Search - Lalo Schifrin & Bob Brookmeyer :: Samba Para Dos

Samba para dos

Bomojaz | South Central PA, USA | 09/25/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"By the time this album was recorded (Feb. 1963), the bossa/samba craze was a year old; everyone, it seemed, was waxing a Brazilian-tinged LP to get in on the popular concept, especially on the Verve label. This actually was Brookmeyer's second samba outing; an earlier LP with Gary McFarland featuring this kind of music had already been recorded the year before. The earlier album had Brookmeyer fronting a small group (vibes, 2 guitars, and percussion); here he fronts a larger contingency (7 reeds, piano, guitar, and rhythm section). The CD starts with the title track, which is over 10 minutes long, and although it has a nice flute solo by Leo Wright, the song bogs down in a lengthy piano solo by Schifrin; things aren't off to a good start. (Schifrin has a tendency to get clunky in his playing, especially on up-tempo numbers, reminiscent of Dave Brubeck.) But then things really pick up. I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU and JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS lend themselves well to the samba interpretation, and Brookmeyer swings hard on them (there's also a terrific guitar solo by Jimmy Raney on KICK). Phil Woods takes a much too short solo on IT'S ALL RIGHT WITH ME (his only solo on the whole CD) that practically jumps out of the speakers at you; it's marvelous. So the CD, which started off on shaky ground, ends up being not too bad at all."