1. Mistérios
2. O Que Será?
3. Só Danço Samba
4. Once I Loved
5. Evening
6. Ela é Carioca
7. High Night
8. Café Com Pao
9. Ligia
10. Sim ou Nao
11. A Ra
12. Bonita
13. Aquelas Coisas Todas
Till Brönner - Trumpet, vocals
Fabio Torres - Piano
Marcelo Mariano - Bass
Edu Ribeiro - Drums
Annie Lennox - Vocals (track 1)
Milton Nascimento - Vocals (tracks 1, 5)
Marco Pereira - Guitar (tracks 1-4, 6-12)
Larry Goldings - Organ (tracks 1-3, 5)
Marcos Suzano - Percussion (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13)
Vanessa Da Mata - Vocals (track 2)
Marco Lobo - Percussion (tracks 2, 4, 7, 10-12)
Paulinho da Costa - Percussion (tracks 2, 8, 10, 11)
Aimee Mann - Vocals (track 4)
Luciana Souza - Vocals (tracks 5, 11, 13)
Sergio Mendes - Vocals (track 6)
Melody Gardot - Vocals (track 7)
Kurt Elling - Vocals (track 10)
Larry Klein - Vocals (track 11)
Till Brönner seems to be a man of many parts. He is
not only a trumpeter, singer, arranger and record producer - he is
also a composer, having written quite a lot of film music. On this
album he visits Brazilian music, which essentially means the bossa
nova, with compositions by the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao
Donato. Till Brönner sings on some tracks but he also uses a varied
line-up of guest singers, starting with pop star Annie Lennox, who
duets with Milton Nascimento on Mystérios. Nascimento's
own composition Evening (Tarde) has Milton duetting with Luciana
Souza. Sergio Mendes sings with alluring delicacy on Ela é
Carioca. Other guest singers include Kurt Elling, Aimee Mann and
Melody Gardot.
Till Brönner's breathy, fuzzy trumpet suits the bossa
nova style with its understatement and he sings well enough, although
a whole album of mainly slowish bossas (as I think I may have said
before) can become samey, even soporific. There are two or three animated
sambas on this album (especially Aquelas Coisas Todas), but
otherwise every number is in gentle bossa nova vein. Another thing
which I've probably questioned before is the wisdom of singing songs
in Portuguese on an album aimed at an international audience, of which
perhaps one per-cent understands the language. English lyrics would
make the CD more accessible for listeners.
Nevertheless, it's a pleasant outing - and it reminds
us of some of the bewitching melodies created in Brazil. My personal
favourites are Só Danço Samba (in which Jobim and Vinicius
de Moraes repeatedly suggest dancing the samba) and A Ra (The
Frog, with its simple melody composed of one hypnotic phrase moving
through various keys).
Tony
Augarde
CD Reviews
Universal
060251780680
