Pianist and composer
Amaro Freitas hails from the coastal city of Recife in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco. He grafts the musical heritage of that region into his bracing take on contemporary jazz. His second album
Rasif is unlike any other piano trio recording; it is a tour de force of experimentation and a bold, yet intimate reconsideration of jazz.
Freitas was influenced by iconic jazz pianists including
Monk and
Chick Corea, but also by the boundary-less, time-stretching explorations of Brazilian masters such as
Hermeto Pascoal,
Sivuca,
Moacir Santos, and
Egberto Gismonti.
Freitas' method is not reflective of the more familiar Brazilian samba or bossa with jazz. Instead, he marries the harder rhythms of Afro-Brazilian maracatu, and the rough and rowdy carnival beats of frevo and baiao, to swinging, sometimes angular harmonic architectures via complex mathematical and improvisational patterns. He achieves this in simultaneous, double-handed comping and soloing, with ballast from his rhythm section: bassist Jean Elton and drummer Hugo Medeiros. While his debut album, 2016's Sangue Negro (Black Blood) introduced these concepts, it focused on their articulation through the modern jazz idiom while
Rasif turns that m.o. on its head.
Opener "Dona Eni" employs baiao in percussive chords and knotty yet trancelike ostinato patterns. The rhythm section doesn't enter for nearly two minutes, then adds swinging force in the union of melody and beats, creating something danceable from the swirling maelstrom. "Trupé" uses the same rhythm but to completely different ends. It commences with percussion playing a skittering, circular pattern before Elton grafts an equally entrancing vamp onto the top. When
Freitas' piano enters, he initially battles with his sidemen by offering colorful, spirited single notes and trills in counterpoint before joining the bass to double in a dance. Despite the fiery acrobatics, the trio is capable of equally remarkable intimacy and lyricism in a ballad. The title track is steamy and nocturnal, with syncopated pulses that underscore a restrained yet tender drama in the pianist's chord voicings and lithe middle-register harmonics. "Mantra" is a dazzling exercise in rhythmic and melodic invention using maracatu and postbop. "Aurora," a three-part suite, is an elaborate showcase for
Freitas' compositional skill, with abundant, inquisitive lyricism. The rhythm section doesn't just keep time, but signifies its liquidity as they engage with one another and the pianist. Reed player Henrique Albino guests on the final two selections. "Plenilunio" sounds thoroughly composed, a seeming union of classical music and modal jazz, while "Afrocatu" is the most joyous and dissonant thing on the set, with carnival-esque rhythms, bumping horns and angular blocks of layered, lower-register notes and extended chords.
Rasif may be the inside-out companion to its predecessor, but it goes much further, offering a series of new sonic dimensions for both contemporary jazz and Brazilian music. Fans of
David Virelles,
Vijay Iyer, and
Craig Taborn (and the Brazilian masters) will find
Rasif no less than exhilarating. ~ Thom Jurek