It’s the music of Vinicius de Moraes transformed to the New Bossas sound via Paula Morelenbaum’s charming vocals and a who’s who of the best musical talent in Rio and São Paulo! With sax great Leo Gandelman, guitarists Paulo Jobim and Celso Fonseca plus Bossacucanova, too!
Other Voices:
Paula Morelenbaum carries on the Bossa Torch
LOS ANGELES -- It's a hot summer afternoon in Los Angeles, and Paula Morelenbaum is posing for the cameras. We are on the terrace of the Burbank building that houses Universal Music, Morelenbaum's record label. The singer has just arrived from Tokyo for a hectic two days of interviews and photo shoots before flying back to her native Brazil. Jet lag seems to have no effect on her, and she poses with ease for the photographer of a Latin magazine. There is a regal air about her, an effortless sense of elegance and self-confidence that betrays her privileged status within the Brazilian music industry. The singer is the wife of Jaques Morelenbaum, the cellist, producer and arranger who collaborated with bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim during the last years of his legendary career. Paula toured with Jobim extensively as a backup vocalist, and is now a member of the Quarteto Jobim Morelenbaum -- a group founded by the Morelenbaums and relatives of Jobim with the intention of carrying the bossa torch.
Important release
Morelenbaum has just released a solo album, "Berimbau," which pays tribute to the late Vinicius de Moraes, Jobim's writing partner and the ultimate poet of the bossa wave. The collection is one of the key Brazilian releases of the year.Morelenbaum looks somewhat tired as she is ushered into a plush conference room for yet another interview. She requests a cappuccino and something to eat. Somehow, the refreshments never arrive. We talk about "Berimbaum" and the fact that Morelenbaum chose to reinterpret de Moraes' songs through the silky electro-bossa sound made trendy in the past decade by artists such as Bebel Gilberto, Bossacucanova and Celso Fonseca. The last two, in fact, produced a handful of tracks on "Berimbaum."
An artistic departure
It is a surprising departure for an artist whose work has followed the Jobim paradigm of sparsely arranged, mostly acoustic bossa nova.
"I wanted to surprise the listener," she says. "Besides, I love to make music that you can dance to. The blend between electronica and bossa is just perfect. But I didn't want to deconstruct the songs the way other deejays do. The beautiful melodies remained the same. I just put a new dress on them."
For the most part, "Berimbaum" succeeds. The proliferation of electro-bossa divas such as Cibelle and Rosalia Da Souza have turned Morelenbaum's current sonic quest into a bit of a cliche. But the singer's pedigree and her understanding of the material at hand make for a sophisticated project. To her credit, Morelenbaum chose, for the most part, lesser-known compositions by de Moraes. You won't find an umpteenth version of "Garota de Ipanema" on this record. The recurring electronic bleeps on "How Insensitive" do, however, become annoying after a while. "I spent some time looking for the right repertoire," explains the singer, who received advice from de Moraes' daughter Luciana. "I wanted to take a look at the other Vinicius, the one who wasn't always associated to Jobim. He also wrote Afro-sambas and worked with artists like Chico Buarque and Baden Powell." A Powell-de Moraes collaboration, the album's title track, is a lilting samba that exemplifies the beauty of the classic Brazilian songbook. It is joyful and relentlessly melancholy at the same time, a breezy melody that sticks instantly in your mind with its ambiguous turns and jazzy underpinnings. But if there's one song that distills de Moraes' cosmo-vision, that would be the opening "Tomara" and its unforgettable chorus:
“The most divine thing in this world
Is to live every second like it will never happen again”
The door to the conference room opens. It's a Brazilian photographer from a local newspaper. He has brought Morelenbaum a can of iced tea and a bag of cookies that he bought from a vending machine. Morelenbaum thanks him warmly in Portuguese. She eats and drinks while reminiscing about de Moraes. As it turns out, she did not get to meet him. But she heard plenty of stories about this lovable bohemian, who passed away in 1980, from Jobim himself.
Poetry of a placid lifestyle
"Jobim adored Vinicius," she recalls. "Apparently, Vinicius loved taking baths. He had a large bathtub at home, and he'd spend hours in there writing poetry. If you happened to stop by and he invited you into his bath, that meant that you were a really close friend of his." De Moraes' poetry speaks about the nuances of a placid lifestyle -- afternoons spent watching the pretty girls go by while pondering the ephemeral nature of existence. But would he be able to create those contemplative bossa nuggets if he lived today? "It was a different time," she says with a sigh, talking about the '60s, when the bossa craze took over. "There was a new democratic president in Brazil, and it was the beginning of a new future, one filled with hope. Jobim and Vinicius had the time to dream and compose. They had inspiration. I'm not sure it would be the same today." The interview is over and the publicist prepares to drive Morelenbaum to a couple of television appearances. Later on, they will have dinner and catch a late movie together. The following day, it's time for more interviews, a radio show and some shopping time at the local Virgin Megastore. Morelenbaum is extremely grateful for the publicist's dedication during her stay, and she gives her a present as they say goodbye.
It's a CD of songs. By Antonio Carlos Jobim.
“Berimbaum’, Paula Morelenbaum. CHICAGO TRIBUNE USA, Ernesto Lechners. September 2005
Teasing the Bossa Nova, in a Lilting, Latin Way
Paula Morelenbaum could easily perform as an old-fashioned bossa nova singer. She has the voice: graceful and airy, nonchalant but knowing. And she has the experience, having sung for a decade with the paramount bossa nova composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim. But on her 2004 album "Berimbaum" (Universal Music Latino) and on Thursday night at Joe's Pub, she chose a hybrid instead, carrying classic bossa novas into a contemporary realm of samples and electronics. The songs were from Vinicius de Moraes, the poet and occasional composer who collaborated with Jobim and other leading bossa nova songwriters. She was backed by a trio of Brazilian musicians on keyboards, guitar and drums, and the lilt of bossa nova, a subliminal samba, was still the core of the songs. But all around it were other sounds, live and recorded. The set began with the twang of an invisible berimbau, the Bahian percussion instrument (for the Moraes-Baden Powell song "Berimbau"), and throughout her songs Ms. Morelenbaum was joined by sampled Caribbean percussion, by double-time rhythms out of drum-and-bass electronica and by echoes that sent electric-piano chords and her own voice ricocheting through the music. A synthesized wah-wah bubbled up through "Insensatez"; a horn section punctuated "Canto de Ossanha." Ms. Morelenbaum matched the flickering electronic ornaments with suave gestures, as if catching the phantom sounds. Updates and remixes risk sounding more narrowly dated than the original style. But Ms. Morelenbaum's bossa nova transformations didn't force 1960's songs into 21st-century postures. Instead, they wrapped tunes in memories and associations that bossa nova has taken on in the decades since it appeared: its kinship with jazz and its appropriation as lounge music. They teased at bossa nova's roots. When Ms. Morelenbaum sang the word "samba," a strutting samba beat materialized. And they brought out the melancholy undertow in so many of the songs, which glide through confessions of tears and longing. Bossa nova, once elegantly hermetic, wasn't so isolated anymore.
“Berimbaum’, Paula Morelenbaum – The New York Times, USA, (Jon Pareles) May 2005
Paula Morelenbaum’s beatifully subtle delivery marks her as one of the last of the classic bossa nova singers, not least of wich because she (and her arranger hubby Jaques) apprenticed with the great man himself, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Her latest disc, Berimbaum, finds her exploring a subset of lounge music that could be called bossa-tronica.
‘Berimbaum’, Paula Morelenbaum – TIME OUT, NEW YORK, May 2005
Global Hit
Paula Morelenbaum takes classic bossa nova tracks and updates them with an interesting multi-person lineup of producers. Her husband Jacques Morelenbaum is a cellist. He plays on a few tracks here, and also does string arrangements.(…) And that's what is great about Paula Morelenbaum's solo album, "Berimbaum." She covers classic bossa nova songs, all with lyrics and by Vinicius de Moraes. But this time she and her producers tastefully color outside the lines in her homage to Mr. Moreas. There is Hammond B3 organ on some tunes, creative instrumentation, and Paula's very thoughtful twists on classic bossa nova, but it's never over the top. The perfect example of this is the composition "Insensatez."
“Berimbaum’, Paula Morelenbaum – The World, (Marco Werman) May 2005
This Is the Sound of Globalization
…Ms. Morelenbaum, who sang for a decade with the bossa nova titan Antonio Carlos Jobim, sends bossa novas and sambas into an electronic hall of mirrors on "Berimbaum." It's a collection of songs by the poet and songwriter Vinicius de Moraes, and her nonchalant voice is backed by a
mixture of live musicians and samples that go ricocheting between lounge music and breakbeats, often multiplying into precise echoes. Bebel Gilberto has also been exploring this zone of electro-bossa, but Ms. Morelenbaum and her crafty producers have plenty to add.
‘Berimbaum’, Paula Morelenbaum – The New York Times, USA (Jon Pareles) April 2005
