Doris Monteiro e Miltinho - Doris, Miltinho e Charme (Odeon - 1970)

Doris Monteiro e Miltinho - Doris, Miltinho e Charme

I bought this one only for the cover, a brilliant work clearly inspired by surrealism. The album in itself isn't that good. Doris, Miltinho e Charme is a megamix of Brazilian bossa classics. Today you would call that a kind of record a mixtape. It's a kind of frustrating because each song switch to the next one after only one minute. This record is a little bit annoying, useless but curious exercice even if the voices are really nice and melt well together. Doris Monteiro made largely better albums.

Eumir Deodato - Idéias (Odeon - 1964)

Eumir Deodato - Idéias

Idéias is Eumir Deodato first album and was recorded in Brazil in 1964. In 1967, the young brazilian session musician and composer left for the US where he will became a heavy jazz rock mogul. Idéias is fortunately far away from Also Sparch Zarthustra and a nice instrumental bossa nova album where Eumir demonstrates his talents of orchestration and where he plays piano and organ. Only two songs are of his composition (Tempinho Bom and Tristeza Nao Existe), the rest being cover of classics written by Marcos Valle, Roberto Menescal or Jobim (So Tinha De Ser Com Voce and Ela E Carioca). Eumir orchestrations and hammond organ make of Idéias a pleasing record with a warm pop and easy listening feeling.

Black Rio 2 - Original Samba Soul 1968-1981 (Strut - 2009)

Black Rio 2

Compiled by British DJ Cliffy, Black Rio 2 digs deep in the samba soul dusty crates, chasing rare groove and obscure gems at every corner of Brazil. Samba soul is a generic terminology covering a lot of styles, from funk to soul or disco, but all with a distinctive brazilian flavor and representing "an important moment when blacks came down from the shanty towns and (...) were accepted by the music industry making music other than samba" as state the liner notes. Needless to say that DJ Cliffy made a brilliant work and that all the tracks are catchy and sure floor fillers, able to turn the most boring BBQ into a dancing drunken revel. My favorite track on this compilation is Supermarket by Otavio Augusto Fernandes Cardoso aka Pete Dunaway. With its bassline, its beat, its wah wah guitar and its melody full of gloomy strings, it's the kind of song that, even if Pete Dunaway sang with an English accent worst than mine, makes you realise that you live, for god's sake, and that your life is not that bad !!!