WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BRANFORD MARSALIS AND ARTURO SANDOVAL AND A DAZZLING CAST OF SINGERS, INCLUDING RIO-BORN CLAUDIA VILLELA, VIVA BRAZIL’S CLAUDIO AMARAL, ARGENTINE TANGO MASTER MARIA VOLONTÉ, MEXICAN-AMERICAN JAZZ DIVA JACKIE RYAN, THRICE-GRAMMY NOMINATED CARLA HELMBRECHT, AND BRAZILIAN JAZZ SPECIALIST SANDY CRESSMAN
Featuring a cast of top-shelf Bay Area players,JAZZANOVA was designed to showcase a superlative cast of singers and instrumentalist interpreting some of the Brazilian Songbook’s definitive standards and lesser known gems, with a couple of songs en Español included for good measure. While Tana is best known for the talent-proving band he coled with bassist RufusReid, Tana Reid, and as first call accompanist who toured and recorded with jazz legends such as James Moody, Zoot Sims, the HeathBrothers, ArtFarmer and J.J.Johnson, he’s collaborated with Brazilian masters from the start of his career.
“It goes back to when I was in school in Boston, ”Tana says. “Trumpeter Claudio Roditi was living there after studying at Berklee, and we’d play Brazilian jazz around Boston that sometimes included altosaxist and composer VictorAssis Brazil and trombonist Raul de Souza. I met Ricardo Peixoto when I was doing gigs in Nantucket during the summers. I followed his career and am fortunate that he ended up living in the San Francisco Bay Area and was able to be involved in this project.”
Rio-born Peixoto, a Bay Area mainstay who provides the essential pulse throughout the album, is a direct link between Tana’s early immersion in Brazilian music and JAZZANOVA. Tana’s band also features PETER HORVATH on piano and Fende rRhodes, Airto and Flora Purim collaborator GARY BROWN on bass, and percussion master MICHAEL SPIRO. Saxophonist BRANFORD MARSALIS or Cuban-born trumpeter ARTURO SANDOVAL contribute vivid solos on almost every track, providing incisive commentary for the six extraordinary vocalists. As Andrew Gilbert writes in the liner notes, “the album’s concept is based upon matching singers and songs… an eclectic cast united by the fact that each possesses an utterly personal sound and approach.”
The album opens with Peixoto’s playful arrangement pairing CLAUDIO AMARAL and CLAUDIA VILLELA on “Águas de Março” (WatersofMarch), a loving hat tip to Jobim and Elis Regina duet on the classic 1974 album Elis & Tom. It’s a welcome spotlight for Amaral, who’s better known as a prolific composer and guitarist via collaborations with vocalist Mark Murphy and Brazilian stars Martinho da Vila, Joao Gilberto, and Airto Moreira. Villela, one of the world’s finest Brazilian jazz singers, also contributes two original pieces,the soaring, Joni Mitchell-esque “Jangaga” and “Diride,” which pairs her with her longtime creative partner Peixoto on acoustic guitar.
While Helmbrecht isn’t usually associated with Brazilian music, JACKIE RYAN has honed a polyglot repertoire encompassing numerous Brazilian standards, and her aching rendition of Jobim’s “Por Causa De Você” (Don’t Eve rGo Away) taps into the same bottomless well of desperation that made FrankSinatra’s collaboration with the composer so powerful. Ryan and the great Argentine vocalist MARIAVOLONTÉ effectively team up on Peixoto’s sleek and buoyant multi-lingual arrangement of Jobim’s “Chega De Saudade” (NoMoreBlues).
One of Argentina’s most celebrated tango singers, Volonté fits neatly into the JAZZANOVA fold. In addition to “Chega De Saudade,” she performs another duet, joining Sandoval on the album’s closer, the romantic ballad “La Gloria Eres Tu,” indelibly linked to Mexican superstar Luis Miguel. Volonté’s impassioned performance is no surprise, but Sandoval’s potent vocals offer another glimpse at his prodigious musical gifts.
Throughout the session, Tana renders the various grooves with taste and an unerring ear for textural support. As authoritative as he is behind the drum kit, he’s emerged in recent decades as a savvy producer who can turn a concept into a singular musical communion, such as 2011’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Sons of Sound),a session exploring title themes from James Bondfilms, and 2013’s Otonawa, a strikingly beautiful project marrying traditional Japanese melodies with trenchant jazz improvisation.
Born in San Jose in March 14, 1952 and raised in Palo Alto,Tana played in a rock band as a teenager, and become a devoted jazz convert after acquiring a used copy of Miles Davis’s classic 1966 album Miles Smiles. His father led various Buddhist congregations around the Bay Area and his mother played koto and piano.While majoring in East Asian Studies at Harvard, he continued to play jazz whenever he could. His friendship with budding jazz drum star Billy Hart led to an early epiphany when he had a chance to sit in with Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band in the early 70s. A protégé of the great drum teacher Alan Dawson (whose past students included Tony Williams and Clifford Jarvis),Tana decided to pursue music full time and enrolled at New England Conservatory, graduating with a degree in percussion, still finding time to do tours with Sonny Rollins, Hubert Laws, and the Paul Winter Consort.
Other extra curricular gigs with heavyweight jazz artists like Milt Jackson,Sonny Stitt and Helen Humes during his eight years in Boston helped pave the way for his move to New York in 1979. He made a name for himself as a leader with Tana Reid, a band he co-founded and led with bassist Rufus Reid.During the course of the 90s the group toured internationally, released six CDs and helped boost the careers of brilliant young improvisers like pianist Rob Schneiderman, and tenor saxophonists Mark Turner and Ralph Moore. With JAZZANOVA, he’s staked a rightful claim to the Brazilian jazz canon, joined by a cast of redoubtable cast of collaborators.
