What started as Ryan Keberle’s torrid love affair with Brazilian music has blossomed into something far deeper and more enduring. “Considerando”, the trombonist’s second album with the São Paulo-based Collectiv do Brasil, confirms that this is a singular relationship built to last. Release on July 14, 2023, it’s a deep dive into the songbook of Edu Lobo, the beloved and pervasively influential Brazilian composer, guitarist and vocalist who bridges the bossa nova era with the 1970s flowering of MPB (música popular brasileira).
“I love that early and mid-70s period when there was this explosion of the most creative songwriting. So many of the Brazilian songwriters were able to do their thing, and Edu was at the center of it,” says the New York-based Keberle. “Edu was there in the beginning in the ’60s with the Quarteto Novo, the first time artists combined, jazz, Brazilian folk and pop, and just blew open the world for Brazilian composers.”
“Considerando” (Considering) follows in the footsteps of Collectiv do Brasil’s acclaimed 2022 debut release Sonhos da Esquina (Esquina Dreams), a ravishing celebration of Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta and the landmark Minas Gerais-centered Clube da Esquina collective. The project features the original members, drummer Paulinho Vicente and pianist Felipe Silveira (who also contributes three arrangements), with bass player Felipe Brisola taking over for original bassist Thiago Alves, who had enrolled in a prestigious Swiss jazz program.
“This trio had been performing together their entire adult lives, playing three or four nights a week for more than a decade creating this shared language that we just don’t the opportunity to do here,” Keberle says. “Thiago was in Europe when we toured and recorded this new material and they’d replaced with him with Felipe. Of course, I trust them completely.”
The trust and commitment to creating an improvisation-laced musical world around Lobo’s ingenious compositions is evident throughout the album’s 10 tracks, which include original arrangements of seven Lobo songs. Drawing heavily from his classic 1971 album Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, the album opens with the crackling “Zanzibar,” an arrangement that exemplifies the Brazilian jazz conversation at the heart of the Collectiv do Brasil collaboration.
Lobo, who just turned 80 on August 29th, had a chance to preview the recording. “I can only say I loved the result,” he enthuses. “I’m impressed by Ryan’s ability to absorb our Brazilian accent in his solos and improvisations, and by the talent of the trio accompanying him with such precision and musicality.”
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