Stan Kenton meets Tom Jobim
Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com | ...in Middle America | 01/09/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Anyone intrigued by the mix of Brazilian and big band motifs on Banda Mantiqueira's 1996 album, "Aldeia," will be delighted by this outing, in which the swanky jazz elements are punched up and perfected. This is the kind of dynamic crosscultural mix that Stan Kenton and his peers were searching for in their mid-'50s explorations of Cuban and Latin-American melodies... pretty engaging and seldom overplayed, and less mellow than earlier Mantiqueira recordings. Nice lingering hints of the Dixieland-ish "choro" style of little-known Brazilian artists such as Sinho and Pixinguinga. Definitely worth checking out!"