BLP 4119

Charlie Rouse - Bossa Nova Bacchanal

Released - January 1963

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 26, 1962
Charlie Rouse, tenor sax; Kenny Burrell, Chauncey "Lord" Westbrook, guitar; Lawrence Gales, bass; Willie Bobo, drums; Potato Valdez, congas; Garvin Masseaux, chekere.

tk.4 Back Down To The Tropics (as Back To The Tropics)
tk.11 Meci Bon Dieu
tk.16 Samba De Orfeu
tk.25 Velhos Tempos
tk.31 Un Dia
tk.32 In Martinique
tk.38 Aconteceu

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Back to the Tropics	Leighla Whipper	26 November 1962
Aconteceu	Ed Lincoln, Silvio Rodríguez	26 November 1962
Velhos Tempos	Luiz Bonfá	26 November 1962
Samba de Orfeu	Luiz Bonfá, Antonio María	26 November 1962
Side Two
Un Dia	Margarita Orelia Benskina, Charlie Rouse	26 November 1962
Merci Bon Dieu	Frantz Casseus	26 November 1962
In Martinique	Lionel Belasco, Leighla Whipper	26 November 1962

Liner Notes

THE exact origin of bossa nova is as indeterminable as the genesis of jazz. It is beyond dispute, of course, that records by such American artists as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker made a profound impression during the 1940s and ‘50s, on young musicians in Brazil. It is also a matter of record that a guitarist from Sao Paolo, Laurindo Almeida, collaborated in Hollywood with a jazz saxophonist, Bud Shank, to apply jazz harmonic and rhythmic ideas to certain popular and folk melodies from Brazil. Whether these developments had any bearing on the birth of bossa nova has been the subject of animated disageement from Brazil to the Bronx.

Less debatable is the fact that some five years ago a conclave of youngsters in Rio began to express their disillusionment with the traditional samba, which they felt had developed a false sophistication, was becoming hybrid and distorted and consequently short on authenticity. They proposed to remedy the situation by experimenting with new ideas on every level — rhythmic, harmonic, melodic and lyrical. This new thing, new wave or flair was called bossa nova and the first festival celebrating its creation was held in the fall of 1959 in the auditorium of Rio Architecture University.

With the emergence of a new form and new beat for the samba. Joao Gilberto, the singer and guitarist became the king of the movement. A Gilberto LP Chega de Saudade, released in 1959, brought the interest in bossa nova from a limited in-group to broad national attention. Before long the Brazilian record companies were jumping on the band-wagon with vocal or instrumental versions of many of the attractive songs born of the movement. Additional impetus was provided by a remarkable motion picture, Black Orpheus, winner of the grand prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, for the picture had a score written by two of the prime movers in bossa nova. They were Antonio Carlos Jobim, best known as Gilberto’s musical director, and Luiz Bonfa, a subtly brilliant guitarist and composer.

What happened from 1960 on is common enough knowledge to need only a brief recapitulation here. Beginning in that year there was a heavy influx, into Brazil and other South American countries, of jazzmen who listened in fascination to the gentle understatement of the Brazilian rhythms combined with the harmony of modern jazz. Roy Eldridge, a member of one touring group, came home and recorded a blue, entitled Bossa Nova; he was first with the name, but not with the music. Ironically the artists whose success led directly to the present international excitement, Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, used the genuine samba feeling, but nowhere in tune titles or liner notes referred to bossa nova as such.

Whatever one calls this music, new samba or bossa nova or simply Brazilian jazz, this much is clear: there is more to it than the eight-to-the-bar undercurrent, or the frequent two-bar repeated clave statement (two dotted quarters. quarter, quarter rest, two dotted quarters) that constitute the technical basis of bossa nova. Essentially this is a feeling, a reflection of a pattern of life as mirrored by a particular group of individuals, and this reflection can change greatly according to the special reactions of the interpreters.

Charlie Rouse is an American jazz musician, a tenor saxophonist and a graduate of many well known big bands and small combos; it might therefore be expected that his background provided him for a reaction to bossa nova not unlike the reaction of, say, Ike Quebec, whose Soul Samba was heard on Blue Note 4114. As even a superficial observation of the two albums will show, this was not the case. Despite the presence of two of the same sidemen (Kenny Burrell and Garvin Masseaux) and the use of basically comparable material, Rouse sees and hears bossa nova very differently.

Heard previously on Blue Note in sessions with Bennie Green, Fats Navarro, Donald Byrd, Sonny Clark and others, Rouse is essentially a tenor man of the hard modern school. Born In 1924 in Washington D.C., he earned his jazz orientation in the first early big bands of the bebop years — Billy Eckstine’s in 1944, Dizzy Gillespie’s in ‘45 — and toured for a year with Duke Ellington in 1941-50. In recent years he was heard intermittently as co-leader with Julius Watkins of Les Jazz Modes, as a member of Buddy Rich’s aggressively swinging group, and from 1959 most often with Thelonious Monk.

These associations clearly were significant not only in the growth of Rouse’s general improvisational style but also in the nature of his approach to bossa nova. He tackles it heed on, with a roundhouse sound, plenty of percussion backing and a thoroughly convincing rhythmic interpretation of the melodies.

"I’ve always been very interested in ail forms of Latin music,” says Charlie, “so when the opportunity came along to make this album, I was prepared to make it as authentic as possible, injecting the true rhythmic feeling of bossa nova — that’s why I used Latin rhythm players — but also including enough jazz feeling to keep my own personality intact.

"I managed to vary the rhythm section, too, by using two guitarists with different approaches. On some tracks both of them are playing regular amplified Spanish concert guitar. The only amplified guitar solo is Kenny Burrell’s on Aconteceu.

"Another important factor, of course, was the choice of material. Too many of the bossa nova things that I’ve heard played by American musicians make use of American tunes, playing them in a style to which they really aren’t suited. It seemed to me more logical to use material of Latin or related origin, as long as it was possible to avoid using the ones that are too limited harmonically or melodically. I spent a lot of time doing research for this, looking through material in guitar books and various other sources, and the ones we finally selected were a suitable blend — good melodies with good blowing changes.”

With Potato Valdez on conga, Garvin Masseaux on chekere and Willie Bobo playing regular drums, the session gets under way in directly communicative fashion with Back to the Tropics, a tune with Calypso-like melody and changes (tonic to dominant to tonic) written by the charming Leighla Whipper. The mood is gentler, the tempo slower on the Ed Lincoln-Sylvia Cesar Aconteceu, which Willie Bobo introduced to Charlie via a Brazilian record by a singer named Pedrinho Rodrigues.

The intriguing minor-mode Velhos Tempos and the bright, intense Samba de Orfee are of course both products of the above-mentioned Luiz Bonfa. The fine guitar passage on the former features Lord Westbrook. Charlie, comfortably ensconced in the rhythmic cluster of a colorfully moving background, offers one of the most impassioned interpretations to date of the Orpheus samba. The passage in which the spotlight turns to percussion and bass, with Lawrence Gales’ footsure undercurrent as a dependable foundation, is a highlight preceding the return of the theme.

Un Dia (One Day), a happy-sounding theme with a Desafinado-like serenity, is Charlie’s extension of a melodic line suggested to him by a dancer friend, Princess Orelia Benskina. As befits the overall concept of bossa nova, Charlie plays with a remarkable blend of smoothness and assertion. The mood is maintained during the fluent unamplified guitar solo by Kenny Burrell.

Meci Bon Dieu (meaning thanks to the good God) is a tune of Haitian origin, found by Charlie in a guitar book and originally known as Coumbite. Some listeners may remember it from a Belafonte recording. Lord Westbrook is the featured guitarist on this vigorously dynamic track. Charlie’s work again is incisively energetic without force or violence, and his sense of time is always acute and appropriate.

The concluding performance is another work by Leighla Whipper, In Martinique. Opening with Gales’ bass figure, it moves into a heavily syncopated theme in which Charlie’s articulation and phrasing once again are sensitively tailored to the material without sacrificing the rhythmic essentials of his style. The blues-conscious guitar work is by Westbrook.

A closing word concerning the album title: “Bacchanal” refers to a Roman festival characterized by much dancing, singing and revelry. This is the particular type of bossa nova spirit Charlie Rouse had in mind when he set out to create an album of Brazilian-American music. He could not have achieved his objective with conventional or overworked material, nor with complacent or inhibited musicians. The highest compliment I can pay Charlie, and it can be paid with complete assurance, is that this is one album they will really dig in Rio.

-LEONARD FEATHER

Cover Design by REID MILES
Photos by FRANCIS WOLFF
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER