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Hamilton de Holanda &
André Mehmari
Continuous Friendship
ADVENTURE MUSIC 1043
★★★
On Continuous Friendship, mandolinist
Hamilton de Holanda and pianist André
Mehmari, stellar musicians from Brazil,
place the act of interaction and dialogue above the vagaries of genre. On
this collection of heavily improvised duets, melodic fluidity and dazzling
harmonic exploration range freely over categorical signposts like jazz,
choro and classical music.
De Holanda has gained loads of acclaim for his stunning technique and
ability to find new connections between various Brazilian traditions and
jazz improvisation. Mehmari is new to me, but he’s clearly an accomplished
player, equally adept at traditional Brazilian forms and Western
classical music.
Ultimately, however, it’s the rapport these two player share that distinguishes
the album. Whether essaying classics by composers from the
world of choro (Pixinguinha), samba (Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho), MPB
(Guinga) or interpreting a series of original themes, the sensitive interplay
almost creates an idiom unto itself. On the original works, the duo veers
through shape-shifting sections with precision, but in the end the music
comes off as a spirited conversation, flowing as naturally as a talk between
old friends.
—Peter Margasak
Continuous Friendship: Rose; News; The Continuous Friendship Choro; It Happens; Underage;
Black Choro; The Dream; With Serjão; Live Between Waltz; Streetwise Baião; Love Theme—
Cinema Paradiso; Black Choro; News; The Continuous Friendship Choro. (60:58)
Personnel: Hamilton de Holanda, mandolin; André Mehmari, piano.
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Ordering info: adventure-music.com
John McNeil/Bill McHenry
Rediscovery
SUNNYSIDE 1168
★★★★
Is John McNeil the love child of Chet
Baker and Ornette Coleman You
might wonder as you listen to this
album. McNeil plays with some of
Baker’s cool élan in a setting that brings
to mind nothing so much as a marriage of two overlapping California
musical camps—West Coast cool and the early recordings of the Coleman
quartet.
Rediscovery unearths gems and obscurities, most of which come out of,
or relate to, the somewhat neglected breezy bop of Baker and friends. The
album is a follow up to East Coast Cool, on which McNeil married the
arranging techniques of Gerry Mulligan to free jazz. The trumpeter, this
time with tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry, recalls the sunniness of the
Left Coast sound but subverts it with sly humor and a tender melancholy.
Among the rediscoveries are a couple of tracks based on Mulligan
arrangements, “Godchild” being the best known. Two more come from
early John Coltrane recordings with Wilbur Harden, but the highlights are
the guileless charm of a pair of tunes by little remembered pianist Russ
Freeman, “Band Aid” and “Happy Little Sunbeam.” McNeil brings the
cool, McHenry supplies the heat, and bassist Joe Martin and drummer
Jochen Rueckert keep things open but swinging. —David French
Rediscovery: Rediscovery; Godchild; Band Aid; Off Shore; Rhodomagnetics; Soft Shoe; Happy
Little Sunbeam; I’ll Get By; Marvos Manny; Time Travel. (62:20)
Personnel: John McNeil, trumpet; Bill McHenry, tenor saxophone; Joe Martin, bass; Jochen
Rueckert, drums.
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Ordering info: sunnysiderecords.com
September 2008 DOWNBEAT 79