Great Brazilian Album Covers

[king ubu]

http://www.sabadabada.com/new_page_2.htm

WHOA! Some very very very cool covers there!

A few favourites:

Edited March 11, 2005 by king ubu

[B. Goren.]

Thanks ubu. I like this one:

[Rooster_Ties]

Wow!!! LOTS of cool stuff in there. Here's but one that caught my eye...

[jazzbo]

It's the GUITAR lover in me that likes this one a lot. . . .

[jazzbo]

But wait a minute! I'm more of a drummer. . . .

[jazzbo]

Not one of my favorite lp covers, but fantastic lp!

[jazzbo]

Fantastic album with pretty interesting cover. . . .

[Noj]

B-)

[Brandon Burke]

ahem......

Gal Costa - India (great record, by the way)

[jazzbo]

Fantastic record, yes indeed!

Rest of the cd art is pretty good too!

[jazzbo]

There are lp downloads and single track downloads as well!

http://www.sabadabada.com/music.htm

Edited March 11, 2005 by jazzbo

[couw]

yes, this site launched into something big with the start of this year. Some great stuff collected there, surf around!

[Jim R]

Wow- I'm surprised there's this much interest in this site. A friend told me about it in January, and I've exchanged a few messages with the guy who operates it. He's a pretty serious LP collector... not sure how serious he is about music. He doesn't seem aware that a lot of these things (mostly the better stuff, including a couple of his "full" downloads) have been out on CD for years. But I understand the collector mentality too, so I'm not trying to put him down really. The site is quite interesting, especially with all the large cover scans, etc. The actual music he has ranges from rare and classic to... rare and kitschy (and/or bizarre!). In other words, this is one guy's idea of a cool LP collection, but a large percentage of it does not really represent the best of the genre. Anything with "Bossa" or "Balanço" (which roughly translates to "swing") seems to be fair game. Anyway, it's fun. I prefer the geometric/abstract covers (like in Ubu's post) over the posed dancers, etc, but some of the goofy ones are pretty interesting too, and some contain some very good musicians (Heraldo do Monte, for example).

BTW,that Baden Powell "A Vontade" cover is supposed to be black, white and red (the little squares were actually red, as well as part of the Elenco logo, of course).

[king ubu]

Obviously I prefer the graphic covers, too... but that one with the guitar lady is pretty cool (and much of its time, I guess, somehow reminds me of that old flick "Barbarella"...)

I can't speak about the music - I have rarely ever browsed the hard bossa thread (otherwise I would have noted that couw had posted a link to the site AND mentioned the covers [not only the free tunes] before... )

ubu

[jazzbo]

Well, we're not all as picky as you are Jim!

[Jim R]

I just have taste, that's all.

Edited March 13, 2005 by Jim R

[jazzbo]

Well, it's more like you have space issues if you ask me. . . .

I think that the Pra Barancado is a pretty good album! Nice drumming and piano!

[Jim R]

Well, "we" don't "all" like everything under the sun (except ol' blue eyes) the way you do, Lon. (see, I know how to speak on behalf of the group, too. )

Yep, I still have space issues... not something that's going to easily be resolved, I'm afraid. Still adding to the collection, just in smaller doses, and that's working okay for now.

What's "Pra Barancado"? I don't recall seeing that one...

[jazzbo]

There are lp downloads and single track downloads as well!

http://www.sabadabada.com/music.htm

Got the title wrong from memory:

Pra Balancar (don't know how to make the "cedille").

I've listened to all the complete albums he has up and am working my way through the separate selections. Of course the Milton Banana and Deodata lps are great (know those from before as do yo) but the others are fun too. The Elza Soares is very interesting! There's quite a stomping version of In the Mood on there!

I don't like everything under the sun by any means. I do like to have fun with new music sometimes. I like the sort of cheezy fun pop elements on a lot of these more than the smooth fusiony aspect of some later Brazilian music. And I'm trying to be less and less snobby about music because I find that the snobbery in jazz really bugs me more and more as time goes by and I'm trying not to participate. It's easier to extend this inclusive mood into newer genres of exploration. This guy has an impressive collection! I'd like to hear a lot of the albums I haven't.

Edited March 14, 2005 by jazzbo

[Jim R]

don't know how to make the "cedille").

Hey, at least you knew what it's called. I've known how to make it (at least on my system- it's alt-c / option-c), but didn't know it was called a cedilla ("cedilha" in portuguese... "seh-DIL-yuh". "cedille" is the Dutch/French/German spelling, BTW). Thanks- now I know! B-)

Yeah, I've enjoyed checking out the MP3's, looking for nice surprises. Some of the Heraldo do Monte covers look pretty cheesy, but I know he's a very good player. "Samba pizzicato" wouldn't appeal to everybody here, but I kind of dug it- nice changes, especially the bridge. That's a tune that could be updated in more of a jazz setting with interesting results, IMO.

I hear you about snobbery... I guess I just feel the urge to be critical a bit more frequently than you do. In this case, I thought it unwise to try to paint too rosy a picture here, for the sake of those who may be new to brazilian music. People can of course make up their own minds about individual recordings (and that's how it should be), but remembering how lost I felt when I was first investigating brazilian music, I think it helps sometimes to have some guidance in separating what music was/is important and what wasn't. Anyway, it is an interesting collection, and fun. If he can get people interested in the kitschy stuff as well as the classics, more power to him.

[jazzbo]

Yes, I know French fairly well, and it's a "cedille" to me!

I'm just of a little diverging philosophy in that I think that getting people started on only the "most important" work is not that effective. (I've tried that with jazz). Getting people started with a mix of stuff, (important, fun, "stoopid," pop) is both more fun for the initiator and the initiated. . . in my experience. Everyone's mileage does vary!

I still think that "In the Mood" is something else!

[Jim R]

I'm just of a little diverging philosophy in that I think that getting people started on only the "most important" work is not that effective. (I've tried that with jazz). Getting people started with a mix of stuff, (important, fun, "stoopid," pop) is both more fun for the initiator and the initiated. . . in my experience. Everyone's mileage does vary!

That's interesting, Lon. I can't really recall a discussion about that specific idea (would seem like a good thread topic, if in fact it hasn't been done). This is not a "challenge" on my part, but could you elaborate? I don't often get into situations (outside bulletin boards, anyway) where I'm trying to initiate people to jazz, but if I were, I think I would naturally try to introduce them to some of the more "classic" artists and recordings, rather than a mix that included "stoopid" and commercial (pop oriented) jazz. At least, I wouldn't start them off with that sort of material. I don't have anything against people being exposed to it eventually (in fact, seekers like us will usually find it at some point in time). If someone doesn't respond well to the more "classic" material, maybe it could be that jazz is just not for them, as opposed to the idea that we made errors in selecting music recommendations. Just a thought... as I say, interesting topic.

[jazzbo]

I was using "stoopid" in the couw terminology of meaning not serious music, but music that has value none-the-less.

I have had a (luckily decreasing) very visible position at work where I am allowed to very quietly play music, and where the music is noticed, mainly because it is different. When people get interested in jazz and ask me about it I usually give them a mix of both "important" recommendations such as Coltrane or Miles, but I include things like Dinah Washington, Lou Rawls with Les McCann, soul jazz by Lou Donaldson or Lonnie Smith, some dixieland by Condonites, some Ramsey Lewis Argo, etc. . . . I try to mix in the "important" with more fun material, and almost without fail the more fun, in my opinion more accessible material hooks the iniate first, and then they begin to listen to the more serious material.

Last time I did this I made someone a cdr with some material from "Someday My Prince Will Come" by Miles, "Wise One" from Crescent, a track from Lou Donaldson ("Ode to Billy Joe"), a few tracks from "Dinah '63", a few tracks from "The Far East Suite," and a track from Grant Green, Stan Getz and a few others.

The guy kept telling me how much he dug the Lou track and kept playing it. Then he told me that he really liked the Dinah cuts. Then he told me he didn't quite know what to make of the Miles track, but he liked the piano and the way Miles' horn sounded. He keeps growing into the music on the cd, and it was the Lou that snagged him first. I gave him an extra copy of Midnight Creeper I had around. I'll check back with him later. . . I think he'll be ready for Coltrane soon. I don't consider "Mr. Shing-a-Ling" to be an IMPORTANT jazz album. But that one track got this guy interested. . . .

And oddly enough it was my playing "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by Cannonball that got him to ask me about jazz. . . .

So that's what I'm talking about. Seems an effective way for ME. Other mileage undoubetedly DOES vary.

[Jim R]

Thanks Lon. I guess I would say I see a distinction here between the "less important" (forgive me, but I'm struggling to choose adjectives here) jazz artists you mention and the "less important" brazilian artists we were generalizing about on the Sabadabada site. That is, if Lou Donaldson, Ramsey Lewis, Lou Rawls, Dinah, etc, are the examples you would use to illustrate "less important" in the jazz vein... well, I think you see where I'm going with this. There are quite a few names on the "Music" page at Sabadabada that I've never heard of before, after a number of years trying to educate myself about brazilian music. Naturally, they would all be better known to a 49 year-old brazilian than they are to me, but somehow I suspect that many of them are relatively obscure names. Anyway, I see your point, and can see why the "less serious" jazz might attract people just as well or better than the "serious". With your knowledge and diversity of tastes, you surely must be one of our most ideal ambassadors. Go with what works!

[jazzbo]

I do go with what works. . . that's the story of my success in all walks of my life!

I don't know how to make the distinction between the jazz thing and the Brazilian thing. I really think that our viewpoint outside the culture makes it hard to guage the relative standing of these artists from that foreign country. For example: something on that site may have been a popularization of a Jobim tune for example by someone who is obscure to us, but may have been a big pop hit that made the tune and style popular. I don't know and can't tell. And I do know people who are into jazz to whom for some time Anita O'Day and Dinah Washington were obscure persons they never heard anything of. They had all the Classic Quartet Coltrane material, but no Anita or Dinah, which I found surprising at first, but not so much any longer; they came up a different route, and maybe the "important" stuff did hit them first.

This all falls into my gut feeling that "it's all a matter of perspective" or that there are many roads to many destinations. . . . Man I love how different everything and everyone is. If you're bored in this world, there's something the matter!

Edited March 14, 2005 by jazzbo