Search - Epoca De Ouro Ensemble :: Cafe Brasil 2

Brazil's "other" great music

John P. Rickert | 08/27/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's no wonder that Brazil's best-known musical style in America is bossa nova. The affinity to jazz (which might be the only kind of music really invented in America), the coolness, and sophistication make it naturally appealing to international connaiseurs of music. There is, undoubtedly, less of a natural audience in America for "European dances, played on Mediterranean instruments, with Brazilian rhythms," as someone once described -choro-, but I am convinced that traditional choro and samba can more than hold their own against bossa nova. This music is as quintessentially Brazilian, in my humble, foreign admirer's view, if not more so. I hope that people find in this disk and its predecessor an opening into a great body of enjoyable and memorable music. I do like this one more of the two -- I like the selections better, the disk is more cohesive in style, and it's more instrumental. As in the previous disk, the technical perfection of the Epoca de Ouro remains a joy. Jacob do Bandolim used to say with sad resignation that choro would die with him; thank God, it hasn't."