Deodato

Hot on the success of his #1 million-selling album "Prelude," Deodato recorded a second album, DEODATO 2, which exhibited all the characteristics of his previous effort - cool treatments of classical themes blending with power-driven jazz-rock tunes. But the care and precision that marked this follow-up album resulted in music that was in many ways more tight and exciting. Adding his own mark to Deodato's keyboard playing and arrangements on "Rhapsody In Blue," "Night In White Satin," and the wonderfully stimulating "Super Strut," was John Tropea's uniquely expressive guitar, also a major feature in the first album.

Deodato's Knights of Fantasy, released in 1979, contains trace elements of the Brazilian producer and composer's fusion persona while melding them with disco and lite funk – as many other jazzmen were also doing at the time, from Lonnie Liston Smith to the Crusaders. The album is a thoroughly kitschy sci-fi affair with some very fine playing and horn and string arrangements, particularly on the bass- and ARP-driven "Space Dust/Sherlock," which goes on for nearly eight minutes…

1978's Love Island found Deodato in pretty much the same space he'd been for much of the decade, concocting his own ineffable brew of fusion and funky disco, with the help of friends and cover songs along the way. Love Island finds him unleashing yet another passel of songs which are all pleasant to the ear, if not completely fresh – what makes it most interesting is that it could almost be considered a concept album, every song title apparently revolving around jungle tropics, warm winds, sandy beaches, and, more likely than not, a few beauties bearing cocktails to complete the picture…

Recorded at CBS Studios in Rio de Janeiro back in 1964, when Eumir Deodato was only 22 years old, this session always had a special meaning in his heart. Now available on mid-price CD for the first time, digitally re-mastered and appropriately re-titled ‘Lounge 64’, it was Deodato's first session with strings. If recording date information is to be believed, he recorded 6 other albums that year - all classics of the Brazilian jazz/pop bossa nova era. The Astrud Gilberto version of the Jobim/ de Moraes song “Girl From Ipanema” was a huge world-wide hit in the summer of ’64. On this album Deodato presents twelve ‘2-song medleys’ - all soft latin-jazz versions of well-known standards.

When CTI Records could not comprehend Deodato's huge success with Prelude, his career stalled. His shift to MCA Records gave the fusion world this all-time masterpiece and first release under his new label.