Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Since they first met, pianist Antonio Adolfo has gone on to be one of the foremost bandleaders in Brazilian jazz, and Milton Nascimento became one of Brazil’s most essential and influential singers.
(Photo: Mirna Modolo)Two young musicians in Rio De Janeiro became friends and, briefly, collaborators back in 1967.
Antonio Adolfo, a 20-year-old pianist and Rio native, was leading a pioneering samba-jazz group called The 3-D Trio. Milton Nascimento, a largely unknown 25-year-old guitarist and singer who hailed from the small city of Tres Pontas in mountainous Minas Gerais, was in town to perform at the International Song Festival.
Since then, Adolfo has gone on to be one of the foremost bandleaders in Brazilian jazz, and Nascimento, of course, became one of Brazil’s most essential and influential singers. But in 1967, they both were trying to make a name for themselves.
“Milton is a genius,” Adolfo recently declared over the phone from Rio while discussing his latest release, BruMa (Mist): Celebrating Milton Nascimento.
The pianist fondly remembers hanging out at the home of songwriter brothers Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle with the soon-to-be star and others who became major figures in Brazilian pop, a group that included Roberto Menescal, Toninho Horta and Arthur Verocai.
“Marcos wrote a song called ‘Viola Enluarada’ that we recorded together—Marcos and Milton, backed by my 3-D Trio, with strings arranged by Dori Caymmi. The song became a hit,” Adolfo said. “Then we did a show at the Teatro Santa Rosa for two months that featured some of Milton’s songs like—‘Outubro,’ ‘Vera Cruz,’ ‘Travessia’ and ‘Tres Pontas.’ That was the only time I performed with Milton.”
Nascimento went on to claim 2nd prize in the song festival, launching his career in Brazil, and “Travessia”—with an English lyric by Gene Lees—eventually went on to become his first international hit.
Adolfo features “Outubro” and “Tres Pontas” on BruMa, as well as seven other Nascimento compositions, including “Nada Será Como Antes,” “Canção Do Sal” and “Cais.”
“I always thought about recording his songs,” Adolfo said. “It’s the combination of Milton’s voice, his arrangements, his playing, and his harmonic and rhythmic concepts. In the ’60s and ’70s, he brought some odd meters and modal ideas that he got from Miles [Davis] and Herbie [Hancock] and Wayne [Shorter]. Besides the modal thing, he did new types of [chordal] voicings on his guitar. It was all very modern, very original; nobody writes like him. That’s why jazz musicians like Wayne and Herbie love him: He is so jazzy.”
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
“With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.
Jan 2, 2025 10:50 AM
On Musho (Intakt), her recent duo album with pianist Alexander Hawkins, singer Sofia Jernberg interprets traditional…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
