“I was into the
Brazilian sound from the beginning,” 76-year-old clarinetist
and tenor saxophonist Eddie Daniels affirms from his
longtime home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Indeed, for his first
album as a leader, 1966’s First Prize!, Daniels, a New York
City native, recorded Antônio Carlos Jobim’s well-known
composition “Felicidad.” Nonetheless, until he began working
on his recently released CD, Heart of Brazil (Resonance
Records), Daniels had never heard of Brazilian
multi-instrumentalist and composer Egberto Gismonti. “But
once I heard his music,” Daniels says, “I fell in love with
it. Brazil is in my heart and my body, so as soon as I heard
Gismonti, I realized how connected I was to him.”
Born in a small city near Rio de
Janeiro in 1947, Gismonti began his prolific recording
career at the age of 22, producing a string of over 40
albums as a leader and gaining an international following
through a longstanding association with Germany’s ECM
Records and collaborations with such esteemed artists as
bassist Charlie Haden and saxophonist Jan Garbarek.
When Resonance
label head and Brazilian-music aficionado George Klabin sent
Daniels some of Gismonti’s recordings, Daniels was stunned
by what he heard. “It was all so fresh and new to me, and I
really couldn’t put a label on it,” he says. “His music has
a way of moving around and changing moods and feelings. I
just fell in love with it for what it was — like an infant
discovering something for the first time.”
Heart of
Brazil’s 13-tracks, all arranged for string quartet and
rhythm section, feature a dozen works recorded by Gismonti
between 1972 and 1987, plus one original. Daniels
demonstrates both his classical technique and his
ever-arresting improvising on works like “Loro.”
Written as a tribute to Hermeto Pascoal, the
brisk forró rhythm and a seamless melding of folk and
chamber music references provide a mesmerizing backdrop for
endless waves of staccato phrases from Daniels’ sweet
clarinet. “Baião Malandro,” named for another rural
Brazilian rhythm, showcases The Harlem String Quartet and
drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, and puts Gismonti’s love of
adventurous and rhythmically-charged string writing to the
fore. The rest of the album is filled with similarly
infectious high-spirited music, all of it dazzlingly
rendered.
“I got thrown into this
recording as an ingénue,” he laughs.
“It was like
shooting a spear through my heart. It got me.” —Mark Holston
Link to
Jazziz Aug 10, 2018
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