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Saturday, May 11, 2013

Groove o' the day: funk samba

Today we have a studio-funk style samba by Ivan Conti of Azymuth, on the tune Manhã, from the group's 1974 self-titled album:




The right hand alternates between the bell of the cymbal, and the regular playing spot. He also plays the hihat with his foot along with the bell notes, but the beat was looking pretty cluttered, so I left it out. Throughout the song he varies this a fair amount— he'll often play the regular spot on the cymbal on the two and four, and play the bell more sporadically.

During the break sections he does this simplified pattern, with the hihat:




From the same section later in the tune, a looser version of that same thing, with some variable ghost notes on the snare drum:




Audio after the break:


I always feel I have to defend this group a little bit, because it would be easy to mistake what they do for abject fuzak— and a good portion of their output does fit that category. But their best stuff is a good, and real, 70's/80's-style embodiment of that Brazilian quality of lightness I'm always going on about. One day I'll write a full treatment of the subject of counter-intuitive appreciation of music, but for now I'll just have to appeal to you to resist the urge to judge the thing, and give it a chance to work on its own terms:






Like, what else are you going to listen to while gliding along  La Grande Corniche, young and beautiful in your '71 Jensen Interceptor? I ask you.

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