Jazz and samba have shared a rich interactive history for the last half-century. In Rio de Janeiro, musicians took note of Chet Baker, Bill Evans, and composers like Cole Porter while jazz musicians in Los Angeles and New York absorbed the music of Black Orpheus and bossa nova innovators Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto.
Pianist/composer Antonio Adolfo was one of those young Rio players in the 1960s who found himself captivated by these new sounds, both at home and abroad. On his new CD
Lá e Cá (Here and There), Adolfo juxtaposes his own compositions and three of Jobim's with jazz and American Songbook classics to create a gorgeous showcase for this alluring musical synthesis and for Adolfo's self-described obsession with Brazilian phrasing. His vocalist daughter
Carol Saboya is featured on five tracks -- one in Portuguese (Sabiá) and the others in English (All the Things You Are, A Night in Tunisia, Time After Time, So in Love).
Lá e Cá picks up where father and daughter left off with their critically acclaimed 2007 CD,
Antonio Adolfo and Carol Saboya Ao Vivo/Live. "I love performing with Carol," says Adolfo. "She's very jazz-oriented, the type of singer musicians like to play with."
In addition to his prolific work as a pianist, composer, and arranger, Adolfo, 63, continues to be a leader in music education. The Centro Musical Antonio Adolfo in Rio and a new experimental Brazilian music school in Hollywood, Florida, where he resides, are a big part of his current professional life.
Saboya, 35, also teaches at the Centro, in Rio, and maintains her own recording career, which began with an appearance on Sergio Mendes's Grammy-winning
Brasileiro (1992). Carol's CDs include the Sharp Prêmio award-winning
Dança da Voz; and
Janelas Abertas, a session with guitarist Nelson Faria, as well as
Sessão Passatempo,
Presente, and the recent
Chão Aberto, all released in Brazil. Her
Bossa Nova and
Nova Bossa were made for JVC Japan.
I interviewed Carol recently for a forthcoming article on MSN.com on women at the forefront of indie Brazilian music. As a jazz singer myself, I was eager to showcase someone like Carol, whose clear, supple soprano (aptly described as "elfin" in the liner notes) enchanted me on my review copy of
Lá e Cá. Though only a snippet of the interview made it into the article, I wanted to share our full conversation here:
Can you describe your father’s concept of Brazilian phrasing?He can explain it better, but what he means is that the way we talk, the way we walk has so much to do with the way we do music. It has to do with being Carioca, being Brazilian. We have this relaxing way of talking, and this is in the music of Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Edu Lobo.
This album is not a bossa nova way of playing. There are many rhythms mixed in. For example, have you heard of toada? Toada is a rhythm that’s close to a baião. We do things that people may not know of.
What do you mean when you say it’s not a bossa nova way of playing?Bossa nova has a Brazilian pop sound of the 50s and 60s. In that era Brazilians found a way to play Brazilian styles such as samba with "sophisticated" harmony, a simplified beat and a soft sound, very much influenced by American artists such as Chet Baker and a few others.
This new release has also some influence from that moment, but with a much more hot jazz influence, showing how songs from the American songbook can sound Brazilian, even carrying that more intense jazz taste. The musicians play in a much more free interpretation way, what gives me inspiration to go deeper into that atmosphere as well.
But around the world, bossa nova is still in demand. Has that influenced your choices?I have two albums in Japan that are totally bossa nova. They just sort of happened in my career. There was a Japanese producer who wanted a singer with a "smooth voice." They are very typical arrangements. We divided it into two albums, the first called
Bossa Nova and the second called
Nova Bossa [laughs]. But that made me a career in Japan -- people know me there.
I think foreigners do fixate their Brazilian passion on bossa nova because it is more easy to listen to and at same time very charming and, possibly, more popular. Not so much in the manner jazz musicians love to play. That's why some of these musicians have created what they call samba jazz.
How will you promote the new record with your father?We want to do a tour starting in Miami, where my father lives, and New York too. We know lots of good musicians in the States. I really want to know what Americans think about the album.
The songs on Lá é Cá were all recorded live in studio in Rio with a great band. Your vocals are flawless! How many takes did you do on vocals?The band went first and I did a scratch vocal. We did that in three days. Then I did my six songs in the studio. Some of these I already knew very well, like So In Love and Sabia. For others, I had to study the lyrics a little, like Time After Time. Night in Tunisia was a difficult one, very different.
Was it hard to sing jazz?Well, I love jazz. I lived in Los Angeles when I was a teenager, and listened to a lot of jazz.
How about singing in English?In one song -- So In Love -- I had to redo a word. I was sure I was correct in my pronunciation, but I said "so 'tount' me" instead of "so taunt me." I had to redo that.
When I was singing in English I wasn’t very worried about singing a perfect accent. It’s more to do it with the right meaning of the words.
The father-daughter combination is unusual and sweet. What is it like working with your father? Do you know of others doing the same thing?Well, there’s Carlos Lyra and Kay Lyra; she’s a singer too.
It’s very nice to work with dad, but sometimes we fight. I’m a big fan of his work and I respect him a lot, but you know how it is with family. He says, "Let’s go over and over and over this," and I say, "No, that’s enough, it’s ok the way it is."
I already did this work before with him before, when we did the live show recording in 2007, which was the first time in a long time. We were wanting to do something together again.
How often do you perform live, or are you more of a studio singer?I love live performance, but the situation is very difficult, with the club owners not paying enough, so you almost have to pay to play. I go to the States to do some things with my dad.
My last album was released in 2008, and I did some gigs here and in Sao Paulo. The kind of music that I sing -- it’s not very popular; it plays on some radio stations, but not all of them.
Here the singers who are well known… Have you heard of Ivete Sangalo? She puts on a big show, and does lots of dancing -- that’s not my style. I sing what I know, and try to pass to the people what I’m feeling.
The music industry is very bad -- it’s the same all over the world. People make money doing big shows. People are not releasing CDs any more, many people are just releasing songs online.
Yes, it sounds like you’re describing the Bay Area music economy! It is indeed the same the world over! But how does the music scene in Rio compare to elsewhere in Brazil?I think Rio is where the scene happens. Everybody comes to Rio -- composers come here for the media. Of course, I love the rhythms from Bahia and the
nordeste (northeast). But when they want to be heard, musicians come here to Rio.
The wonderful singer/composer/guitarist Guinga is a dentist by day in Rio. Do you have another career outside of music?Oh, Guinga is a wonderful person too! My only other career is being a mommy. I have two kids, 8 and 4 years old.
Do you play an instrument? I play piano. I’m starting to perform for myself at a couple of shows, but I usually like to just sing.
I am the same way! I have played all my life, but I am petrified to perform on piano. I think I had too many traumatic recitals as a child.My dad never taught me a lot of piano, but I played in school, and when I teach I have to play for the students. I have started to study piano again, and get some lessons.
Tell me a little about your father’s music school in Rio. What vocal technique do you teach?The school (Antônio Adolfo Musical Center) is 25 years old; I grew up there, and then went to music college. Now I have students that are adults and teenagers.
I teach Brazilian and pop music. I think the basics are the same for every kind of singing. Warming up is the same as for classical singing.
The main branch of the school is in Leblon. We also have one in Barra da Tijuca, and I take care of this branch.
Your voice is so beautiful. As a singer, that’s something I admire, but sometimes it seems like a beautiful voice can be held against you! Has that ever happened to you?People here, singers, don’t like to study much, and if they do, the journalists will come and say, "She’s so technical, she doesn’t have soul." Of course you should study voice -- singing is like any career that you should train for, but we are a poor country, so we don’t have music in public schools. It’s a cultural thing. In the U.S. I admire how everyone wants to get better.
Now people don’t say this anymore, but yes, it used to happen: "She’s got such good technique, oh, her pitch is so perfect" -- like it was a bad thing!
You might be gratified to know that some have said the same about Ella Fitzgerald. I want to strangle a person if I hear them saying Ella was technically gifted but not expressive!Ella Fitzgerald is one of my biggest influences in singing, in Portuguese and Brazilian music as well as jazz. It’s so effortless, so beautiful -- and everything she’s singing has a point. I also like Billie Holiday, even though she had such an unusual voice.
With nine albums under your belt, what have you learned as a recording artist?I think we all improve, we mature, album after album, age after age, you feel more calm. You don’t have to show everything you know, you don’t have to hurry, you just relax. I don’t know if you do this, but when I listen to my first album, I wonder, "Why did I do that? Why was I trying to do so much?"
I always sing the way I feel. If we do things that we really feel, it’s going to be good.
