KQED Review of Reliquia: Clarice & Sergio Assad
16/08/16 23:11 Filed in: review
All the excitement of the Summer Olympics in Rio got me thinking about the long history of Brazilian music in California. In the 1940s, Carmen Miranda landed in Hollywood with her Bando da Lua, and Brazilian music hit the pop charts the early 1960s, when Americans took to the bossa nova.
All the excitement of the Summer Olympics in Rio got me thinking about the long history of Brazilian music in California. In the 1940s, Carmen Miranda landed in Hollywood with her Bando da Lua, and Brazilian music hit the pop charts the early 1960s, when Americans took to the bossa nova.
The great composer Moacir Santos set out for Hollywood in the late 1960s hoping to build a career writing film scores, which didn’t pan out, but led to several classic albums for Blue Note Records. Sergio Mendes had much better luck recasting Brazilian and American pop hits with Brasil ’66, and Flora Purim and Airto became minor pop stars in the ‘70s with their soaring Brazilian jazz.
These days, many Brazilian musicians call California home, including guitarist Sergio Assad. Assad is best known as half of classical music’s most celebrated guitar duo (with his younger brother Odair), but his gorgeous new album “Relíquia” (Adventure Music) introduces a new familial partnership. His daughter Clarice Assad is a fiercely creatively vocalist, pianist and oft-commissioned composer whose work has been performed by major symphonies and chamber ensembles around the world.
Sergio has lived in San Francisco since 2008, when he joined the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory, while Clarice, who’s based in Chicago, has long worked closely with San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra as a composer in residence, arranger and orchestrator. A love letter of an album, “Relíquia” is full of ravishing melodies that often feel hauntingly familiar, only to resolve with an unanticipated twist.
Sergio composed most of the songs, working with an array of top-shelf lyricists like Daniel Basilio (on the dreamy “Artistico”), who’s collaborated with Clarice on several song cycles, and Chico Cesar, on what should be a new standard, the surging “Capoeira.” In many ways, the album feels like a rapprochement. Music took Sergio away from his family when Clarice was growing up as he toured internationally.
“Reliquia” brings them together as equals, with a cast of collaborators that includes clarinetist Derek Bermel, percussionist Keita Ogawa, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, vocalist Angela Olinto and mandolin master Mike Marshall on the title track. If the project has an emotional centerpiece, it’s Clarice’s brief, luminous tune, “Song For My Father.”
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/08/16/new-jazz-releases-bring-brazil-to-california/
The great composer Moacir Santos set out for Hollywood in the late 1960s hoping to build a career writing film scores, which didn’t pan out, but led to several classic albums for Blue Note Records. Sergio Mendes had much better luck recasting Brazilian and American pop hits with Brasil ’66, and Flora Purim and Airto became minor pop stars in the ‘70s with their soaring Brazilian jazz.
These days, many Brazilian musicians call California home, including guitarist Sergio Assad. Assad is best known as half of classical music’s most celebrated guitar duo (with his younger brother Odair), but his gorgeous new album “Relíquia” (Adventure Music) introduces a new familial partnership. His daughter Clarice Assad is a fiercely creatively vocalist, pianist and oft-commissioned composer whose work has been performed by major symphonies and chamber ensembles around the world.
Sergio has lived in San Francisco since 2008, when he joined the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory, while Clarice, who’s based in Chicago, has long worked closely with San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra as a composer in residence, arranger and orchestrator. A love letter of an album, “Relíquia” is full of ravishing melodies that often feel hauntingly familiar, only to resolve with an unanticipated twist.
Sergio composed most of the songs, working with an array of top-shelf lyricists like Daniel Basilio (on the dreamy “Artistico”), who’s collaborated with Clarice on several song cycles, and Chico Cesar, on what should be a new standard, the surging “Capoeira.” In many ways, the album feels like a rapprochement. Music took Sergio away from his family when Clarice was growing up as he toured internationally.
“Reliquia” brings them together as equals, with a cast of collaborators that includes clarinetist Derek Bermel, percussionist Keita Ogawa, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, vocalist Angela Olinto and mandolin master Mike Marshall on the title track. If the project has an emotional centerpiece, it’s Clarice’s brief, luminous tune, “Song For My Father.”
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/08/16/new-jazz-releases-bring-brazil-to-california/