Naná Vasconcelos - Zumbi

Europa Records - LP

France, 1983

Percussion / Batucada / Experimental

Like many of these ECM-friendly artists - Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, etc. - Naná Vasconcelos's 1980's albums have been heavily overlooked by jazz heads. The whole jazz production of the 1980's in general, to be honest. It is largely considered a doomed decade by all jazz purists. It seems most of them were eagerly waiting for  Miles Davis to die and for a new generation of virtuosi to show up and play it the good old way.

- Back to that Zumbi album - I'm actually not surprised that it doesn't appeal to the fans of his 1970's records. Zumbi's sound is much dryer, much colder - almost surgical - and probably lacks that warm "exoticness" the aforementioned collectors are hunting for in 1970's South American music. 

That's, exactly what appeals to me on this LP. It shares that same sense of meticulousness, with say, Adrian Sherwood or, precisely, Manfred Eicher's productions. They call it " too clean", I call it "brilliant". Especially when Vasconcelos's surgeon-like precision meets his spiritual ambition, resulting in songs as mesmerizing as a Tibetan mandala, like "Passo", "Chegada 'Corpo'" or "Nos Olhos De Petronila 'Ondas'". Bare, raw psychedelism, truthfully reflected in its blazing artwork. (VG+/VG+ very clean copy)