Product Code: WET30288052
Original price was: $45.99.$27.59Current price is: $27.59.The follow-up album to Brazilian singer, songwriter, and musician Marcos Valles 1970s self-titled long player, Garra continues to express a socially aware stance combined with a playful hodge-podge of samba, bossa nova, baio (a rhythmic beat from the rural northeast of Brazil), black American music, and psychedelic rock. Marcos and lyricist brother Paulo Sergio recorded the disc with some of Brazils top studio musicians and created the pairs most overtly political statement. Recorded amongst sessions for a steady stream of popular TV novella soundtracksa side gig for the sun-kissed composerthe results tested the military led governments hand picked sensors, looking over the countrys art and music with sharp eyes for critical or objectionable content. Unfortunately, some of Valles peers didnt fare as well and were either exiled (like Tropiclia movement icons Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso in 1969) or fled the country for the United States or Europe.
Review
Tempering his funkier inclinations to create a Baroque masterpiece of easy listening Brazilian pop, Marcos Valle recorded the most entertaining album of his career, and perhaps the best Brazilian pop album of all time. Garra begins with the elegant "Jesus Meu Rei," with a magisterial men's choir echoing Valle's sentiments while textured piano and organ complete the rich sonic palette. Second track "Com Mais de 30," only the first of several ingenious transitions, offers a light, breezy alternative, bouncing back and forth from main melody to an excellent bridge. Indeed, nearly every song has a bridge as strong as -- or stronger than -- the main melody, and Valle proves himself a master at weaving together the various studio musicians at his disposal. Valle moves briskly and assuredly from piano lines to acoustic guitar and back for "Com Mais de 30," combines flutes and a Mellotron for a tight bridge on the title track, and coaxes all manner of emotions from a symphonic orchestra -- hushed yet gradually building strings, bleating brass -- for the unabashed "Black Is Beautiful." Every song is excellent, most in the easy pop vein of Samba '68. "Wanda Vidal," "Vinte e Seis Anos de Vida Normal," and the perfectly done closer, "O Cafona," are seamless blends of funk and easy listening; the last features a rangy bassline, organ, and wah-wah guitar working together with handclaps and separated men's and women's backing choruses while Valle breathily repeats words and phrases several times before climaxing at the end of nearly every line. Continually besting symphonic seducers from Esquivel to Brian Wilson, Marcos Valle recorded his masterpiece with Garra.- John Bush, Allmusic
A1 Jesus Meu Rei
A2 Com Mais De 30
A3 Garra
A4 Black Is Beautiful
A5 Ao Amigo Tom
A6 Paz E Futebol
B1 Que Bandeira
B2 Wanda Vidal
B3 Minha Voz Vir Do Sol Da Amrica
B4 Vinte E Seis Anos De Vida Normal
B5 O Cafona
