I love Brazilian samba, bossa, jazz, and all sorts of the offspring of such styles, since the 1950-60s, when the rhythms of Brazil and post WWII north-American jazz began to blend. Some of the resulting music is amongst the best the world has enjoyed, in my view.
Edison Machado is credited, on Wikipedia, as being a founding father of jazz samba/bossa syle beats – ‘Through his creation of the samba no prato (samba on the cymbals) and his early recordings, he helped shape Brazilian samba and bossa nova’. As a fan and student of such music, I thought I ought to get some of his recordings. I already have some stuff he did as a sideman, such as The Composer of Desafinado Plays, by Jobim.
Just as that’s not my favourite Jobim album, nor very remarkable for the drumming, I find this album somewhat disappointing. He may well have been an innovator, but this sounds like loads of other similar samba jazz of the era. So if, as I have done, you come to this after hearing tons of other similar stuff, it’s not that exciing or original sounding.
Nevertheless, as an album done under Machado’s own name and leadership, the drums are much more prominent and active than on some of his dates as a sideman. And I’m sure as I listen to it more, and attempt to play along, etc, I’ll most likely come to like it more, and certainly to respect Machado’s drumming skills: Brazilian jazz, with it’s samba based beats, is not for the faint-hearted, drumming wise!
The music is mostly mid and uptempo, the tracks quite short, and sounding almost like a big band: lots of brass/horns, etc, and quite heavily arranged. None of the track titles jump out as familiar classics. I think four stars is rather generous, whilst just three is rather mean. Here on my blog I give it three and a half. Whereas on Amazon’s website it’s whole stars only, so I erred towards the more critical, and scored it just three there.
Far from essential but possibly worth having if you’re really into Brazilian samba jazz, etc, or you’re studying Brazilian drum rhythms, as I continue to do.