Obrigado Brazil: Live in Concert [includes Bonus DVD]

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Music reviews of Obrigado Brazil: Live in Concert [includes Bonus DVD]

Music Review: Obrigado Yo-yo!
Rating: 5 Stars

Listen to one of my favorite tracks, the lovely Menino, and you wil hear that Ma brings real sensibility to this music. Occasionally his performance reveals that he isn't as familiar with the style as d'Rivera or the others--he tends, for example, not to bend pitches but approach them as his Classical training would have--but this is no significant flaw, as the qualities of line and rhythm he does bring to the music compensate. Based on the reviews here at Amazon.com, some will surely complain that Obrigado Brazil Live in Concert isn't truly Brazilian music, that it's perhaps over-refined. Certainly if authentic folk music is what listeners are after, they won't find it here-it's not even all Brazilian! But they will find wonderful music, played with love and joy by superb musicians. This is just simply a terrific CD, and with a bonus DVD containing music videos of some material not on the CD, it's even better value! In fact, one of those non-Brazilian works, Libertango, by the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla is a real highlight of the recording.

Those of you who already own the studio version of Obrigado Brazil will find a little overlap-4 pieces are repeated on this disc, and there is also some overlap from Soul of the Tango. The liner notes claim that the energy of a live performance makes those works sound totally different here, but I can't agree. There are subtle variations, to be sure-for example one of the pieces has much more percussion in the studio version, and even the ambience of the studio recording is audibly different from the live concert-but these aren't wild distinctions and certainly not necessarily improvements. The energy of a live concert may well be counterbalanced by the control of a studio version. It's surely a matter of taste. Personally I usually prefer studio recordings to live. Here, though, the biggest difference is not in the comparisons of the pieces that are on both CDs, but on the contrasting approaches of the overall programme. The studio version of Obgriado Brazil is more introspective and melancholy; the concert recording has more fast, joyful works. In this case, I prefer the concert material and only mourn the loss of the joyous exhuberance of the penultimate track, Brasileirinho, and the very odd final track, Salvador, with its wild improvisation. But the live concert gives us Paquito d'Rivera's composition Afro--practically a miniature tone painting that approaches Salvador in its uniqueness.

And the compositions of one of Brazil's most well-known composers and the father of the Bossa Nova, Antonio Carlos Jobim, certainly bear mention. The two Jobim works feature the singing of Rosa Passos, whose lanquid voice perfectly captures the feel of the pieces. Regardless of what it is not, Obrigado Brazil Live in Concert will almost certainly bring you pleasure if you'll give it a chance.

Description of Obrigado Brazil: Live in Concert [includes Bonus DVD]

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