After a dedicated and energetic few years reissuing old Marcos classics and releasing new ones, Joe Davis’ UK based Far Out record label flies the world’s flag for this kind of club-based carioca groove and, true to form, pretty much everything here’s dancefloor-ready.
The opener Olha Tà Chegando (Watch Out, It’s Coming) segues a choppy semi- acoustic guitar lick into a full studio horn section with a distinct ‘Phillie’ sound wind ensemble that’s one of the constant keys to this immensely satisfying set. Minha Roma hits us with Marcos’ trademark Roland keyboard sound, while the instrumental Odisseia, switches tack to a heavier, mid-tempo funk mood à la Banda Black Rio. É Você finds us back in ‘Tà Chegando’ territory: disco-samba in spades.
The title track opens with a few on-point bars of Stanley Clarke- style slap bass, and so goes the rest of the set, twelve solid tracks of well -produced, club-friendly Valle compositions, including two extra instrumental versions of Sempre and Minha Roma. Nothing surprising or groundbreaking here, but the legions of Valle fans don’t want Groundbreaking - they want that bossa-samba-funk groove that sold so well with Far Out’s last few Valle LPs such as Estatica and Nova Bossa Nova. Sempre won’t disappoint them.
When I interviewed Marcos back in 2009 for an episode of my BBC Radio 2 Viva Latino radio show, I was struck by his unassuming, modest, good-humoured nature: this guy who was a brilliant classical pianist at the age of ten, played with and composed for many of the top bossa nova 60s royalty in his twenties, including the international pop-jazz classic Samba De Verão, took a break to write a string of phenomenally successful soap-opera ‘trilhas sonoras’, before returning to his first love, making records and performing live.
One other thing, guys: if you look as good as Marcos when YOU’RE 75 years old, you can pat yourselves on the back. Make sure you go and see him live at Streatham ‘s Hideaway Jazz Club, the perfectly intimate venue for one of MPB’s elder statesmen, on Friday 31st May or Saturday 1st June
