Bons Amigos won't be released in America until September 13th, 2011, but I wanted you all to know about it. :)
PRESS RELEASE
Claudio Roditi - Bons AmigosIn the cover photo of his new album Bons Amigos, Claudio Roditi sits surrounded by "good friends" indeed - the various horns that he has used to make extraordinary music, on both sides of the equator, during a career that spans more than four decades. And on this disc, he's making a little more of that music than on any recording in recent years.
"I felt like playing a few more notes on this album," says the 65-year-old trumpet legend. "I played double-time more often than I normally do, and there are some solos where I'm taking some liberties that I usually don't. It was just my choice on this album. Very often, I equate playing a lot of notes with 'showing off' - and I'm not a player who likes to show off."
Roditi's words will ring true for those who have heard the 20 or so albums under his own leadership, or his work as the quintessential sideman in bands led by Paquito D'Rivera, Herbie Mann, Mark Murphy, and McCoy Tyner (to name a few). But savvy listeners also know that Roditi - as much as any contemporary trumpeter, and more than most - has the pure technique and unerring taste to add notes and complicate his improvisations without ever sounding like he's blowing smoke. He also has the instrumental armamentarium, comprising his prized rotary valve instruments, which contain the valve mechanism seen on French horns. Such trumpets and flugelhorns are usually found in classical music, but rarely in jazz; indeed, Roditi is the only jazz trumpeter of note to utilize the rotary valve horns.
LISTEN TO EXCLUSIVE STREAMING TRACKS FROM THE ALBUM
"They get a warmer sound than the piston valve instruments," he says, emphasizing "warmer" with the accents of his native Brazil (which remain strong despite his having lived in the U.S. since 1970). "The wrap of the tubing is curved, like a bugle, and the bends of the tubing are wider than on piston valve trumpets. The bell is wider, too. I just really like the warmth. And on top of that, I love the way they look."
On Bons Amigos, listeners will also love the way these instruments sound, as they allow Roditi to once again bring added dimension to his seamless and alluring solos. His work has inspired such accolades as "One of the very best performers in jazz" (Allmusic.com); earned praise for his "intelligence and music focus" (Los Angeles Times); and led the Chicago READER to comment that Roditi has "a New Yorker's grasp of swing, the Brazilian gift for graceful and pungent lyricism, and an innate sense of how best to combine them in any given piece."
The title Bons Amigos might also refer to the Brazilian songs that make up the album (after all, a jazz soloist has no better friend than a good composition), and to the writers of those compositions, most of them known personally to Roditi. The album's repertoire was chosen by Roditi and Resonance Records owner-producer George Klabin, with each of them responsible for half the tunes. The selection of the opening song, "O Sonho" by the great Brazilian jazz and classical composer Egberto Gismonti, typifies the collaborative empathy between the two men. As Roditi explains, "George suggested that one, but I actually had played on the original recording of that song, in Brazil in the 60s, as part of the horn section that recorded it with Egberto.
"In those days, they didn't list the musicians, so there was never any documentation of this. But I so clearly remember meeting Egberto on that session, and talking with him and asking why there were no jazz solos on the record. Back then, though, the writers and the pop producers, they had absolutely no interest in having a jazz solo on their recordings." But Klabin's suggestion gave Roditi the chance to at last explore with improvisation this beautiful melody - some 45 years after he first encountered it.
"Ceu e Mar" ("Sea and Sky") is from the pen of Johnny Alf, one of Roditi's favorite composers who, while not well known in the U.S., "was like the Billy Strayhorn of Brazilian music. He was so ahead of his time. His songs were written in the early 50s, years before the music was called 'bossa nova,' and all the major musicians were checking him out - even Jobim," says Roditi. Speaking of Jobim, he is represented here by his lovely "Ligia"; the other songs come from such noted Brazilian jazz artists as Eliane Elias, Toninho Horta, and Roditi himself. On one of those, "Piccolo Samba", he gets to display one of his latest acquisitions, a piccolo trumpet (with piston valves), using it to overdub five separate parts to create a high-pitched horn chorale. It serves as a stirring finale for an album brimming with Brazilian bonhomie, and with a newfound extroversion from one of jazz's unsung treasures.
Claudio Roditi · Bons Amigos
Resonance Records HCD - 2010 · Release Date: September 13, 2011
For further information on this and other Resonance Records releases, visit:www.ResonanceRecords.org
Resonance Records is a program of the Rising Jazz Stars Foundation,
a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.