Laurindo Almeida Brazilliance Vol. 1 CD - Import

The Brazilian guitarist and composer Laurindo Almeida was closely identified with four different major genres across a lengthy career which began as a staff guitarist and bandleader at a radio station in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian music remained an essential constituent of much of his subsequent work, whether played straight or combined with his other major loves, jazz and classical music. "Concert Creations for Guitar" is Alemeida's first album from 1950. It is a beguiling set of intimate unaccompanied pre-bossa guitar pieces that Almeida performed alone, unamplified onstage in those days which compliments "Brazilliance" perfectly.

Personnel: Bud Shank (alto saxophone, flute); Laurindo Almeida (guitar); Gary Peacock (bass); Chuck Flores (drums).
Recorded in Los Angeles, California from April 15-22, 1953. Originally released on Pacific Jazz (1204).
More than seven years before Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd introduced the bossa nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim to American audiences, guitarist Laurindo Almeida and altoist Bud Shank (in a quartet with bassist Harry Babasin and drummer Roy Harte) recorded the intriguing music heard on this CD reissue. The performances are very close to bossa nova in their combination of cool-toned jazz and Brazilian rhythms; in fact, these are arguably the first bossa nova recordings, long before even Jobim and Joao Gilberto initially recorded. Only four of the 14 tunes ("Speak Low" is heard in two versions) are not based on Brazilian folk songs, and many of the songs (particularly "Carinoso") are quite memorable. This historically significant, very accessible, and highly recommended release is a gem. ~ Scott Yanow
In 1953, the West Coast studio reedman Bud Shank created a first by going into the studio with the Brazilian master guitarist Laurindo Almeida. A good eight years before Stan Getz conducted a similar experiment called JAZZ SAMBA (with non-Brazilian guitarist Charlie Byrd), Shank and Almeida produced a natural-born musical hybrid that still sounds startlingly contemporary today. There aren't too many 1953 jazz albums about which one could make the same claim.
The two musicians stick with mainly Brazilian material, featuring such highly regarded pre-bossa nova composers as Ary Barroso, Luis Gonzaga, and Pixinguinha. The only stateside detour is in the company of the romantic standards "Stairway to the Stars" and Kurt Weill's "Speak Low," both of which sound perfectly at home in this context, thanks to Almeida's incredible fluency and Shank's unmannered, freshly conceived improvisations.

The Wire (p.69) - "Almeida's samba rhythm melds organically into jazz swing as Shank's alto enters."