Reginaldo Bessa with Miki Lerman and Ensemble recorded 1963 in Buenos Aires, first Bossa Nova LP recorded in a foreign country
The bossa nova is not a musical scheme on a straight line, ready and unchangeable like some might think. Yet its basic suggestions are very clear: the using of different chords, the melodic motion plus the instrumental and singing performance within a soft and charming mood. But its aim is artistic freedom, whose approach is the jazz together with the samba.
There is the basis, but not the entire pyramid. The bossa nova is not something created... it is a style for creation... Telling this, one can say that even in Brazil, the birthplace of bossa nova, there are some artists that have touched the very truth of this genre without falling in imitation, repetition and pure adulteration. Reginaldo Bessa, 25 years old and born in Rio de Janeiro, is a good example for the bossa nova style in its true expression, with eight own compositions on this LP, revealing fine inspiration not only in the melodies but also in the lyrics.
Moreover he is a guitarist with unsurpassed sense of balance and harmony. And above all is his exceptional personality as a singer with a personal style solely remembering of himself. We can say another thing: the art of Reginaldo Bessa exists not only within the bossa nova. In addition it carries a new wind in the Brazilian way to do music. Author of more than fifty songs including sambas, romantic songs and others with popular flavor, his creative punch has put him in the new road. Since his very beginnings, his work as a composer and singer reaches over all the forms of Brazilian music. He studied various stylings over several years, mainly the masterpieces of Dorival Caymmi with his great inspiration as a songwriter, and consequently included two of his songs into the recording sessions. As a homage to the Latin American people, he also included two sambas in Spanish. One of them is “El amor hace llorar”, that is among his latest compositions.
The arranger of this recording was Miki Lerman, whose love for Brazilian music guaranteed an essential ambience for the artistic quality of “Amor en Bossa Nova”. After all, Reginaldo Bessa stands out as a young composer of the new Brazilian generation internalizing the main musical quality that the people want to receive from an artist: complete sincerity. What more can you expect?
(Translation from original liner notes)
It is a marvelous thing to come back to the past and discover you did a good work there.Art is endless. When this LP “Amor en Bossa Nova” was made, the Brazilian music was not recognized in the world as nowadays. I was the first Brazilian to record a bossa nova album in a foreign country. The musicians who recorded with me were all Argentina born. It was a hard task telling them about the whole thing. I was the composer, the singer and above all a teacher. But now you have a sound in your hands, that comes from the old and unsurpassed way of making music. No computers, neither channels. Only people who went to a recording session knowing exactly what happens in musical art. Thanks to Sonorama for this enterprise. Looking for unknown jewels in the field of good music is to create, with sensitivity, a better world of pleasure for everybody.
(Reginaldo Bessa/ January 2006)
credits
released March 24, 2006
Producer for reissue: Ekkehart Fleischhammer, audio restoration and remastering in 2006 by Jury Lutz, reproduction of original cover: Patrick Haase aka rab.bit. Big thanks, lots of Amor and respect to Reginaldo Bessa.
Sonorama Records is an independent and worldwide distributed label for rare jazz, funk, soul, library and world music,
established 2004 in Germany. It is all about music archaeology, an infinite search for soulful sounds, about tracing unrestricted musical diversity and the love for good music in general...more
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