Mara & Naná Vasconcelos - Ntsano vinyl lp (due to size and weight, this price for the USA only. Outside of the USA, the price will be adjusted as needed)
SKU
21-Red 123171-1
This is one of those releases that I’ve owned so long (since it came out originally in 1983) and is so obscure that I can’t remember why or where I bought it. But it’s a real quiet, contemplative charmer of a disc!
“In 1983, in Canada, Vasconcelos came into contact with a group of young musicians from Québec City, who combined their association with the avant-garde with a visceral love for Africa and the suggestions of the Far East.
Denis Hébert, the leader of the group, was a pianist and organist who frequented jazz but who had also been exposed to the influence of the American minimalist current. The saxophonist, flautist and bass clarinetist Maurice Bouchard, who would become Québec's most famous jazz musician, enriched his jazz with hypnotic elements drawn from African music and Eastern spirituality. Pierre Tanguay, for his part, had an eclectic personality and his interests ranged from avant-garde to ancient music up to stage music for theater and ballet.
In 1983, the four musicians, under the guidance of Hébert, gave life to the "Mara" project and took advantage of Naná Vasconcelos’ availability to take part in it. The entire album encompasses the musicians' various experiences and is pervaded by an ancestral sense of spirituality and mystery, immersed in an ocean of rhythm with one shore in Brazil and the other in Africa.
As often happens in projects based on improvisation, "Mara" was a unique and unrepeatable episode born from the positive interaction of four musicians who, before resuming their respective paths, left us a tangible sign of their creative streak.”