Time: 48:19
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2010
Styles: Chanson, Contemporary Jazz, Fado, Folk
Art: Front
01. Retrato (3:24)
02. Cantigas Do Maio (4:45)
03. Lisboa Que Amanhece (6:02)
04. Gracias A La Vida (4:40)
05. Porto Sentido (6:02)
06. O Sol (5:23)
07. Foi Por Ela (4:17)
08. Avec Le Temps (4:58)
09. Quand On N'a Que L'amour (4:50)
10. Talvez Por Acaso (3:53)
Personnel:
Carlos Do Carmo: Vocals
Bernardo Sassetti: Piano
It's not an album of fado? It's not a jazz album? It's a fusion between the musical personalities of Carlos do Carmo and Bernardo Sassetti. A single line between the classic repertoire of Portuguese music and the timeless themes of the international repertoire.
This is an album with no secrets, at least as far as Carlos Do Carmo's voice (which comes up pure, without trapezoids, with no processing) is concerned. But it was a challenge because he was in danger of some monotony. And if this challenge is overcome with distinction and class, it is due to Bernardo Sassetti's superb and powerful performance: the pianist never puts himself above the voice, knows how to give him space and dynamic breathing and then at the moments when he assumes greater harmonic strength is brilliant, exemplary.
Then both musicians give themselves to the neighbor by welcoming him in return. Sassetti embraces a popular sense, while being exuberant and Carlos Do Carmo receives from the pianist a new adventure, which embraces as a young man, maintaining all its sophistication. It is a dialogue, which becomes touching, of mutual admiration this album, and also of admiration to the great authors of Portuguese music - these versions seem to me more passionate, those of Jacques Brel, "Quand On N'a Que L'Amour ", Léo Ferré," Avec Le Temps "and Violeta Parra," Gracias La Vida ", are emotionally more distant, but perhaps this is also a response of a lover of Portuguese music. A work that evokes a revival of Portuguese music in a erudite sense, maintaining the most important sensitivity of all: the proximity to the public. (From Portuguese)
Carlos Do Carmo: Vocals
Bernardo Sassetti: Piano
It's not an album of fado? It's not a jazz album? It's a fusion between the musical personalities of Carlos do Carmo and Bernardo Sassetti. A single line between the classic repertoire of Portuguese music and the timeless themes of the international repertoire.
This is an album with no secrets, at least as far as Carlos Do Carmo's voice (which comes up pure, without trapezoids, with no processing) is concerned. But it was a challenge because he was in danger of some monotony. And if this challenge is overcome with distinction and class, it is due to Bernardo Sassetti's superb and powerful performance: the pianist never puts himself above the voice, knows how to give him space and dynamic breathing and then at the moments when he assumes greater harmonic strength is brilliant, exemplary.
Then both musicians give themselves to the neighbor by welcoming him in return. Sassetti embraces a popular sense, while being exuberant and Carlos Do Carmo receives from the pianist a new adventure, which embraces as a young man, maintaining all its sophistication. It is a dialogue, which becomes touching, of mutual admiration this album, and also of admiration to the great authors of Portuguese music - these versions seem to me more passionate, those of Jacques Brel, "Quand On N'a Que L'Amour ", Léo Ferré," Avec Le Temps "and Violeta Parra," Gracias La Vida ", are emotionally more distant, but perhaps this is also a response of a lover of Portuguese music. A work that evokes a revival of Portuguese music in a erudite sense, maintaining the most important sensitivity of all: the proximity to the public. (From Portuguese)
Carlos Do Carmo & Bernardo Sassetti
You Silky Denims people are really too much! Used to be a follower had to request something specifically – in the CBox – in order to get it. Now it seems to be enough for one of your faithful merely to THINK something he/she might like to hear, and there it is 24 hours later. (Not even Amazon delivers THAT fast.) Wonder what else you know to be on my unspoken wish list. This present album – gorgeous . . . well, at the least it’s gorgeous at the start! Loved the first cut, “Retrato.” Loved the “Cantigas do Maio.” (That’s Brazilian in origin, I think.) Adored “Lisboa que amanhece.” Wow! Fabulous! But then he’s off into Mercedes Sosas’s increasingly stale and shop-worn and irredeemably 1960s-ish (and originally Chilean) “Gracias a la Vida” (in Spanish moreover, not in Portuguese) and not long after that he’s doing Léo Ferré’s “Avec le temps” in such a way that you might for a long moment think it’s Bécaud or Aznavour minus the gargle. I do pretty much get the commercial imperative behind this kind of recording. Great artists like CdoC want to escape their national pigeonholes. They want to reach a broader audience than the local one. (Their recording companies want then to, anyway.) But then what you wind up with is a méli-mélo, a hodgepodge, uma mixórdia, uma confusão – in other words, a mixtape. After you put up that very stimulating experiment “Jazz in Fado” the other day, I did (as I said I would) go and look to see what CdoC I had in my own collection. We listened attentively to “CdoC – Ao vivo no CCB: os sucessos de 35 anos de carreira.” Confess that, in the end, I found that more innocent recording considerably more satisfying artistically than the present ultra-sophisticated one. Oh, yeah, Sassetti’s contribution is terrific. Very sad that Sassetti died so absurdly young and in such a stupid way. But Sassetti’s arrangements suit some of the songs on the present album better than, in my opinion, they suit others, and I confess I may have found the Cuban jazz arrangements on “Jazz in Fado” to work better in harness to fado than Sassetti’s subtler piano did. But, then again, maybe I just have to listen more. I’ll say this, though, in “Jazz in Fado” I did not miss the Portuguese guitar. Listening to the fado tracks in the present CD, I did wonder where the guitar was. (In the “Ao vivo no CCB,” NO such quizzing, needless to say. In “Ao vivo,” there’s guitar aplenty.) Thanks, Mai. There is another series of remarks I’ve been tempted to make about some of the younger generation of fado singers – since a back and forth we had a couple of weeks ago. Since these remarks are probably narrow-minded and moth-eaten, I want to think for a while longer before I say them out loud. If I overcome my inhibition, I’ll be back.
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