Saudações

“Saudações”, Egberto Gismonti explains, means ‘greetings, salutations, saludos, saluti’. The greetings follow a longer absence, at least on record, this double album marking his first appearance on ECM in 14 years. Although he has been active as a touring musician in the interim and continued to produce recordings by other artists for his Brazilian Carmo label (“Saudações” is a co-production of ECM and Carmo), the multi-instrumentalist and composer has devoted increasingly more time to writing new music for larger ensembles. His last ECM recording “Meeting Point” (recorded in 1995) was made with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra in Vilnius. This time Gismonti opts for interpreters and locations nearer to home: disc one, with the seven-part suite “Sertões Veredas” was recorded in Havana with the Camaerata Romeu, and disc two, a programme of guitar duets and solos, was recorded in Rio de Janeiro with Egberto and his son Alexandre.

The “Sertões Veredas” suite, as Lilian Dias remarks in the liner notes, “takes a musical journey through Brazil, revealing, in a diffuse way, the different faces of its people, culture and history. It’s a journey through time and space, in a permanent exchange between music, literature and cinema, where nothing is left untouched and everything goes through a deep transformation. However, the translation of this scenery of dreams in the language of music, leads us through a maze of memories and allusions, voices and colors, sounds and images”.

In Gismonti’s writing here, influence from the European tradition, from Vivaldi to Stravinsky, takes its place alongside influences from folk forms, Xingu Indian ritual, film music, choro, Villa Lobos and more. Elements are contrasted, juxtaposed, interwoven and the demarcation lines between so-called serious and popular genres blurred. “All European cultures, and other cultures, are part of ours” Gismonti told one journalist when “Meeting Point” was released, and the new suite’s subtitle, “Tribute to Miscegenation” makes it plain that Gismonti is once again celebrating the cultural and ethnic mix that is unique to Latin America and to Brazil in particular.

Cuba’s Camerata Romeu, an intriguing young chamber orchestra staffed entirely by female musicians under the direction of conductor Zenaida Romeu is devoted exclusively to the performance of South American music. In the film “Cuba Mia”, a documentary about the orchestra, the conductor talks about her mission, focusing on the specific qualities -rhythmic, philosophical, poetic – that make south American composers a force apart in the music world. Romeu’s interpretation of Gismonti’s music is characteristically committed, “accompanying our long paths with joy all the way from Havana.”

The suite was recorded in Havana’s Teatro Amadeo Roldán in August 2006. In April and May of the following year, in Rio de Janeiro Gismonti recorded a further programme “Duetos de Violões” with his talented son Alexandre .This selection includes new arrangements of a number of Gismonti favourites including “Lundú”, “ZigZag” and “Dança dos Escravos”. There are seven duets. Additionally, Alexandre plays solo on “Palhaço” and his own “Choro Antônio”, and Egberto solos on the title track, “Saudações”.