Players - Downbeat

ossa nova was dead because they didn’t experience
it as something live. For me, it was live.
It was happening daily below my apartment.”
Lobo was also João Donato’s bassist, and
Kassin would see the legendary singer and
pianist at those apartment jam sessions. Today,
they collaborate regularly, and Donato appears
on Futurismo. A few years later, Kassin met his
future bandmates—including Veloso and
Lancelotti—in high school.
A broadcast journalism major in college,
Kassin ended his university studies at 19 when
he began producing full-time for the major network
TV Globo. That job led to others producing
some of Brazil’s pop stars, such as Marisa
Monte. Kassin opened his own studio nine
years ago.
As Kassin built his reputation as a producer,
he continued performing with his high school
friends. Initially an experimental collective, with
Veloso on cello, the band shifted toward crafting
the playful songs that comprised its debut,
2001’s Moreno +2 Music Typewriter (Luaka
Bop). Kassin said that the marketing obstacles
that come from constantly rotating the group’s
name are not much of a concern.
“We were friends playing together since we
were kids,” Kassin said. “It was unexpected that
we would travel outside of Brazil. We never
even thought our records would get released.”
Spontaneity has led to interesting results,
with Orquestra Imperial being one of them.
Although Kassin always wanted to re-create a
Pianist Patrice Rushen, who is also featured
on the disc, believes Blueprints will allow the
jazz world to see Clark in a different light.
“Clark’s jazz side wasn’t recognized because it
wasn’t emphasized,” said Rushen, whose
career also straddles straightahead jazz and
crossover fare. “Playing with Hancock put him
in a situation where he was breaking new
ground. But he’s got all kinds of chops, and
now he’s got a document that says so.”
Clark has recorded straightahead albums,
but they are few and far between. Nearly 15
years separate Give The Drummer Some (1989)
and Summertime (2003). Clark believes he will
have more opportunities to record in this style.
“A lot of times when I used to go to record
companies with a jazz date, they’d ask, ‘Well,
can’t you play some funk?’” he said. “I’d just
go home. I’d say no.”
Clark attributes his newfound freedom to
record companies staffed by a younger generation.
These folks, he said, haven’t listened to
Thrust (1974), Hancock’s album that provided
Clark’s initial spotlight.
“They just know me as a jazz musician,”
he said. “In the last five years, it’s all good
for me to play what I started out playing. It’s
OK now at record companies for me to play
what I’ve already been playing for the past
30 years.” —Eric Fine
big band sound, he hadn’t planned on doing anything
about it until a promoter offered him a residency
at a 1,500-seat venue called Ballroom.
“I talked to him on a Thursday, and he called
the next day and said, ‘You start on Monday,’”
he said. “He thought I actually had the orchestra
and wanted to start playing weekly, but I didn’t
have anything ready. So I called all my friends
to have at least 15 people there. By Monday we
had 17 people onstage and seven people watching.
On the last day, it was sold out.”
Kassin’s unique tone underpins all these pro-
jects. When he plays samba, he deliberately uses
less notes than traditional Brazilians and often
drifts into effects that echo dub bassist Robert
Shakespeare. He adds that his model comes
from such records as the 1970 pairing of Brigitte
Fontaine and the Art Ensemble of Chicago,
Comme À La Radio, because its links to national
boundaries are tenuous.
“I love albums when they don’t sound from
a certain age, style,” he said. “I love albums
that sound like they’re from nowhere.”
—Aaron Cohen
April 2009 DOWNBEAT 25