Plays the Contemporary Music of Mexico and Brazil

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Plays the Contemporary Music of Mexico and Brazil by Cal Tjader

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The Swedish-American vibraphonist Cal Tjader created a unique Latin/chamber-jazz sound with congueros Mongo Santamaria and Francisco Aguabella that danced and entranced musicians and listeners for decades. This 1962 recording departs from Tjader’s trademark combo format and Afro-Cuban stylings and features him in an expanded, orchestrated setting with woodwind arrangements by Clare Fischer. The contemporary music represented on this disc features sambas from Brazil, including “Vai Querer,” Antonio Carlos Jobim‘s “Meditacao”–which beautifully complements Stan Getz‘s more celebrated version–and “Choro e Batuque,” a New World Afro-Amerindian dance composition penned by guest guitarist Laurindo Almeida. Tjader’s Milt Jackson-influenced, soft and syncopated touch is supported by a topflight crew of sidemen, featuring flutist Paul Horn and the Cuban percussion king, Changuito, who expand and elongate the melodically rich music of Mexican composer Mario Ruiz Armengol. With the ethereal, wordless vocals of Ardeen de Camp, Tjader and company radiate cool, azure-impressioned Latin tinges on the boleros “Que Tristeza” and “Silenciosa” and the clave-coded “Sone.” Clare Fisher’s festive samba “Elizete” rounds out this pleasing potpourri of imaginative inter-American music. –Eugene Holley Jr.