Laurindo Almeida - Brazilliance, Vol. 2 '2018

Tracks list

During a long and uncommonly productive career, Brazilian guitarist Laurindo
Almeida achieved a ubiquity in popular music that has yet to be fully
recognized. Largely responsible for the Brazilian/North American samba jazz that
would eventually catch on in the form of a musical trend known as bossa nova, he
played behind dozens of well-known pop vocalists and improved the overall
texture of many a studio production ensemble. One credible estimate states that
Almeida contributed to no less than 800 film soundtracks (among them The Old Man
and the Sea, How the West Was Won, and Breakfast at Tiffanys), as well as
countless TV scores. He also authored a series of guitar instruction books that
are still in use worldwide. A master improviser and a skilled arranger as well
as a brilliant interpreter of classical repertoire, he left for posterity superb
recordings of works by J.S. Bach, Fryderyk Chopin, Claude Debussy, and
Joaquín Rodrigo as well as a host of Brazilian composers including Heitor
Villa-Lobos, Radamés Gnattali, and Alfredo Vianna. Almeidas own chamber
compositions include a concerto for guitar and orchestra.

Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto was born in the village of Prainha
near the Port of Santos in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, on September 2,
1917. He received his first musical instruction from his mother, a classically
trained pianist, and credited her fondness for the music of Fryderyk Chopin as a
primary influence. After observing his sister being given guitar lessons, Lindo
borrowed her instrument and retreated to a barn where he taught himself to play
entirely by ear, transferring what hed heard his mother play on the piano to the
strings of the guitar. Many years later he would declare his preference for the
direct intimacy of the guitar as opposed to the more percussive piano. By the
age of nine he had become uncommonly skilled and was well on the way to becoming
a guitar virtuoso; it was then that he lost his father to typhoid fever. At 12
he relocated to São Paulo with his brother. He joined the Revolutionary Army
at 15 and was wounded in a civil conflagration. While recuperating in a hospital
he met Garoto, a nationally respected guitarist who was visiting to perform for
the patients. Within a few years, Almeida would perform and record extensively
with Garoto.

In 1935 Almeida moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he teamed up with singer and
tenor guitarist Nestor Amaral and began working in radio while becoming active
as a songwriter, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist and performing regularly at
the Casino da Urea. He composed folk songs, fox trots, sambas, choros, waltzes,
and comedic airs, and worked with a broad range of artists including choro
master Pixinguinha. He also collected 78-rpm jazz records, and was especially
fond of the way Fats Waller played the piano. In 1936, at the age of 19, he got
a job (playing banjo for the most part so as to be heard) for half a year on the
Cuyaba, a cruise ship that docked in every country along the coast of Europe
from Spain to Germany. While visiting Paris he was able to hear Django Reinhardt
and Stéphane Grappelli in person. In 1941 he played the Casino Copacabana,
and switched over to the Casino Balneario da Urca the following year. It was
there that he met a Portuguese ballerina named Natalia (Maria Miguelina Ferreira
Ribeiro) in 1944 and married her shortly afterwards.

After touring north with Carmen Miranda, Laurindo Almeida moved to Los Angeles
in 1947, and was able to do so because of royalties received from the sale of
his tune Johnny Pedlar, made famous as Johnny Peddler by popular acts like Jimmy
Dorsey, Les Brown, and the Andrews Sisters. He performed in Laguna Beach with
Nestor Amaral, José Oliveira, and violinist Elisabeth Waldo and appeared in a
variety show with vocalist Dennis Day and comedians Victor Borge and Red
Skelton, and in movies with Jimmy Durante and Danny Kaye. What made Almeida so
different from anyone else on the scene at the time was his practice of using
only his fingers on the guitar strings; everybody else used picks. When asked
who his favorite guitarists were, he gave an answer that was emblematic of his
entire career: classical virtuoso Andrés Segovia and Oscar Moore of the King
Cole Trio. Almeidas film production work brought him to the attention of
bandleader Stan Kenton, who hired and featured him while absorbing stylistic
elements of the northeast Brazilian baiao, the samba, and the choro. Kenton
eventually composed Lament especially for the guitarist. Almeidas direct
involvement with Kentons orchestra lasted until 1952. His first album as a solo
artist, Concert Creations for Guitar, was released in 1950 by Kentons host
label, Capitol.

Just as Machito, Dizzy Gillespie, and Chano Pozo had enlivened the scene with
their Afro-Cuban jazz during the late 40s, Laurindo Almeidas session work during
his first decade in the U.S. pollinated the modern jazz scene with rhythms and
melodies from Brazil. During the years 1953-1958, he recorded several jazz samba
albums with saxophonist Bud Shank that have since come to be regarded as
precursors of the bossa nova trend of the late 50s and early 60s. In addition to
steady session work with vocalists like June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King
Cole, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, Robert Mitchum, Connie
Russell, Frank Sinatra, Martha Tilton, Mel Tormé, Kitty White, and vocal
groups like the Four Freshmen, the Hi-Los, and the Platters, Almeida
collaborated with bandleader Ray Anthony, pianist George Shearing,
multi-instrumentalist Herbie Mann, space age pop musics Juan Garcia Esquivel,
Kentons right-hand man Pete Rugolo, and Hollywoods master of movie music Henry
Mancini.

Between 1960 and 1967 Almeida put out no less than nine pop-oriented albums for
Capitol; these were in addition to at least as many classical titles for that
label. When the bossa nova craze really set in, Almeida brought an authentic
Brazilian presence to records by Stan Getz, Shorty Rogers, and Cal Tjader; he
also assisted with a Harry Belafonte Christmas LP and cut an album with the
Modern Jazz Quartet, touring with them throughout all of Europe. While
continuing to work with Mancini, he practiced anonymity as a member of Guitars
Unlimited and the 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett, sat in with bandleader Gerald
Wilson, backed Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., and shared a session with
trumpeter Rafael Méndez. In 1968 he played on the soundtrack of the film
Charly, based upon Flowers for Algernon, a novel by Daniel Keyes.

In 1970 Almeida was one of the musicians backing Phil Ochs on his Greatest Hits
album, produced by Van Dyke Parks, who invited the guitarist back to record the
album Discover America in 1972. In 1974 Almeida and Bud Shank formed the L.A. 4
with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne (later replaced by Jeff
Hamilton); this unit would eventually turn out at least eight albums, mostly for
the Concord label, with which Almeida would be closely associated for the rest
of his days. During the 1980s he performed with his second wife, Canadian
soprano Deltra Ruth Eamon; he also recorded several albums with guitarist
Charlie Byrd and led a trio at Disney World in Orlando, FL. In 1988 he formed a
three-piece unit called Guitarjam with Sharon Isbin and Larry Coryell. Laurindo
Almeida never failed to get behind musicians who earned his respect, and was
especially supportive of other guitarists, including fellow Brazilian Baden
Powell and classicist Paulo Bellinati. At the age of 74 he cut a live album
(Outra Vez) with his trio at a club near San Diego, performing (in addition to
his own compositions) works by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Enriqué Granados,
Thelonious Monk, Ludwig van Beethoven, Irving Berlin, and Antonin Dvorák.
This intriguingly diverse selection was typical of Laurindo Almeida, who passed
away on July 26, 1995, in Van Nuys, CA. ~ arwulf arwulf

Tracklist:
01 - Simpatico
02 - Rio Rhapsody
03 - Nocturno
04 - Little Girl Blue
05 - Choro In A
06 - Mood Antigua
07 - The Color Of Her Hair
08 - Lonely
09 - I Didnt Know What Time It Was
10 - Carioca Hills
11 - Harlem Samba
12 - North Of The Border
13 - Sunset Baion
14 - Round Midnight
15 - Toro Dance
16 - Serenade For Alto
17 - Xana-Lyn
18 - Blowing Wild
19 - Gershwin Prelude
20 - Waltz Frio Y Calor

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