Tucuma

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When Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vinicius Cantuària's Sol Na Cara came out on Gramavision in 1997 it was unquestionably one of my albums of the that year. But I was wrong about one thing; as, in my ignorance, I'd never heard of him, I assumed he was a new talent. How wrong can you get? It turns out that Cantuària is now 47, and while he only relocated to New York at the beginning of the 90s, he had been a considerable star in Brazil before that, having been the drummer in tropicalismo star Caetono Veloso's band for years (and, incidentally, penning several of Veloso's songs, including a number one) before going on to release seven solo albums. It's a great index of just how skewed our impressions can be of other countries' cultures that someone can be such a star in their homeland but a curio elsewhere. Whatever... It was his move to NYC and hooking up with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Arto Lindsay which brought him to the attention of serious music followers in the Northern hemisphere. Tucuma is his second album since "re-emerging", and, if anything, is even better than its predecessor, although still following the same path of essentially reinventing bossa nova. For the record he has assembled a new band entirely, although some old friends turn up occasionally for the ride. The core group is Vinicius himself playing a bewildering array of instruments (guitars, flutes, percussion, programming, piano), guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer (and longtime Frisell cohort) Joey Baron, and trumpeter Michael Leonhart. Now this is in itself quite enough. These musicians wring every possible subtle nuance out of Vinicius' already immensely subtle songs (Baron in particular is on extraordinary form, playing this ever shifting hybrid of bossa, skittering free jazz and rambunctious funk). But then there are the guests: tenor saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, percussionists Mauro Refosco, Davi Vieira and Marivaldo Dos Santos, cellist Erik Friedlander, bassist Steve Cohen, Sean Lennon - yes, that Sean Lennon - adding very effective bass, trombonist Josh Roseman, violinists Mark Feldman and Joyce Hammann, viola player Lois Martin, Laurie Anderson on violin and vocals, fellow Brazilian Nana Vasconcelos on percussion and last, but certainly not least, Arto Lindsay, who adds a single, but mesmerising guitar solo. But if it's easy to reel off a list of contributors, it's damn near impossible to say exactly what it is that makes Cantuària's songs quite so effective. For while they possess all the poise and sophistication of bossa nova, they have something else, an edge which constantly threatens to rip the music asunder yet which is always kept in check. It should also be pointed out that Vinicius has the voice of an angel, which helps! Sol Na Cara's release went criminally unnoticed two years ago; we can only pray that Tucuma is greeted with more enthusiasm. I seriously can't imagine many more worthwhile records being released before the year's out and, as I write, it's only March. Stunning.