Brazil’s beat seduces jazz greats FEATURE 09/19/2010

Brazil’s beat seduces jazz greats

FEATURE

09/19/2010
OLINDA — Brazil’s unique tropical blend of samba-rock-guitar known as MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) has exerted an irrepressible influence on modern jazz, masters of the genre say.

“Since I played with John Coltrane in 1961, I started using open intervals on the chords, distributing the notes of each chord broadly on the piano so the other musicians could play their solos,” McCoy Tyner, a US pianist considered one of jazz’s all-time greats, told AFP.

That technique mirrored one also used in MPB, a trademark, urban Brazilian style that emerged in the 1960s as an evolution and a reaction to the smooth, languorous Bossa Nova wave.

Tyner and fellow musicians Mike Stern, a Jazz-fusion guitarist who played with Miles Davis, Mario Canonge, a French pianist championing Latin Jazz, and an irreverent French group known as Selmer 607 were visiting the Muestra Internacional de Musica, an international music fest in the northeastern Brazilian town of Olinda held last week.

There, they delved deeper into Brazilian rhythms whose warm beats and African-derived tunes have seeped into theirs and various other styles..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100919com3.html