Sucessos + Boleros = Walter Wanderley

The Jazz Club series is an attractive addition to the Verve catalogue. With it's modern design and popular choice of repertoire, the Jazz Club is not only opened for Jazz fans, but for everyone that loves good music.
Walter Wanderley was a talented and gifted organist with an acute ear for new harmonies. With 46 recorded solo albums in his entire career, both in Brazil and the U.S., he reached number 26 on the Billboard pop charts in September 1966, opening a large pathway of success only menaced by himself and his complex character. Ten years after his death from cancer, with a new fad coming, he was repackaged by the entertainment industry as a mere lounge player, carrying his record sales even further and sending the cost of his out-of-print albums to the stratosphere, but all at the cost of minimizing his significance…

Walter Wanderley's debut album 'O Samba É Mais Samba' was released in Argentina as 'El Samba Es Mas Samba Con Walter Wanderley', the North American market named this LP as 'Walter Wanderley's Brazilian Organ', and a second release in US made it as 'From Rio With Love'. Wanderley was known for his distinctive staccato stuttering style and mastery of the Hammond B-3 organ and on later recordings and during live concerts a L Series Hammond. Walter Wanderley was already famous in his native country Brazil in the late 1950s and became an internationally renowned star in the mid-1960s through his collaboration with the singer Astrud Gilberto.

The notes for this CD ask, "What issue is more topical than the Brazilian rain forest? So what reissue would be more topical than Walter Wanderley's Rain Forest?" Politically, this may be true, but musically, this collection is anything but topical. From the first tune - the monster hit "Summer Samba," the listener is catapulted straight back to the '60s when bossa nova was new in the U.S. and everyone wanted a piece of it. Organist Wanderley made a big splash with this CD, which went platinum in two years - and it does evoke strong water images, like "poolside" and "ice skating rink." The jazzmen are underutilized, since most of the tracks are less than three minutes long and leave little room to stretch out. One exception is the pretty Ferreira/Marconi ballad "Rain," the only track where Wanderley plays piano rather than organ and which features a fine solo by Urbie Green on trombone…

Walter Wanderley - Walter Wanderley's Brazilian Organ (1962) {Blue Moon BMCD 861 rel 2015}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 407 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 145 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 9 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1962, 2015 Odeon / Blue Moon | BMCD86
Jazz / Latin Jazz / Bossa Nova / Brazilian / Afro-Cuban Jazz / World Music

Walter Wanderley's understanding of and digital skill with bossa nova rhythm patterns was enviable, comparable only to Joao Gilbertos genius. With dozens of phony, unmusical albums of Brazilian jazz and pop music inundating American record shops since bossa nova happily emerged from Brazil in mid-1962, Walter Wanderleys swinging style at the Hammond console epitomized the finest in authentic Brazilian entertainment.