O SOM

Few albums can be credited as landmarks of a given genre. But everybody agrees that O Som, the debut album by band Meirelles & Os Copa 5, is the milestone of samba-jazz, the fusion of samba’s rhythmic drive with a jazzy flow - a unique and elegant sound, uniting the best of both worlds. Kind of a tortuous bossa nova offspring, it became one of the most appreciated Brazilian music styles around the world - partially because of this record. The album, recorded in 1964, promotes the meeting of saxophonist J.T. Meirelles with a magnificent quartet: Manuel Gusmão (bass), Luiz Carlos Vinhas (piano), Dom Um Romão (drums) and Pedro Paulo (bass). It’s original six-track edition became one of the most revered jazz albums of the 60’s; the new CD edition contains three extra tracks (taken from the group’s following LP, O Novo Som), with another formation - which included no other than Roberto Menescal on acoustic guitar and Eumir Deodato on piano.

Tracks like Quintessência and Blue Bottle's (with an inspired piano solo by Vinhas) boast impeccable swing. The group’s instrumental samba-jazz incorporates a baião groove in Nordeste; and also in the beautiful Tânia. There’s a melancholy touch in Solitude, which begins with minor keys and evolves to a smooth swing, as in Contemplação - with a "Bill Evans tone", as Meirelles himself explains on the CD booklet, which attains the maximum performance subtlety in the album. In the bonus tracks, all of them shorter than the ones from O Som, there’s another tone: the performances are more stimulating and the samba swing is more intense. It’s more danceable, the kind of sound young British DJs like to sample…

(Marco Antonio Barbosa)