Search - Various Artists :: Brazilliance: Music of Rhythm

Good CD

bordersj2 | Boston | 04/17/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is an older compilation of Brazilian music, taking tracks from the 70's on up to the late 80's. With this in mind, don't expect to see any of the names from the 'new' explosion of music that came about in the nineties and early part of the new century. And that's a good thing - I dig that it has some of the real, true Brazilian musicians, from Samba to MPB to even Bossa Nova. Stuff I heard when I was a kid... Some of my favorite tracks aren't necessarily the Beth Carvalho or Maria Bethania tracks - although I do like "Noite De Cristal" and the others are not bad. I really like Joanna's and this cd has my favorite rendition of Bala Com Bala as done by Joao Bosco. Gal Costa's dreamy vocals light up before that with "Bem Bom", and of course you can't go wrong with Bebel Gilberto's uncle, Chico Buarque who chips in a few songs of his own. You go in and out of so many styles of Brazilian music, from folk to tropicalismo to... virtually everything. The downside to this? Like the reviewer before said, there's ony 10 or 11 different artists, so you're not getting thr full range of artists (like Gilberto Gil, Caetano, even Leila Pinheroetc). But IMO that's okay since some of these artists never became ultra publicized like Gil or Caetano in the US. I would certainly recommend this if you like the traditional and older sounds. Also check out a comp called "Spirit of Brazil" which is a double disc set with old school tracks like this but with Baden Powell, Djavan, etc. and then new school cuts by Da Lata, Truby Trio, etc. Also there's a compilation titled "Bossa Nova and Samba" done by Gold Collection which has a lot of MPB tracks."