1940s-60s.
There’s a lot of breezy samba on this album. But this cut, ‘Prece ao vento’ (Prayer to the Wind) is a bit more unusual, with horror-film theremin, and accordion for dramatic effect. The lovely cover art is by the Argentinian graphic artist Paez Torres.
Look at these fine gentlemen.
Thirsty for more coconut juice? Bossa Brasileira has the album and a detailed writeup. And the #1 rabbithole, Mining the Audio Motherlode, had me drilling into this vein of Brazilian ore in the first place.
Teo Macero — Sounds of May
from What’s New? (1955)
The albums Teo Macero produced are probably better known than his own (Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, Kind of Blue; Dave Brubeck’s Time Out; Charles Mingus’ Mingus Ah Um). But a good part of his producing genius came from his compositional skills — especially when he’d take a razor to the recorded reels, splicing them back together into something altogether new. (i.e. Bitches Brew)
He co-founded the Jazz Composer’s Workshop with Charles Mingus in 1953, and did release his own compositions from the time on Mingus’ Debut Records. On this original composition, ‘Sounds of May,’ not only does he incorporate accordion, which actually pairs quite well with the saxes, but he also unleashes all his production tricks — cutting tape, changing speeds, overdubbing. Here’s how he describes it:
‘Sounds of May’ is an experiment on my part to see what could be done with combining many Palestrina-like vocal lines, overtones of the piano, jazz ensembles (both small and large), changing the speed of the original tape (regular to half-speed, and then combining the half-speed copy with the original track), and finally overdubbing a single alto saxophone line to most of the composition.
Kind of hard to believe this song came out in the 1950s.
Hank Jones — Summer’s Gone
from Quartet Quintet (1955)
Lovely, lovely tune, as the summer gets out its dying breath…
Los Wawancó — No Te Vayas Corazon
Los Wawancó es una agrupación musical de música tropical formada en la Argentina con músicos de diversas nacionalidades como Costa Rica, Perú, Chile y Colombia, siendo la primera agrupación en su género en tener tan diversas nacionalidades e influencias musicales, más adelante se le uniría uno de nacionalidad argentina, se considera como parte importante de la cumbia en latinoamérica debido a que muchos temas compuestas por sus miembros han sido regrabadas en Perú, Colombia y México, en particular en la Cumbia argentina.
En el año 1955, las universidades argentinas albergan a cientos de estudiantes que llegan de toda América Latina. Un grupo de recién llegados tiene muchas ganas de divertirse y menos ganas de estudiar medicina.
Se juntan a tocar muy seguido, hasta que un día consiguen fecha: el restaurante bailable Tom y Jerry, en Vicente López, por invitación del empresario Francisco Trimboli.
Equipada con camisas floreadas prestadas, la primera formación tuvo a Rafael Aedo, Enrique Salazar y Hernán Rojas (Colombia), Carlos Cabrera (Perú), Pedro Rojas (Perú), Sergio Solar (Chile) y Mario Castellón (Costa Rica). Los chicos hacen una mezcla de los ritmos de sus países: cumbia, merengue, guaracha. El integrante argentino que se incorporó después fue Miguel Loubet (piano).
