Search - Various Artists :: Ultimate Samba Collection (Slip)

Cafe Samba... Combined!

bordersj2 | Boston | 11/03/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is actually Sunswept's Cafe Samba series combined into one double disc package. So you get Cafe Samba from 2003 along with Cafe Samba II from 2004 wrapped up into a double disc set for 2005. There's nothing really new (no other songs) in the set that I saw, other than a red cover. However there is one sensational thing about it from the get-go - it's priced very well! Quick recap - It's a heavy Italian Bossa flavored series in which I loved volume 1, but didn't care for volume 2.



And here's the longer recap. I have mixed feelings for the two releases. Cafe Samba vol 1 had some very nice original songs on it along with tracks that really fit the title of the cd. Latin Vibe's remake to "Beijo Na Boca" was very cute, and Jazzelicious "Sambossa" became wildly popular with advertising agencies - you can hear it on shampoo commercials along with a cut from it on those cereal commercials (the one where the cereal's so crunchy, he cannot hear that his boss is firing him and stays there forever!) Other good tracks were Camiel's "El Alba", with a chilled sense to it and the explosive Soul Bossa Trio rendition of "Cascade of the Seven Waterfalls". I LOVE their version... it's so fresh and full of life, you can feel the mist. Meanwhile Volume two didn't grab me. It didn't have the same aura as the first and actually leaned more so on the overused cuts in the genre. It also exposed the one thing about volume one that I found a bit dubious - the immense duplication in tracks between this series and the "Brazil Re-Mixed" series, since volume 2 of this one had some cuts off of that too. Also, not all of the songs here were in their entirety (Racoon's "Sensacao"). But there are still some decent acts here like BossaCucaNova, Bunglove (although... the name... lost in translation), Praful and again Nicola Conte.



Still, at about 18 bucks, I can't recommend against it because you do get some fantastic cuts on the whole if you haven't heard either of these before, or any of the songs in general. Keep in mind that they did pull from several other bigger labels in the genre like Irma. So if you like this, I'd recommend Irma's bossa comps (Sister Bossa 1 thru 4 in particular), Brazilectro 4 and 5, Sony's "Rio Lounge" series, "Nova Brasil: Nova", Nova Latino 4 and Frequent Flyer: Rio De Janeiro."