LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ Resonance Records) - From American jazz vocal royalty Carmen McRae and
Al Jarreau to Brazilian singing stars
Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso, the songs of Brazilian singing/songwriting pop star Djavan have been sung and heard round the world. To a lesser extent, the music of Djavan (pronounced zha-von) - heavy in the lyric department - has not been as voluminously covered on the instrumental side. Producer
George Klabin - the founder of Resonance Records and half Brazilian felt a responsibility to change that tune. He is doing so by signing classically trained jazz flautist Lori Bell to Resonance and assigning her first project for the label to be the labor of love, The
Music of Djavan.
Lori Bell, who has been making recordings as a leader since her self-titled 1983 debut, is no stranger to Brazilian music. In fact, her first instrument was the ukulele at age 4 and the first two songs her father - a big band trumpeter in New York City - taught her were 'The Girl from Ipanema' and 'Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars),' both penned by the godfather of Brazilian song, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Later as a professional musician, Lori's sophomore album was 1989's Take Me to Brazil (the first to contain her original compositions and, like her debut, on the renowned West Coast jazz imprint Discovery Records). However, though Lori was well versed in the music of Jobim and other Bossa Nova pioneers like Luis Bonfa and the more modern Brazilian jazz fusion of the trio Azymuth, she was not as familiar with Djavan's music.
'George was real insistent about doing the Djavan project, and sent me a CD of thirteen of his favorite Djavan songs', said Lori. My first thought was that I was going to need much more space for me and the other musicians to solo, and that my biggest challenge was going to be how to phrase certain things. Learning music with lyrics I didn't understand was a challenge. Because Djavan's music rests so heavily on his lyrics and Portuguese has so many syllables, there was some occasional editing I had to do to make the lines flow more naturally for the flute. Let's just say I had a lot of work on my plate!'
After acquainting herself further with the material, Lori quickly wrote three arrangements, including 'Luz' (a breezy skip for which she reworked the solo section and added a minor third modulation at the coda). She then met her trio of Tamir Hendelman on piano, David Enos on bass and Enzo Todesco on drums, then immediately began fine tuning and recording songs.'Some parts of the arrangements happened right before we recorded them,' Ms. Bell marvels.
By the next session, an exhilarating arranging approach was begun. 'I'd be flying up the 405 on my cell going, 'Let's try this one in 6' while Tamir was at the piano finessing stuff, too. Then once I got to the studio, the whole band would try more things as a collective. By that second session our hearts were completely open as we began to fall in love with the music and the possibilities. Tamir came up with the idea of us trading lines on 'Nobreza'- a beautiful man/woman kind of thing.'
Among Lori's favorites are the syncopated samba 'Jogral,' the sexy dual tempo of 'A Ilha,' the floating beauty of 'Alibi' and the joyful groove of 'Serrado' for which Lori layered a trio of C and alto flutes to heady effect, Tamir takes a swingin' solo and percussionist Ana Gazzola adds sumptuous colors. Gazzola returns on 'Capim' also lending her voice to a particularly popular Djavan song that has been covered by many, including The Manhattan Transfer. And bassist Enos is nicely featured on the impassioned 'Liberdade' (rendered as a jazz waltz) then unleashed to bring the funk on 'Canto de Lyra.' The CD comes to a serene and reverent close with 'Faltando Um Pedaco (Missing a Piece),' fully orchestrated by Kuno Schmid in a way that recalls the lyricism of Chuck Mangione.
With her father being a busy musician, jazz was always in the house when Lori Bell was growing up in Brooklyn. Dad moved the family to San Diego when she was 8 and she played string instruments first for 12 years before making the switch to flute at 16. 'One of my father's friends was reed player Dick Swink. I was playing some of my originals on guitar for him when he pulled out a flute he'd just scored from a pawn shop. I said, 'Let me see that thing,' and started playing 'Greensleeves' like I knew what I was doing! I think that was because I played recorder when I was 3, so I had an instinct for how wind instruments were played. When I got my hands on that flute, I went nuts!'
Ms. Bell is one of several artists involved in the Rising Jazz Stars Foundation and its recording company arm, Resonance Records - an exciting collaborative entity led by George Klabin and jazz industry mainstay Ricky Schultz. The foundation's guiding concept is to nurture the careers of emerging artists from an international pool of musicians in need of opportunities to not just "crank out CDs" but to have them promoted to the full capacities of a professional record company. Klabin states, "This is about helping lesser-known artists, but only the cream of the crop. We choose a very small number from a huge list of deserving people." Lori Bell as she is just such a deserving artist. She also performs with classical orchestras and teaches classical technique and jazz improvisation at San Diego State University.
Reflecting on the making of her first Resonance Records disc The Music of Djavan, Ms. Bell concludes, 'Once we finished, I had them run me a copy without flute so I could learn the arrangements - the first time I ever did that AFTER a record! Overall, it was a cool experience.'
