Saudades

Nana Vasconcelos

LP from the "Luminessence" Series.
 
Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos’s Saudades album, recorded in March 1979, was the culmination of a dream for a musician who had long yearned to hear the berimbau in an orchestral context. This ‘concerto’ for an innovative player of a traditional instrument was made possible with the creative input of Egberto Gismonti, here the arranger of the material for strings, as well as co-composer and supporting soloist. The Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart was conducted by Mladen Gutesha (who had worked with ECM previously on trans-idiomatic projects with Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek and Terje Rypdal). Produced by Manfred Eicher, Saudades remains an extraordinary journey, an ahead-of-its-time album, waiting for the world to catch up. This vinyl reissue, in gatefold sleeve, adds new liner notes providing historical context and background information.
Featured Artists Recorded

March 1979, Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg

Any album featuring the efforts of two of Brazil´s best-known avant shamans, Nana Vasconcelos and Egberto Gismonti, is, for that reason alone, worthy of attention. Their ECM duet album, Danças Das Cabeças, presented us with startlingly fresh, exotic pictures and rhythms of the jungle that proved equally timeless and anachronistic. Nana can elicit a menagerie of sounds from his berimbau alone, not to mention his percussion, gongs and vocals. If Nana solo is provocative, on Saudades, Nana plus Gismonti plus strings plus voices is awesome, and utterly disarming. (…)
The berimbau, on whose one string slides a pitch-altering resonating gourd, is wonderfully suited as a solo improvising instrument, and with Nana in control, its music is remarkably rich in texture and tone. (…)
The wandering Gismonti plays with amazing presence and texture.
This is a very special record, with sounds and shapes you´ve probably never experienced before. Go get it.
Downbeat
 
 
Vasconcelos sehr bemerkenswerte Schallplatte enthält: eine mit Partien für Streichorchester versetzte Huldigung an das Berimbau, ein lateinamerikanisches Perkussionsinstrument von großer klanglicher Eigenart; ein von Streichern unterlegtes erregendes Stück für perkussionsartig behandelte Stimmen; eine spannungsreiche Rhapsodie für Gong, Perkussions- und perkussierende Streichinstrumente und Stimmen auf außerordentlich reizvollen, schwingend rhythmisierten Klängen; eine Coda auf dem Berimbau.
 
Schwierig zu sagen, was an dieser Vorführung mehr fasziniert, das ungewöhnliche Instrumentarium, die konzertierend vereinten Gegensätze von europäischer Streicher- und brasilianischer Perkussionsmusik, die außerordentlich oder die in der Beschränkung sich entzündende Klangphantasie. Man hört eine in der Folklore wurzelnde, schwierig einzuordnende zeitgenössische Musik, die einen zu konzentriertem Zuhören geradezu zwingt.
Manfred Sack, Die Zeit
 
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