Azymuth: worldly Brazilian mix
Releasing the new album, Before We Forget, in England, the veteran band from Rio enjoys a mythical jazz funk aura, expecting its wicked samba to become successful in Brazil, too
Silvio Essinger
05/03/2001
The trio Azymuth, from Rio de Janeiro, is a Brazilian instrumental music myth group that blends jazz, samba, funk and rock. Close to its 28th anniversary and far from the local audience, it heads for Japan in June, for a series of shows to present the songs from the new CD, Before We Forget 
, released last year on Far Out. This is the fourth album on the British label - and also the fourth not to be released in their own country. Which is not really new to José Roberto Bertrami (keyboards), Alex Malheiros (bass) and Ivan Mamão (drums/percussion). After the hit tracks Linha do Horizonte (from the first album, Azymuth, from 1975 ), Melô da Cuíca and Vôo Sobre o Horizonte (from the album Águia Não Come Mosca , from 1977), they toured the globe with their wicked samba and never returned to Brazilian charts.
Regular acts at jazz and Brazilian music festivals around the world (they were the first Brazilian act to play the Montreux fest, in 1977), the Azymuth musicians signed up a deal with the label Milestone by the late 1970s. The first album for the company, Light as a Feather (1979), produced the super hit Jazz Carnival, successful in England and in the USA. The single sold 250 thousand copies in Europe, was number one on the charts in England for eight months in a row and remained on the top of the charts in the United States for a full year. Regarded as a jazz-funk classic, having been recorded by masters like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Roy Ayers, it turned the group into a cult object - deserving remix albums in the 1990s (three volumes of the series Misturada), made by the likes of Roni Size, Jazznova and 4Hero.
The band has gone after its own classic 70s sounds with the new Before We Forget. Bertrami, for instance, used all of the electronic instruments that he helped spread in Brazil, such as the Fender Rhodes, the Mini Moog, the ARP Strings, the Hammond, and even ancient effects like the Vocoder. "As the time passed, they grew really old, but now are fashionable again. Joe Davis [owner of the label Far Out and producer of the Azymuth albums] is mad about those instruments. There was a time when they were worth nothing - today, they cost a fortune", says the keyboardist, who is not a big fan of the digital synthesizers that took over recording studios in the 80s. "I was missing it [the old analogue keyboards]. That petrified Japanese sound is hard to be modified, is ready-made. The Hammond, the Mini Moog, are instruments that really yield something, they allow the musicians to sound like themselves."
Azymuth's trip into the past with Before We Forget has included the rescuing of obscure songs. That's the case with Equipe 68, written in a time (1968) when the band didn't even exist, and the musicians would bump into one another during recording sessions for other artists of Oswaldo Cadaxo's label Equipe - people like Eumir Deodato, Paulo Moura and the samba master Candeia. "Oswaldo would let us record and it was all registered in tapes that I and Mamão have kept", says Bertrami. "Joe Davis dug into the master tapes and said that we could not forget about those songs. And so we picked some of them".
Growing up at night
Born in São Paulo, the bossa nova specialist José Roberto Bertrami headed to Rio de Janeiro during the 1960s with his brother, bassist Cláudio Betrami, as suggested by singer Flora Purim, to try their luck in nightclubs. There, he met with Ivan Conti, who was playing with the rock band The Youngsters. Alex Malheiros, in his turn, spent his teen years listening to virtuosi musicians like Sérgio Mendes playing in his house, because his father was a professional musician. At age 17, he met with Egberto Gismonti and the two became a duo. Later, he accompanied Ed Lincoln and Tim Maia. At the same time, he would play bars and nightclubs, as well as strip-tease joints.
The first time that Bertrami, Alex and Mamão performed live together was on the opening night of a club. "We were doing Carpenters and Stevie Wonder covers", says Mamão. In 1973, the trio was skilled at studio sessions, being selected by Marcos Valle to record the soundtrack of the movie O Fabuloso Fittipaldi. The title of one the tracks, Azymuth (written by Novelli, Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle) called the musicians' attention, who chose it to name the band that was emerging at that moment.
With their technical aviation term name, the trio recorded music for soap-operas, such as Pela Cidade, Linha do Horizonte (sampled by the rap band Doctor MCs on the song Tik Tak, in 2000) and Melô da Cuíca. It was time for the band to make an album - and Azymuth came out in 1975. "We made an independent recording. Then, Som Livre bought it", tells Mamão. Pushed by Linha do Horizonte, the album sold well. But Azymuth's income would come from their jobs as studio musicians. By the mid-70s, Bertrami, Alex and Mamão were backing up MPB stars - from Hyldon, Clara Nunes, Belchior and João Nogueira to Odair José, Raul Seixas, Erlon Chaves and Tim Maia. "It was great, because it helped us understand how the studio works", says Alex Malheiros.
Pioneering electronica
The keyboardist was into unusual experiments, such as introducing ARP Strings into someone else's sambas. "The people would enjoy, but I didn't know what it was", reveals Bertrami (who has written arrangements for Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Sarah Vaughan and Marcos Valle), attracting attention to new technologies: "We brought those kinds of equipment to Brazil in 1972. At that time, only Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock were recording with those keyboards."
The electronic innovations presented by Azymuth pleased a few, but shocked the purists. "Nobody knew what electronic music was about, the instruments were new. We were discovering things in Brazil at the same time as our foreign counterparts", says Alex. "We were being harassed, but our goal was to search for new music." Alex himself was a pioneering promoter of the slap technique for the electric bass guitar - a percussive effect produced by the thumb slapping on the strings, pulling and then releasing them. "We were interested in eveything that was new. Things like Sly & The Family Stone, who were little known at the time", he says.
Embracing the idea of bringing new sounds into Brazilian music, Azymuth released the album Águia Não Come Mosca (on WEA), whose track Vôo Sobre o Horizonte was turned into a big hit. According to Mamão, after listening to that album, the Montreux Jazz Festival director, Mr. Claude Nobs, decided to bill them on the 1977 edition.
, released last year on Far Out. This is the fourth album on the British label - and also the fourth not to be released in their own country. Which is not really new to José Roberto Bertrami (keyboards), Alex Malheiros (bass) and Ivan Mamão (drums/percussion). After the hit tracks Linha do Horizonte (from the first album, Azymuth, from 1975 ), Melô da Cuíca and Vôo Sobre o Horizonte (from the album Águia Não Come Mosca , from 1977), they toured the globe with their wicked samba and never returned to Brazilian charts.Regular acts at jazz and Brazilian music festivals around the world (they were the first Brazilian act to play the Montreux fest, in 1977), the Azymuth musicians signed up a deal with the label Milestone by the late 1970s. The first album for the company, Light as a Feather (1979), produced the super hit Jazz Carnival, successful in England and in the USA. The single sold 250 thousand copies in Europe, was number one on the charts in England for eight months in a row and remained on the top of the charts in the United States for a full year. Regarded as a jazz-funk classic, having been recorded by masters like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Roy Ayers, it turned the group into a cult object - deserving remix albums in the 1990s (three volumes of the series Misturada), made by the likes of Roni Size, Jazznova and 4Hero.
The band has gone after its own classic 70s sounds with the new Before We Forget. Bertrami, for instance, used all of the electronic instruments that he helped spread in Brazil, such as the Fender Rhodes, the Mini Moog, the ARP Strings, the Hammond, and even ancient effects like the Vocoder. "As the time passed, they grew really old, but now are fashionable again. Joe Davis [owner of the label Far Out and producer of the Azymuth albums] is mad about those instruments. There was a time when they were worth nothing - today, they cost a fortune", says the keyboardist, who is not a big fan of the digital synthesizers that took over recording studios in the 80s. "I was missing it [the old analogue keyboards]. That petrified Japanese sound is hard to be modified, is ready-made. The Hammond, the Mini Moog, are instruments that really yield something, they allow the musicians to sound like themselves."
Azymuth's trip into the past with Before We Forget has included the rescuing of obscure songs. That's the case with Equipe 68, written in a time (1968) when the band didn't even exist, and the musicians would bump into one another during recording sessions for other artists of Oswaldo Cadaxo's label Equipe - people like Eumir Deodato, Paulo Moura and the samba master Candeia. "Oswaldo would let us record and it was all registered in tapes that I and Mamão have kept", says Bertrami. "Joe Davis dug into the master tapes and said that we could not forget about those songs. And so we picked some of them".
Growing up at night
Born in São Paulo, the bossa nova specialist José Roberto Bertrami headed to Rio de Janeiro during the 1960s with his brother, bassist Cláudio Betrami, as suggested by singer Flora Purim, to try their luck in nightclubs. There, he met with Ivan Conti, who was playing with the rock band The Youngsters. Alex Malheiros, in his turn, spent his teen years listening to virtuosi musicians like Sérgio Mendes playing in his house, because his father was a professional musician. At age 17, he met with Egberto Gismonti and the two became a duo. Later, he accompanied Ed Lincoln and Tim Maia. At the same time, he would play bars and nightclubs, as well as strip-tease joints.
The first time that Bertrami, Alex and Mamão performed live together was on the opening night of a club. "We were doing Carpenters and Stevie Wonder covers", says Mamão. In 1973, the trio was skilled at studio sessions, being selected by Marcos Valle to record the soundtrack of the movie O Fabuloso Fittipaldi. The title of one the tracks, Azymuth (written by Novelli, Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle) called the musicians' attention, who chose it to name the band that was emerging at that moment.
With their technical aviation term name, the trio recorded music for soap-operas, such as Pela Cidade, Linha do Horizonte (sampled by the rap band Doctor MCs on the song Tik Tak, in 2000) and Melô da Cuíca. It was time for the band to make an album - and Azymuth came out in 1975. "We made an independent recording. Then, Som Livre bought it", tells Mamão. Pushed by Linha do Horizonte, the album sold well. But Azymuth's income would come from their jobs as studio musicians. By the mid-70s, Bertrami, Alex and Mamão were backing up MPB stars - from Hyldon, Clara Nunes, Belchior and João Nogueira to Odair José, Raul Seixas, Erlon Chaves and Tim Maia. "It was great, because it helped us understand how the studio works", says Alex Malheiros.
Pioneering electronica
The keyboardist was into unusual experiments, such as introducing ARP Strings into someone else's sambas. "The people would enjoy, but I didn't know what it was", reveals Bertrami (who has written arrangements for Elis Regina, Milton Nascimento, Sarah Vaughan and Marcos Valle), attracting attention to new technologies: "We brought those kinds of equipment to Brazil in 1972. At that time, only Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock were recording with those keyboards."
The electronic innovations presented by Azymuth pleased a few, but shocked the purists. "Nobody knew what electronic music was about, the instruments were new. We were discovering things in Brazil at the same time as our foreign counterparts", says Alex. "We were being harassed, but our goal was to search for new music." Alex himself was a pioneering promoter of the slap technique for the electric bass guitar - a percussive effect produced by the thumb slapping on the strings, pulling and then releasing them. "We were interested in eveything that was new. Things like Sly & The Family Stone, who were little known at the time", he says.
Embracing the idea of bringing new sounds into Brazilian music, Azymuth released the album Águia Não Come Mosca (on WEA), whose track Vôo Sobre o Horizonte was turned into a big hit. According to Mamão, after listening to that album, the Montreux Jazz Festival director, Mr. Claude Nobs, decided to bill them on the 1977 edition.
read more: