Search - Toquinho & Vinicius :: Personalidade

The celebration of a sucessful partnership

11/15/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of the most influential artist of his time in Brazil, Vinicius de Moraes has his sucessful partnership with guitar virtuoso Toquinho explored in this CD. Tough some of the songs are called sambas, they aren't sambas in the sense of a carnival samba. They are bossa nova, a sofisticated jazzy style that incorporates most of the brazilian samba origins. The result is a unique rythym, beautiful, soulful and very rich. All songs are beautiful, but two of them deserve special attention. "Tarde em Itapoã" is a classic that celebrates a lazy, pleasant and passionate stay in Bahia. "Aquarela" is a melodic song, vistuosly played by Toquinho, with rich metaphorical lyrics that seem to have been crafted for children, but at the same time amaze adults for its way of dealing with thems like life, death and the future. Absolutely brilliant."

Vinicius would be turning in his grave...

David Land | Rockville, MD United States | 04/12/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"if he heard you saying his music wasn't Samba! There are many different kinds of Samba you can hear and believe it or not this is one of them! Bossa Nova itself is considered to be a kind of Samba, called "Samba Cancao." This was actually the term Joao Gilberto preferred, who originally disapproved of the "Bossa" label that was attatched to him.I have to admit that I didn't particularly like this compilation at first (thought it was sort of boring to be honest), and though it has really grown on me, I still find it to be sort of strange in that it seems only to cover th period in the mid-70s, and neglects all the best stuff from their earlier period, when Vinicius and Toquinho were playing with Maria Creuza and Marilia Medalha. In fact, many of the songs are later, alternate versions of songs recorded earlier such as "Como Dizia O Poeta," "Samba de Bencao," "Maria Vai com as Outras," etc... and are incorporated into these medlies which they refer to as "Pot-Pourris." These versions are still good, but they are not the best versions in my opinion. The older versions with the aforementioned Maria Creuza and Marilia Medalha are not available in the US, but you might be able to get some of the songs on other Vinicius and Toquinho compilations like the "Best of Brazil" series that I've seen in some stores here.The other strike against this album is that it is omitting a crucial song which was recorded during the time this compilation covers, "Carta Ao Tom 1974."That said, Vinicius and Toquinho are absolutely on my top-tier of favorite musicians, so their second-rate material still beats most people's best. If you know where to look, you can find tons of albums with one or both of them joining up with Quarteto em Cy, Maria Bethania, Jorge Ben, Odette Lara, and probably many other wonderful Brazilian artists. Also check out the album they made with Ornella Vanoni in Italian. Aside from the language part (and there's nothing wrong with Italian believe me!), that's pretty much what the rest of their early material sounds like."

Fantastic!

rnava@iamnet.com | 04/08/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is great music, from the beginning to the end. Absolutely classic material. A must!!"