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CD Review
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Roots World, CD Review >>
Choro Ensemble
Nosso Tempo
Anzic Records (www.anzicrecords.com)
Choro ("crying, lament") is an instrumental music
that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the latter
nineteenth century, coming into full flower in
the 1930s. It drew on European salon and military
orchestra music, and such popular imports as
polka, schottische, tango and waltz, all
generously injected with an Afro-Brazilian
rhythmic feel. Rooted in the music of Carnival,
choro's affinity with samba is manifest, but
strains of Portuguese fado, the morna of Cape
Verde and early New Orleans jazz (Dixieland, minus the brass) are also
audible.
One of few choro practitioners in the United
States is the Choro Ensemble, which formed in New
York in the late 1990s when São Paulo guitarist
Pedro Ramos met Israeli jazz saxist-clarinetist
Anat Cohen. Joining Ramos (cavaquinho, tenor
guitar) and Cohen (clarinet) are Gustavo Dantas
(guitar), Carlos Almeida (seven-string guitar)
and Ze Mauricio (pandeiro, zabumba, surdo). They
have a weekly gig at the Zinc Bar (Houston and La
Guardia), an intimate setting where listeners sit
only a few feet away from the performers, and
everyone seems to know everyone else in a
wonderfully relaxed atmosphere. They have toured
Brazil twice, and have appeared at Carnegie Hall,
Lincoln Center, the JVC Jazz Festival, and the Apollo Theater.
Nosso Tempo ("Our Time") essays mostly archetypal
choros (Pixinguinha's "Ingênuo"; Jacob do
Bandolim's "Gostozinho," "Noites Cariocas,"
"Orgulhoso," and "De Coração à Coração "; Radamés
Gnattali's "Zanzando em Copacabana" and "Serenata
no Joá"; and Waldir Azevedo's "Brazileirinho").
These inventive new arrangements respect the
roots while moving into modern sonic territory.
Cohen, Ramos, Dantas, and Almeida each also
contribute delightful originals that revivify the canon and carry it
forward.
Cohen, the only non-Brazilian in the group,
captures choro's airy woodwind feel with her
lyrical clarinet lines. Shifting from jazz, she
says, entailed a demanding technical study to
master choro's lightning runs and expressive
melodic structure, prerequisites to
improvisation. The precision interplay of strings
is delicate yet robust, carried forward on
Mauricio's driving yet restrained percussive
swing. In this collective effort, each player
enjoys ample room for invention, achieving an
overall effect whose sparseness is evocative of
the music's past as well as its promise in the
hands of the Choro Ensemble.
By: Michael Stone 03/11/08 >> go there
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