Deodato

In the '60s, Eumir Deodato and Marcos Valle were one of Brazil's potent combinations – they enjoyed the type of strong rapport that Antonio Carlos Jobim had with João Gilberto and Flora Purim has with Airto Moreira. This collection of '60s recordings paints an attractive picture of Deodato's collaborations with Valle. Regrettably, Irma doesn't provide exact recording dates – which is extremely frustrating – but the music is excellent. While Valle is the composer, Deodato is the arranger/conductor. In addition to playing acoustic and electric piano and organ, Deodato oversees a predominantly Brazilian big band that includes heavyweights like trombonist Raul DeSouza and drummers Ivan Conti (of Azymuth fame) and Dom Um Romão.

Recorded live in the Felt Forum of New York City's Madison Square Garden in the wake of Deodato's massive 2001: A Space Odyssey hit, this album has a fairly confusing history. Only three selections, "Do It Again," "Spirit of Summer," and "Tropea" were released on the original slapped-together LP In Concert, and these were combined with Airto Moreira's "Parana" and "Branches," which were recorded at the same concert. In the CD-era, the LP was split up; Deodato's tracks were combined with four unreleased tunes from the concert, giving the CD-buyer 35 more minutes of music, while the two Airto tracks were placed on The Best of Airto.

Prior to Prelude, Eumir Deodato was primarily known as a tasteful, lyrical, bossa nova and samba-based sometime arranger for Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Wes Montgomery, and others…

Although Brazilian fusionist Deodato is perhaps best remembered in America for his work with Kool & the Gang, it's important to remember that his career spanned some three decades, and placed a delicious brew of jazzy disco on the charts across much of the 1970s. What he'd begun on the U.S. charts in 1973 with his funked-up rendering of "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" and continued later that year with a rendering of George and Ira Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," he continued on 1976's Very Together, reinventing the popular "Peter Gunn" theme to much acclaim. You've heard the Mancini version, you've heard Emerson, Lake & Palmer, you may even have heard Art of Noise - all have offered very different takes on this simple, brooding theme…