Moacir Santos - Maestro

All Music Guide

For his Blue Note debut Maestro, Brazilian composer Moacir Santos assiduously avoids his homeland's familiar bossa nova and samba rhythms, instead reinventing lesserknown idioms like baiao and frevo to create his own complex yet pulsating signatures and cadences. Opening with "Nana," easily Santos' most familiar and oftrecorded composition, Maestro quickly proves an uncommonly vast canvas for a who'swho of Los Angeles session greats including Joe Pass, Clair Fischer and Don Menza, all of whom explore new territory throughout the LPfor all their depth and intricacy, Santos' songs never box in their players, but allow them the space and the tools necessary to spread out. Though littleheard on its original release, many of the songs which comprise Maestro were later rerecorded by an allstar Brazilian group for the 2001 Santos tribute effort Ouro Negro, reaffirming their timelessness and their vitalityall the more reason for Blue Note to reissue this LP, regrettably out of print as of this... writing. - Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide Read more Less