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56 DOWNBEAT OCTOBER 2010
beyond/dVd | By tED PAnKEn
Brazilian Icon
And Big Swing
Veteran Brazilian music producer
Nelson Motta makes an interesting
point in the Extras section of
No More Blues, the first of three
hour-long DVDs that constitute
Tom Jobim: Brazil’s Ambassador
of Song (DRg 18101; 30:00; 74:00;
69:00 ★★★★), a sprawling portrait
of the life and times of the iconic
composer-pianist-singer Antonio
Carlos Jobim. Midway through an
entertainingly caffeinated 9-minute
soliloquy, Motta states that
the emergence of the bossa nova
movement during the latter 1950s
was the ideal expression of Brazil’s
“embrace of the future,” and proceeds
to analyze the qualities that
made Jobim’s oeuvre the apotheosis
of the bossa sensibility.
Director Roberto DeOlivera elaborates
this notion from different angles
on each DVD, using extensive concert
and studio footage drawn from holdings
owned or licensed by Jobim’s publishing
company or by his widow Ana Jobim, and juxtaposing
these sequences with various interviews,
archival photographs and evocations of
Brazil’s urban and rural landscapes. No More
Blues explores Jobim’s formative years, his associations
with lyricist Vinicius de Moraes on
the 1956 musical play Orfeu Da Conceição,
the source of the catalytic film Black Orpheus,
and with guitarist-singer João Gilberto, with
whom Jobim cut the early ’60s albums that
exposed him to an international fan base. Waters
Of March, narrated by Chico Buarque, and
She’s A Carioca, narrated by Edu Lobo, illuminate
Jobim’s artistic development in its Brazilian
context. The former elaborates how Jobim
incorporated his immersion in Brazil’s flora and
fauna into his musical production, while the
latter links Jobim’s sensibility to the topography
and cultural mores of Rio De Janeiro, and
traces the synchronous maturation of the city
and its famous son. The net result? A portrait
that addresses Jobim’s persona by privileging
his Brazilian-ness over his globally influential
persona, but also contains no small amount
of saccharine hagiography. The concerts, from
1985 and 1990, feature Jobim’s virtuosic Banda
Nova—framed by an on-point five-woman
chorus, cello, guitar, bass and drums, the maestro
sings the classic lyrics and improvises on
his singular harmonies with passion, concision
and understated flair, commenting urbanely on
the flow.
ordering info: e1entertainment.com
Throughout the 90-minute 2006 documentary
Svend Asmussen: The Extraordinary
Life And Times Of A Jazz Legend (Shanach-
ie 6334 180:00 ★★★★), the Danish violin virtuoso,
still able to recite portions of The Iliad at
90, recounts his adventures in vivid, gripping
language. Known outside of Denmark primarily
for his appearance on a four-violin Duke Ellington
date in 1962, Asmussen—who learned
jazz in the ’20s by copying Joe Venuti solos
and burnished his showmanship during the
’30s when sharing the stage with the likes of
the Mills Brothers and Fats Waller—is revealed
as a five-tool entertainer, as comfortable doing
’50s TV comedy skits that wouldn’t have been
out of place on a contemporaneous American
variety show as jamming with the likes of
Benny Goodman and Toots Thielemans. There
is value added in a two-hour video jukebox
comprising 30 Asmussen performances between
1938 and 2003. The images are crisply
digitized, and the subtitles are excellent.
ordering info: shanachie.com
Also from the Danish TV archives is Ben
Webster: Tenor Sax Legend, Live And Intimate
(Shanachie 6333 120:00 ★★★★),
including the minimalist 48-minute portrait
Big Ben, from 1971, and 64 minutes of performance
footage from separate occasions in
1965, 1968 and 1969. Shot with one camera,
Big Ben opens with 12 minutes of Webster
in the studio, recording “Some Other Spring”
with a string orchestra, then switches to Webster
in his Copenhagen apartment, first reminiscing
about his early years, and then enjoying
a beer-and-schnapps visit from trumpeter
Charlie Shavers, who joins him later that evening,
after an unspecified amount of imbibing,
for a session at the Club Montmartre. DB
ordering info: shanachie.com