Billy Eckstine

William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular music.

BIOGRAPHY

Eckstine's grandparents were William F. Eckstein and Nannie Eckstein, a mixed race, lawfully married couple who lived in Washington D.C.; both were born in the year 1863. William F. was born in Prussia and Nannie in Virginia. His parents were William Eckstein, a chauffeur and Charlotte Eckstein. He was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania a State Historical Marker is placed at 5913 Bryant St, Highland Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania to mark the house where he grew up. Later moving to Washington, D.C., Eckstine began singing at the age of seven and entered many amateur talent shows.He attended Armstrong High School, St. Paul Normal and Industrial School, and Howard University. He left Howard in 1933, after winning first place in an amateur talent contest. He married his first wife, June, in 1942; she too was a vocalist. After their divorce he married actress and model Carolle Drake in 1953, and remained married until his death. He was the father of five children and two step children, including Ed Eckstine, who was a president of Mercury Records, Guy Eckstine, who was a Columbia and Verve Records A&R executive and record producer, and singer Gina Eckstine.
An influence looming large in the cultural development of soul and R&B singers from Sam Cooke to Prince, Eckstine was able to play it straight on his pop hits "Prisoner of Love", "My Foolish Heart" and "I Apologize". He had originally planned on a football career, but after breaking his collar bone, he made music his focus. After working his way west to Chicago, Eckstine joined Earl Hines' Grand Terrace Orchestra in 1939, staying with the band as vocalist and, occasionally, trumpeter, until 1943. By that time, he had begun to make a name for himself through the Hines band's radio shows with such juke box hits as "Stormy Monday Blues" and his own "Jelly Jelly."
In 1944, Eckstine formed his own big band and made it a fountainhead for young musicians who would reshape jazz by the end of the decade, including Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, and Fats Navarro. Tadd Dameron and Gil Fuller were among the band's arrangers, and Sarah Vaughan gave the vocals a contemporary air. The Billy Eckstine Orchestra was the first bop big-band, and its leader reflected bop innovations by stretching his vocal harmonics into his normal ballads. Despite the group's modernist slant, Eckstine hit the charts often during the mid 1940s, with Top Ten entries including "A Cottage for Sale" and "Prisoner of Love". On the group's frequent European and American tours, Eckstine, popularly known as Mr. B, also played trumpet, valve trombone and guitar.
Dizzy Gillespie, in reflecting on the band in his 1979 autobiography To Be or Not to Bop places it in perspective: "There was no band that sounded like Billy Eckstine's. Our attack was strong, and we were playing bebop, the modern style. No other band like this one existed in the world."
After a few years of touring with road-hardened be-boppers, Eckstine became a solo performer in 1947, and seamlessly made the transition to string-filled balladry. He recorded more than a dozen hits during the late 1940s, including "My Foolish Heart" and "I Apologize." He was one of the first artists to sign with the newly-established MGM Records, and had immediate hits with revivals of "Everything I Have Is Yours" (1947), Richard Rodgers’ and Lorenz Hart’s "Blue Moon" (1948), and Juan Tizol’s "Caravan" (1949).
Eckstine had further success in 1950 with Victor Young’s theme song to "My Foolish Heart" and a revival of the 1931 Bing Crosby hit, "I Apologize". However, unlike Nat "King" Cole (who followed him into the pop charts), Eckstine’s singing, especially his exaggerated vibrato, sounded increasingly mannered and he was unable to sustain his recording success throughout the decade.
While enjoying success in the middle-of-the-road and pop fields, Eckstine occasionally returned to his jazz roots, recording with Vaughan, Count Basie and Quincy Jones for separate LPs, and he regularly topped the Metronome and Downbeat polls in the Top Male Vocalist category: He won Esquire magazine's New Star Award in 1946; the Down Beat magazine Readers Polls from 1948 to 1952; and the Metronome magazine award as "Top Male Vocalist" from 1949 to 1954.
His 1950 appearance at the Paramount Theatre in New York City drew a larger audience than Frank Sinatra at his Paramount performance.
Among Eckstine's recordings of the 1950s was a 1957 duet with Sarah Vaughan, "Passing Strangers", a minor hit in 1957, but an initial No.22 success in the UK Singles Chart. Even before folding his band, Eckstine had recorded solo to support it, scoring two million-sellers in 1945 with "Cottage for Sale" and a revival of "Prisoner of Love". Far more successful than his band recordings, these prefigured Eckstine’s future career.
The 1960 Las Vegas live album, No Cover, No Minimum, featured Eckstine taking a few trumpet solos as well. He recorded several albums for Mercury and Roulette during the early 1960s, and he appeared on Motown for a few standards albums during the mid to late 1960s. After recording sparingly during the 1970s for Al Bell's, Stax/Enterprise imprint, Eckstine (although still performing to adoring audiences throughout the world), made his last recording, the Grammy-nominated Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter in 1986.
Eckstine made numerous appearances on television variety shows, including "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Nat King Cole Show", "The Tonight Show" with Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson, "The Merv Griffin Show", "The Art Linkletter Show," "The Joey Bishop Show," "The Dean Martin Show", "The Flip Wilson Show", and "Playboy After Dark". He also performed as an actor in the TV sitcom "Sanford and Son", and in such films as Skirts Ahoy, Let's Do It Again, and Jo Jo Dancer.
Eckstine was a style leader and noted sharp dresser. He designed and patented a high roll collar that formed a "B" over a Windsor-knotted tie, which became known as a "Mr. B. Collar." In addition to looking cool, the collar could expand and contract without popping open, which allowed his neck to swell while playing his horns.." The collars were worn by many a hipster in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Legend has it that his refined appearance even had an effect on trumpeter Miles Davis. Once, when Eckstine came across a disheveled Davis in the depths of his heroin excess, his remark "Looking sharp, Miles" served as a wake-up call for Davis, who promptly returned to his father's farm in the winter of 1953 and finally kicked the habit.
In 1986, Billy recorded his final album Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter. Eckstine died on March 8, 1993, aged 78.

TRIBUTES

His friend Duke Ellington recalled Eckstine's artistry in his 1973 autobiography Music is My Mistress: "Eckstine-style love songs opened new lines of communication for the man in the man-woman merry-go-round, and blues a la B were the essence of cool. When he made a recording of Caravan, I was happy and honored to watch one of our tunes help take him into the stratosphere of universal acclaim. And, of course, he hasn't looked back since. A remarkable artist, the sonorous B." ... "His style and technique have seen extensively copied by some of the neocommercial singers, but despite their efforts he remains out front to show how and what should have been done."
Quincy Jones was quoted in Billboard: "I looked up to Mr. B as an idol. I wanted to dress like him, talk like him, pattern my whole life as a musician and as a complete person in the image of dignity that he projected. ... As a black man, Eckstine was not immune to the prejudice that characterized the 1950s." Jones is quoted in The Pleasures of Jazz: "If he’d been white, the sky would have been the limit. As it was, he didn’t have his own radio or TV show, much less a movie career. He had to fight the system, so things never quite fell into place."
Lionel Hampton: "He was one of the greatest singers of all time. ... We were proud of him because he was the first Black popular singer singing popular songs in our race. We, the whole music profession, were so happy to see him achieve what he was doing. He was one of the greatest singers of that era ... He was our singer."

Source: Wikipedia.

Billy Cobham, Colin Towns & HR-Big Band "Meeting of the spirits - a celebration of the Mahavishnu Orchestra" (2006)

Billy Cobham's Glass Menagerie "Stratus" (1981)

Billy Cobham "By design" (1991)

Billy Cobham "Crosswinds" (1974)

Billy Cobham

Ever since his breakthrough in the early 1970s-as a founding member of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and as a drummer/leader whose recordings (such as Spectrum) and powerful, complex style of play exerted a strong influence on the course of jazz and jazz-fusion-Billy Cobham has remained a tireless musical explorer.
Panamanian by birth, a New Yorker by upbringing, and a resident of Switzerland for more than 25 years, Cobham has pursued an ever-broadening, ever-deepening engagement with the world not only as a master drummer and percussionist but as a composer, producer, educator, and clinician who gives service through music even as he constantly expands his personal creative expression.
Cobham's newest recording, Fruit from the Loom-released in April 2008 through his own imprint, Creative MultiMedia Concepts, Inc. (CMMC)-is a suitably wide-ranging representation of his roots and his journeys. He reprises two of his best-known compositions from the '70s, "Spectrum" and "Crosswinds," by incorporating violin on the former and steel pan on the latter. "I've always found it difficult to focus upon one direction in music," Cobham notes, "so I've resigned myself to projecting ideas and thoughts through a musical kaleidoscope, from Latin to rock and jazz. This version of 'Spectrum' is a testament to that idea."
On the new CD, he also utilizes a string quartet (on "Faia") and percussion ensembles-with Cobham himself playing all the parts on "Samba du Militairestrasse" and Nigerian friends joining him on "Thoughts from Okuta." Experiences from travels in Brazil are captured in "Eggshells Still on My Head" and "Florianapolis," while the Bocas del Toro islands off the eastern coast of Panama-which Cobham describes as a place where "it is easy for me to relax and generally mellow out"-inspire the buoyant "Sweet Bocas."
Fruit from the Loom, dedicated to the memory of Cobham's parents William and Ivy, features support from longtime colleagues including organist Brian Auger, bassists Victor Bailey and Stefan Rademacher, saxophonist Ernie Watts, guitarists Dean Brown and Jean-Marie Ecay, and, on steel pan, Junior Gill.
Cobham is also the centerpiece of a new 90-minute documentary by director Mika Kaurismäki entitled Sonic Mirror. The genesis of the film dates back to 2001, when Kaurismäki approached the drummer about producing a portrait of his life and times. "But then we started to think of other ways of doing it," the director reveals. "We finally decided to do a film about Billy and some of his projects, focusing on rhythm and music as communication and universal language."
To Cobham, the term "sonic mirror" means "a sound reflection of everything that I experience, or that one experiences, in music. It's almost like a radio parabolic dish, where all of the radio signals come in, are processed, and reflected back to the presenter."
The film, which takes place in Switzerland, New York, Salvador da Bahia (Brazil), and Helsinki (Finland) and which was released in April 2007, has screened at film festivals in Munich and Cologne, Germany; Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil; Pusan, South Korea; Gijón, Spain; Adelaide, Australia; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's also had a commercial release in France. A multiple-disc DVD release is currently in the works, focusing on the concert in Finland with Randy Brecker; Malê Debalê, a Bahian bloco afro; the Glarus concert (with Swiss musicians and yodeling choir); Okuta Percussion and Autistics; and the Okuta Percussion concert.
The Hollywood Reporter described Sonic Mirror as "a feel-good world music documentary with the potential to be the next Buena Vista Social Club." But for Cobham, more fundamentally, "it verifies the value of music as an important factor in this world. If used for the greater good, it can be a powerful ally."
Billy Cobham was born in Colón, Panama on May 16, 1944. The family relocated to the U.S. in the winter of '47, living first in Harlem and then in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. "Music was all around me," he recalls. "Primarily either Latin music-folclórico or típico, as they called it in Panama-or jazz."
Cobham, whose first paying gig came at age eight, courtesy of his pianist father, cut his teeth on drumming as a member of St. Catherine's Queensmen, a drum and bugle corps in St. Albans, Queens. He went on to attend New York's famed High School of Music and Art, where he studied music theory and drum technique alongside some of today's great musical legends, including trumpeter Jimmy Owens, bassist Eddie Gomez, and pianist Larry Willis. At the time, "jazz was a bit off-limits to students while classical music was preferred by the education establishment. So of course students craved to connect with jazz artists in any way that they could, be it chance encounters at school lectures or via LP recordings that they could study and eventually emulate."
After military service, during which he played in the U.S. Army Band as percussionist (1965-68), Cobham began working in Horace Silver's band. (While on a European tour with Silver in 1968 he became one of the first percussionists, along with Max Roach and Tony Williams, to use the Electronic Drum Controller made by the Meazzi Drum Company in Milan.) He also performed with Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott, and recorded with George Benson.
In 1969 Cobham co-founded the fusion group Dreams, which also featured Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker, John Abercrombie, Don Grolnick, Barry Rodgers, and Will Lee. The following year he was invited to join Miles Davis's group and contributed to four pivotal recordings by the trumpeter, including Bitches Brew (where he collaborated with guitarist John McLaughlin) and Tribute to Jack Johnson.
Mahavishnu Orchestra was formed by McLaughlin in 1971 with Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jerry Goodman, and Rick Laird. They released three acclaimed albums (beginning with Inner Mounting Flame) before the band was dissolved and Cobham chose to launch his solo career with Spectrum, one of the definitive albums of the jazz-rock era.
During the 1970s and '80s, he recorded steadily as a leader for Atlantic, CBS, Elektra, and GRP, collaborating with artists ranging from George Duke, John Scofield, and Tony Williams to Jack Bruce and the Grateful Dead, both on stage and in the studio.
Cobham was engaged by UNICEF in 1992 to work with autistic outpatients and street children in Santos (near São Paulo), Brazil, in a musical project of several years' duration. "The street children fell into my realm of operations almost by chance, as it was not part of my original mandate," he says. "But due to the unavoidable specter and shadow cast by so many little personalities with big hearts and so much time to ponder life without parental direction, it was inevitable that I would find myself working with them-some of the brightest minds harboring raw talent that I have ever witnessed to date. The shame of it all was that many would never have the opportunity to use their gift."
In '93 Cobham performed, recorded, and produced at the WOMAD Festival (World of Music, Arts and Dance) with Peter Gabriel, Nigeria's Okuta Percussion, and Farafina from Burkina Faso. (His association with WOMAD continues to this day: over the last several years he's conducted sessions in performance techniques at the University of Bath Spa in England, and he is now an Official Patron of WOMAD in Bath.)
Other highlights of the 1990s included touring and recording with Jazz Is Dead, Paradox, Nordic, and the London Jazz Orchestra; and development of the Conundrum book series, whose titles have music-minus-one capability that allow participants to play along on their specific instruments. (Drum set, piano, brass, woodwinds, bass, and guitar books are available through Alfred Music Publications in association with Rhythmatix Music, Ltd.)
By the start of the '00s Cobham had introduced "The Art of Jazz" series, recording and touring extensively first with the Art of 3 (Kenny Barron, Ron Carter), then the Art of 4 (Carter, Donald Harrison, James Williams) and the Art of 5 (Harrison, Guy Barker, Eric Reed or Julian Joseph, Orlando Le Fleming). He also worked with Culture Mix (featuring steel pan player Junior Gill), recording two albums with them for CMMC (with distribution through In and Out Records), and in 2003 reactivated Spectrum as a band that revisits the music of that genre-reinventing album.
Cobham plans to record a second volume of Fruit from the Loom this summer, with Dean Brown, JM Ecay, Tom Coster, Cristophe Cravero, Victor Bailey, Ernie Watts, Mike Mainieri, Junior Gill, Michael Rodriguez, Mike Mondesir, Marco Lobo, Marshall Gilkes, and Philippe Chayeb among those who'll be on board.
His current collaboration with the Cuban group Asere has been ongoing since their first performance together at the WOMAD Festival in Reading in 2002. A new CD, De Cuba y de Panamá, is due for summer 2008 release, and a DVD, A Latin Soul, directed by John Hollis, is already out. That package contains live concert footage, two documentaries, and a bonus CD with live and studio tracks. Cobham and Asere will be touring the U.K. this fall.
"It's very, very interesting for me to hear this music and to play music like Mahavishnu Orchestra or even with Jack Bruce, but my approach is fundamentally the same," the drummer observes. "It's got a Latin root, and it kind of sets me off from everybody else.
"Music will tell the world who you are, based on what you present and how you present it. You can't lie through this medium.
"Therefore I find myself trying again to connect the dots, to learn. Through this relationship with Asere and the music we make together, it's helping me to connect. I'm reconnecting with my roots in Panama in order to see my future better through this clearer view of my past."
And as with any artistic endeavor, the personal becomes the universal, and Billy Cobham's most recent musical journey-back to his beginnings-will be shared and savored by his listeners around the world.

Source: Billy Cobham.com

Billie Holiday "The essential Billie Holiday" (2002)

Recordings from 1933-46.

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday remains (four decades after her death) the most famous of all jazz singers. "Lady Day" (as she was named by Lester Young) had a small voice and did not scat but her innovative behind-the-beat phrasing made her quite influential. The emotional intensity that she put into the words she sang (particularly in later years) was very memorable and sometimes almost scary; she often really did live the words she sang.

Her original name and birthplace have been wrong for years but are listed correctly above thanks to Donald Clarke's definitive Billie Holiday biography Wishing on the Moon. Holiday's early years are shrouded in legend and rumours due to her fanciful ghost written autobiography Lady Sings the Blues but it is fair to say that she did not have a stable life. Her father Clarence Holiday (who never did marry her mother) played guitar with Fletcher Henderson and abandoned his family early on while her mother was not a very good role model. Billie essentially grew up alone, feeling unloved and gaining a lifelong inferiority complex that led to her taking great risks with her personal life and becoming self-destructive.

Holiday's life becomes clearer after she was discovered by John Hammond singing in Harlem clubs. He arranged for her to record a couple of titles with Benny Goodman in 1933 and although those were not all that successful, it was the start of her career. Two years later she was teamed with a pickup band led by Teddy Wilson and the combination clicked. During 1935-42 she would make some of the finest recordings of her career, jazz-oriented performances in which she was joined by the who's who of swing. Holiday sought to combine together Louis Armstrong's swing and Bessie Smith's sound; the result was her own fresh approach. In 1937 Lester Young and Buck Clayton began recording with Holiday and the interplay between the three of them was timeless.

Lady Day was with Count Basie's Orchestra during much of 1937 but, because they were signed to different labels, all that exists of the collaboration are three songs from a radio broadcast. She worked with Artie Shaw's Orchestra for a time in 1938 but the same problem existed (only one song was recorded) and she had to deal with racism, not only during a Southern tour but in New York too. She had better luck as a star attraction at Cafe Society in 1939. Holiday made history that year by recording the horribly picturesque "Strange Fruit," a strong anti-racism statement that became a permanent part of her repertoire. Her records of 1940-42 found her sidemen playing a much more supportive role than in the past, rarely sharing solo space with her.

Although the settings were less jazz-oriented than before (with occasional strings and even a background vocal group on a few numbers) Billie Holiday's voice was actually at its strongest during her period with Decca (1944-49). She had already introduced "Fine and Mellow" (1939) and "God Bless the Child" (1941) but it was while with Decca that she first recorded "Lover Man" (her biggest hit), "Don't Explain," "Good Morning Heartache" and her renditions of "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do," "Them There Eyes" and "Crazy He Calls Me." Unfortunately it was just before this period that she became a heroin addict and she spent much of 1947 in jail. Due to the publicity she became a notorious celebrity and her audience greatly increased. Lady Day did get a chance to make one Hollywood movie (New Orleans) in 1946 and, although she was disgusted at the fact that she was stuck playing a maid, she did get to perform with her early idol Louis Armstrong.

Billie Holiday's story from 1950 on is a gradual downhill slide. Although her recordings for Norman Granz (which started in 1952) placed her once again with all-star jazz veterans (including Charlie Shavers, Buddy DeFranco, Harry "Sweets" Edison and Ben Webster), her voice was slipping fast. Her unhappy relationships distracted her, the heroin use and excessive drinking continued and by 1956 she was way past her prime. Holiday had one final burst of glory in late 1957 when she sang "Fine and Mellow" on The Sound of Jazz telecast while joined by Lester Young (who stole the show with an emotional chorus), Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Gerry Mulligan and Roy Eldridge, but the end was near. Holiday's 1958 album Lady in Satin found the 43-year old singer sounding 73 (barely croaking out the words) and the following year she collapsed; in the sad final chapter of her life she was placed under arrest for heroin possession while on her deathbed!

Fortunately Billie Holiday's recordings have been better treated than she was during her life and virtually all of her studio sides are currently available on CD.

Source: The Unofficial Billie Holiday.

A Cor do Som "Ao vivo - Montreux International Jazz Festival" (1978)

A Cor do Som

In the early '70s, a Cor do Som was responsible, in great extent, for the revival of the choro idiom, influencing many musicians who were young at the time and who would later develop noted careers in this style, like the brothers Henrique Cazes, Beto Cazes, and many others. A Cor do Som were formed by accomplished musicians who modernized the venerable and rich genre through a mix with rock, bringing to it new arrangements and electric instrumentation. The group (almost unnoticed as a supporting band for Os Novos Baianos, which took all the fame) gave new breath to choro and also later created (when they ceased to be an instrumental band) the formula that would be employed by axé music only seven years later: strong musicianship in the performance of a mix of Northeastern rhythms and rock, and vocal themes dealing with sensuality, summer, happiness, and love. It was written that in the band's path there would be success and prestige; they played for 60,000 people in one occasion and also performed on a memorable night in the 12th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival where John Mclaughin, Billy Cobham, Sammy Figueroa, and Alvim Batiste participated in the jam session. But the tension between tie and jeans was too much for them, resulting in naked feelings and cold separation. At the end of that hibernation, though, a Cor do Som struck again, winning the prestigious Sharp prize and implying that they are were to stay.
A Cor do Som were created in 1977 to accompany Os Novos Baianos. Named after a song by Morais Moreira and Galvão, A Cor do Som was formed by the experienced and talented musicians Armandinho (electric guitar, electric cavaquinho, and electric mandolin), Dadi (bass), Mú (keyboards), and Gustavo (drums). When Moreira left Os Novos Baianos and departed for his solo career, he took the band away with him, as well as inviting the percussionist Ary Dias, who formerly played in the Orquestra Sinfônica da Universidade Federal da Bahia. In 1975, Morais Moreira recorded his first solo album, accompanied by a Cor do Som. After a little more than one year as a supporting band for Moreira, the group decided to put out a solo work. Sergio Carvalho, Dadi and Mú's brother, who was a producer for Phonogram, invited them to record a demo, which didn't bring any results. It was then that WEA's producer, Guti Carvalho (Mú's and Dadi's cousin), arranged for them to be hired. They signed the contracts without having any material; they had to rehearse for one month to have stuff for one album. The guys became appalled when they discovered that they had been inscribed by the recording company in the First National Choro Festival, organized by TV Bandeirantes, with the choro "Espírito Infantil" (Mú), as choro was always regarded by Brazilians as an object of cult popularity. On top of that, the jury of the festival was dominated by nationalists/traditionalists (with the exception of Roberto Menescal) led by the feared and combative José Ramos Tinhorão and by the choro monster Waldir Azevedo. The big surprise was that, while they feared not leaving the premises alive, they were placed fifth in the festival under applause of the public and praised by the two illustrious figures as Brazilian players who used electric and electronic instruments to create a very Brazilian sound. Their first album came out in 1977 amid enthusiastic reviews but sold only 6,000 copies, though that's not a bad cipher for instrumental albums in Brazil, especially at that time. Soon they opened for the Liverpool Express, also WEA artists at the time, in a WEA convention at the Hotel Nacional in Rio. The convention was being attended by Nesuhi Ertegun and Claude Nobs. Impressed by what he heard, Nobs invited the group for the Viva Brasil! Night at the 12th edition of the Montreux Festival (1978), where their energetic and historic live album Ao Vivo em Montreux was recorded. John Mclaughin, Billy Cobham, Sammy Figueroa, and Alvim Batiste participated in the animated jam session that followed, and the enthusiastic and tumultuous concert of the "Brazilian night" made headlines around Switzerland. Selling out the 4,000 tickets, Nobs was obliged to program another show with the group (which also had, as special guests, Aroldo and André at the percussion).
In Brazil, "Arpoador" received good airplay. In that year, the band performed around 150 shows throughout Brazil, including 21 in the Pixinguinha project. They also participated in the soundtracks of the films A Dama do Lotação and Os Sete Gatinhos and in the recording of "Hino de Duran" with Chico Buarque in his Ópera do Malandro. The next album, Frutificar, was the first to bring vocal tracks, the only ones that played on the radio. "Beleza Pura" was the first big hit, written by Caetano Veloso, who was a longtime friend and consultant, having been together with Jorge Ben, the best man in Dadi's marriage -- in fact, he was his godfather in the Brazilian usage, which means a lifelong commitment. This period coincides with the beginning of their commercial success that would also bring, some years later, the band's dissolution due to a very strict and extenuating schedule and rigorous contracts with a clothing sponsor.
The record was appointed by the readers of Playboy magazine as the best instrumental album of the year, winning the third Playboy Best of Brazilian Popular Music prize. Having reached the masses among the youth market in Brazil -- preceding in seven years the explosion of axé music, which used basically the same elements of an electrified and energetic fusion of Northeastern rhythms with rock, and now lyrics dealing with love, sensuality, summer colors, Brazilianess, the whole works -- in April 1980 a Cor do Som was invited by São Paulo's mayoralty to play at the Ibirapuera Stadium in a show that intended to be a call-back to the classes after the summer vacations (in Brazil, December to February). Instead of the expected 3,000 people, though, 60,000 attended and danger of a terrible catastrophe surrounded the band's aura when the throng got restless due to technical problems with the sound -- the crowd had invaded the space reserved for the monster cables and damaged some of them. Fortunately the group was good enough when the situation got tense, and the spectators, instantly pacified, sang along with them, going home later in beatitude.
In July 1981, A Cor do Som played in much calmer conditions, for an audience of 1,000 Wall Street suits at the Battery Park in New York,. When they reached the peak (in 1982 they played 50 shows in two months) Armandinho, tired of the excessive work and discipline and of the small pay, decided to overlap his actuation in the group with his father Dodô's Trio Elétrico de Dodô e Osmar. Facing resistance by the sponsor, he left the band. It was a terrible shock for the remaining bandmembers, but the work wasn't abandoned. Armandinho was replaced by Victor Biglione and the next album, Intuição (1984), also with Egberto Gismonti, Tulio Mourao, and Peri Santana as special guests, was a return to their instrumental path. A Cor do Som recorded two other albums but they didn't find their way to success again. In 1987 WEA didn't renew their contracts. The band was dissolved to everybody's regret, but it was inevitable.
In 1994, though, Armandinho was invited to play at the Jazzmania (Rio de Janeiro) and invited Mú, Dadi, Gustavo, and Ary. Playing for a packed house with standing ovations, they decided to team up again. Their next album was recorded live in the same year under the good vibes of the Circo Voador in Rio, where the Brazilian rock of the '80s was born, being forever connected with freedom in the imaginations of the people who attended its shows. The album, Ao Vivo No Circo, was released only in 1996, but that hadn't prevented the band from being awarded the Sharp prize of 1997 as the Best Popular Group of 1996. It was the start of a new beginning that the fans of a Cor do Som hope never ends.

Source: All Music.

Bill Evans & Jim Hall "Undercurrent" (1962)

Bill Evans Trio "Turn out the stars - Final Village Vanguard recordings June 1980" (1996)

Bill Evans "The solo sessions volumes 1 & 2" (1989)

Bill Evans Trio "The last waltz" (1980)

Bill Evans "The complete Riverside Recordings" (1991)

Bill Evans "Re: person I knew" (1974)

The Bill Evans Trio "Quiet now" (1996)

Recorded in 1969.