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View Duo Caramuru-Baldanza * Piano & Bass Guitar's EPK
Fábio Caramuru was born in Sao Paulo , Brazil , in 1956. He graduated in architecture, working in this field for ten years. He soon realized, however, that he would completely dedicate his life to his greatest passion: music.
Caramuru started his musical studies with the Russian pianist Lidia Jefremov and obtained his diploma under the guidance of Zulmira Elias-José from Magda Tagliaferro's School. Playing piano, Caramuru has won several prizes in national contests, such as the Contest for Young Soloists organized by OSESP (Symphonic Orchestra of Sao Paulo State) and the Camargo Guarnieri National Contest.In 1977 he made his debut in OSESP, playing the first national audition of Stravinski's Concert for Piano and Wind Instruments . In 1980, having received a scholarship from the French Government , he moved to Paris , where he developed his abilities under Magda Tagliaferro's guidance.Since 1990, Caramuru has been working as artistic director of Magda Tagliaferro's Foundation, having received the “Great Criticism Award” in 1991 from APCA (Art Critics Association of Sao Paulo) for his musical compositions. In Sao Paulo , he has been coordinating and participating in many musical projects, many of which recorded by Radio & Television Cultura, such as Camargo Guarnieri's Festival , Francisco Mignone – 100th Year Anniversary , Magda Tagliaferro's Festival , Brazil Piano Solo and several musical series promoted by Magda Tagliaferro's Foundation.The pianist has produced 10 CDs, five of them as interpreter. In 1997, he made the arrangements and released the CD Tom Jobim Piano Solo (MC 003) , as a tribute to Tom Jobim. This masterpiece has led Caramuru to participate in recitals and conferences in Germany, France, the United States and Russia, having been also used as the theme of Caramuru's Master's Degree Dissertation on Musicology, defended at ECA (School of Communications and Arts) – USP (University of Sao Paulo), under the guidance of Professor Amilcar Zani.In 1988, Caramuru took part in the Brazilian Music History project, coordinated by the conductor Ricardo Kanji and recorded on CD and video, playing the works of Ernesto Nazareth, Chiquinha Gonzaga and Carlos Gomes. In 1999, the pianist released the CD Especiarias do Piano Paulista (ECHO 199) , as a tribute to the composers Camargo Guarnieri and Inah Sandoval, both born in Sao Paulo State.From 2001 to 2002, Caramuru worked as Cultural Coordinator of the Brazil-United States Cultural Union, in Sao Paulo . In this period, he created and produced the events União Cultural Rock Fest I and II , Reflections on September 11 and the New Musical Talents Award.In October 2002, he released the CD Dó Ré Mi Fon Fon – 27 Brazilian songs (ECHO 102) , in association with the multimedia artist Beth Bento . From 2003 to 2005 he was the executive coordinator of the TUCCA International Season of Concerts, in Sao Paulo .In November 2003, Caramuru directed the project Magda Tagliaferro Fest , in which he performed and recorded some of Richard Rodgers's songs with the mezzo-soprano singer Magda Painno. In 2004, Caramuru directed the Magda Tagliaferro Season at Promon . He also had several articles published at the newspaper Gazeta Mercantil . In April 2004, he released two CDS: - Moods Reflections Moods (ECHO 204) – his first authorial work, based on structures of improvisation;
- Richard Rodgers' Songs , with the singer Magda Painno, a CD recorded live during the Magda Tagliaferro Fest that became part of the best features of the festival (ECHO 104) .Nowadays, he has been developing a new work regarding progressive music with the bass player Pedro Baldanza. They have played at the SESC Brazil Instrumental project, which was considered extremely successful. Caramuru is also curator of the “Resonant Sundays” project at Olido Gallery in Sao Paulo .In 2005, the French pianists Katia and Marièlle Labèque performed the première of Tom Jobim's “Chovendo na Roseira”, the first of a series of new arrangements for two pianos written by Fábio Caramuru.
Possessing a formidable background in classical music, Fabio Caramuru has been developing an extremely heterogeneous pianistic production as an interpreter and arranger.
In recent years, Caramuru has been focusing mainly on projects of authorial nature, such as arrangements and performances of Brazilian music including songs for children, popular and classical music. Moreover, he has been working with improvisations of his own compositions.
Duo ECHO
Pianist Fabio Caramuru and bassist Pedro Baldanza create a unique blend of Brazilian Jazz, folk music and avant/modern classical ideas. Caramuru sounds elegant and powerful, while Baldanza lays down complex beds of choppy, chattering rhythm. Their music results in originality and lack of cliches.
Artist Information
Biography
(Profile by Eric Salzman)
These remarkable Brazilian artists from Sao Paulo have the amazing ability to incorporate the major strands of Brazilian tradition and innovation with equal doses of popular and classical Brazilian style in a series of compositions and improvisations that are based on both original themes and the work of Brazilian and North American masters.
The latter range from Tom Jobim (Caramuru is famous for his piano interpretations of Jobim's work) to Villa-Lobos and Camargo Guarnieri, from Duke Ellington to the great Brazilian folk artist Inezita, from "Dancing the Baiao" to Afro-Samba and updated Bossa Nova to tango and waltz. The music has all the ingredients of great American jazz, traditional and advanced, but, at the same time, it is infused with ideas rooted somewhere else resulting in its originality and lack of clichés.
Brazil remains the motherlode of one of the great world musical cultures mixing native, African, Portuguese and North American traditions with a desire to innovate and yet simultaneously reach a wide public. All of these traits can be found in the music of Caramuru and Baldanza as their creative work emerges
from the shadows to reach the larger European and North American public.
Bossa in the Shadows is the latest in the series of a dozen CDs by the brilliant Brazilian pianist and composer Fabio Caramuru, this one with his equally creative
partner, bass guitarist Pedro Baldanza.
Caramuru was born in Sao Paulo in 1956 and, although he had some serious training and credentials as a young pianist, he began his professional career as an architect. It was not too long, however, before he exchanged the art of frozen music for that of liquid architecture. In 1980 he received a French government scholarship, enabling him to go to Paris where he studied with the Brazilian-French pianist Magda Tagliaferro. After his return to Brazil, he became director of the Magda Tagliaferro Foundation in São Paulo and Cultural Coordinator of the Brazil-United States Cultural Union. He was involved with many musical projects including a festival of the music of Guarnieri, a Magda Tagliaferro Festival, a Brazilian music history project and, among his many recordings, an album of Richard Rodgers songs and another of his piano solo arrangements of Tom Jobim; he also has a series of two-piano arrangements of Jobim songs. With Pedro Baldanza, he formed the Duo Caramuru/Baldanza and the two instrumentalists have also joined with singer Magda Painno to form the Trio Echo, creating two improvising ensemble that combine classical, jazz, popular and even folkloric elements in new and original combinations.
Pedro Baldanza, born 1953 in Rio Grande do Sul, has played an important role in the development of progressive ideas in Brazilian music. Over more than a quarter of a century, he has worked with the ensemble Som Nosso de Cada Dia and with such outstanding artists as Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Ney Matogrosso and many others. His creative and improvisatory work includes his collaborations with Fábio Caramuru on original themes as well as their improvisations on music of Jobim, Guarnieri, Rodgers and others. Baldanza plays a six-string bass made by the Brazilian luthier Daniel D'Alegria.
The title Bossa in the Shadows itself suggests some of the moods evoked by this music. This is a collection of original compositions and improvisations – dark, moody, rhythmic, always evocative -- that combine the rich and varied elements of Brazilian tradition in strikingly new ways. These pieces owe something to American jazz in their use of free forms and, in particular, in the way Caramuru and Baldanza use multiple or simultaneous polytonal centers. The influences of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, counterpointed by Caramuru's classical background and the influence of Brazilian tradition from Afro-samba to Jobim and bossa nova, and then paired with Baldanza's bass work, produce a kind of Brazilian style free jazz with an expanded view of tonality but one in which the connection to the fundamental Brazilian beat is never absent. The music has all the ingredients
of great American jazz, traditional and advanced, but, at the same time, it is infused with ideas rooted somewhere else resulting in its originality and lack of clichés.
The class form of the Brazilian beat is, of course, samba and Afro-Samba refers not only to the indigenous dance form but also to its African roots as exemplified by the influence of the great acoustic guitarist Baden Powell who inspired this piece.
Choro – the word means "cry" or "lament" in Portuguese – is a traditional style of Brazilian instrumental music that dates back to 19th century Rio. Although it was to some degree replaced by the jazz-inflected bossa nova, choro remains a quintessential Brazilian musical form and it has undergone a major revival in recent years. Choro 2007 demonstrates some of the newest possibilities of this form.
Capturando is the Portuguese title for Caught in Flight, a piece developed out of the idea that the musicians are catching the sounds they produce in mid-air and bringing them back down – barely – to earth so the rest of us down here below can actually hear them.
Balada or Ballad is a slow piece that provides an intimate and dense atmosphere with a suppressed yet highly expressive lyricism.
The title track, Bossa in the Shadows, is a bossa nova that breaks free from the familiar cool jazz harmonies of the genre to create something that is doubly new in its dark harmonic tensions.
Take the Z Train makes the amusing suggestion that the famous Ellington/Strayhorn musical subway train heading north to Harlem is now running south at the other end of the earth – a very different sort of musical ride!
"Wave Moods" -- Wave inesperado or Unexpected Wave – incorporates the theme from a famous Jobim song that popped up as the musicians were finishing this number. Hence the new English title, In Walked Tom. This is a kind of musical double entendre since it is also a reference to Thelonious Monk's tribute to Bud Powell!
The composer refers to Baroque as having a serious and dramatic atmosphere. The original title was Bachianas and the piece refers musically both to the Concerto de Aranjuez by the Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and the Bachianas Brasileiras of Villa-Lobos.
Although samba and bossa nova are often thought of as the basis of Brazilian music, baião, the native music of northeastern Brazil, may be equally important. Like samba, it is essentially a dance rhythm of indigenous origins which was later combined with African influences. As with samba and bossa nova, Caramuru and Baldanza have created a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Dancing the Baião.
Ignez Magdalena Aranha de Lima, known as Inezita Barroso or simply Inezita, is a living legend of Brazilian folk music. Although born in São Paolo and best-known as a television performer, her espousal of traditional Brazilian music, much of it from the countryside, has made her an iconic figure in Brazilian music and helped the tradition stay alive. In For Inezita, Caramuru and Baldanza have again fashioned a tribute that incorporates both traditional and original contemporary elements.
Desconstruindo Guarnieri or Guarnieri Deconstructedis based on a piano Étude by the Brazilian composer that is constructed in fourths and deconstructed when Caramuru and Baldanza take away some of its original inevitability in their own inimitable style.
Mood 2004is a close reworking of one of the cuts from Caramuru's 2004 CD entitled "Moods".
Caught in Flight, Take 2 or Capturando outra vez is another version of Track 3, again using the conceit that its sounds are snatched from the air and brought down to earth.
Contundente is the Portuguese title for Incisive whose strongly marked and acute sonorities are set forth with energy and humor.
Both the bass guitar and the piano are string instruments that can also function as percussion – the piano because the strings are struck by hammers which are activated by striking the ivories and the guitar because of the many techniques of plucking and striking the strings as well as the body of the guitar in rhythmic fashion. Cordas or String Theoryis a piece that bypasses the percussive possibilities to emphasize the stringiness of these instruments.
Espasmo literally means "spasm" but On Edge also expresses what the composer calls the uncontrollable, spontaneous and involuntary character of the piece.
Heartbeat, Tango & Waltzdescribes quite precisely the three sections of the piece that carries this title.
Finally, Gestural is a work built on musical gestures but also on the physicality of the movements that result in the striking sounds and sonorities that are the expressive vocabulary of these artists.
Trio ECHO
Trio ECHO on tour - Ilhéus, Bahia, 12/2004
Fábio Caramuru - piano
Magda Painno - voice
Pedro Baldanza - bassThe musicians Fábio Caramuru, Pedro Baldanza and the singer Magda Painno present the authorial production developed by the Duo (Caramuru and Baldanza) and by the Trio Echo. This production has been based on improvisation and variation procedures and started with the release of the new Caramuru's CD – Moods Reflection Moods .
Fábio Caramuru, a pianist with classical formation, was one of the Magda Tagliaferro's disciples in France ; Magda Painno, a lyrical singer, has been presenting operas and concerts throughout Brazil ; Pedro Baldanza, a well known Brazilian musician, has worked with several famous singers, such as Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Ney Matogrosso, Zizi Possi.
The group has been producing an innovative kind of music, revealing new aesthetic proposals that surpass the labels of classical and popular. Moreover, they refer to this new musical experience simply as Moods, a unique attitude regarding the creative and interpretative processes, improvising based on their own themes as well as compositions originally created by Tom Jobim, Camargo Guarnieri, Baden Powel, Richard Rodgers and Cláudio Santoro.
Due to their extensive sonority, versatility and natural identification with different kinds of public, the Trio has been invited to show their compositions in the most varied spaces and events, such as Concert Halls, conventions and show houses.
