A
prolific recording artist long based in Chicago, Garcia is a regular presence
on the international concert circuit who has never quite broken through to
American jazz audiences. Beautiful Love showcases his essential gift for
inhabiting songs as if speaking directly from his soul, with an emotional
intimacy that flows directly from his burnished baritone.
In an
age that too often celebrates a more-is-more aesthetic, Garcia stands out as an
artist who understands the power of silence and simplicity. Beautiful Love
serves as an ideal introduction to Garcia, a master improviser whose deftly
orchestral guitar work and deceptively unadorned delivery puts a potent
personal stamp on classic material while honoring timeless melodies. "I
always try to be very truthful to the composer," says Garcia, who is known
for uncovering rarely played verses of otherwise familiar songs. "I change
the harmony to fit my way of playing, but I never change the melody. And if the
composer took the time to write a beautiful verse, we should do it too."
Something
of an odyssey through the mysteries of the human heart, Beautiful Love avoids
imposing a conspicuous narrative structure on the program, but there's a sense
of emotional discovery around each turn. Garcia moves from Portuguese to
English and Spanish and back again, enfolding the American Songbook material
with two Brazilian treasures. A seamless and unabashed sojourn into the
vicissitudes of love, from roiling passion and headlong romance to heartache
and despair, the album opens with Jobim and De Moraes' quietly beguiling
"Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar" (I Know I'm Going to Love You) and closes
with the captivating folk song "Casinha Pequenina" (The Little House
Where Our Love Was Born), with a midway detour through the aching bolero
"Historia de un Amor."
Like
many a romance, the album takes off with a mood of beaming optimism, even as
Garcia injects a note of longing into the usually sweeping ballad "When I
Fall In Love." The affair picks up steam as he captures the giddy rush of
infatuation with "Like Someone In Love." Approaching the title track
almost like a soliloquy, "Beautiful Love" feels like an homage to
Shirley Horn, with Garcia's note choice every bit is interesting and apt as the
grand dame's supremely sophisticated piano. As a song that usually lends itself
to melodrama "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is a perfect example of
Garcia's knack for quietly revelatory interpretation. Setting the tune to a
tango beat, he injects a note of irony into the cautionary tale. From the
carnal to the ineffably sensual, he sighs out "But Beautiful,"
turning Van Heusen and Burke's daydream into an almost spiritual vision.
In many
ways, Beautiful Love is something of a departure for Garcia, who is known for
his eclectic repertoire. "My last CD was all Beatles compositions, Beatles
Nova," he says. "And before that I did a Two For Brazil album that's
more jazz oriented. But many critics say they love the romantic feeling I bring
to songs, so Judith and I thought I should do a CD all talking about
love."
A
musician, writer and psychologist, Dr. Judith Schlesinger is the album's
co-producer. She was drawn to Garcia by the understated mastery of his music
and the healing quality that emanates from his intimate and soothing sound,
which she feels offers "an antidote to the darkness, frantic pulse, and
noise out there."
Born on
August 16, 1948 in Belo Horizonte, the cosmopolitan capital of the southeastern
state of Minas Gerais, Garcia can't remember a time when he wasn't surrounded
by music. He wasn't part of Milton Nascimento's legendary Clube de Esquina, but
some of the members lived close by and their musicality suffused the
neighborhood. Singing on the radio as part of a youth choir by the age of nine,
Garcia actually wanted to be a soccer player, but by the time he was in his
mid-teens it was clear that he wasn't headed toward an athletic career. While
he ended up graduating from college with a degree in physics, Garcia's
determination to follow his passion for music shaped the course of his life.
"My
first interest was in rock, especially British rock, and in school I played
drums in a little rock band," Garcia says. "One day the bassist got
mad and left, and I picked up the bass. Within two years I got hired as house
musician at the local TV station where I accompanied a lot of acts from
Rio."
He
turned his attention to African American music when a recording by gospel
legend Mahalia Jackson seized his imagination. He was further entranced by Nat
"King" Cole, and then utterly smitten by trumpeter/vocalist Chet
Baker, whose sound had already played an essential role in shaping bossa nova.
Immersing himself in jazz gave him the harmonic vocabulary to create his own
chord voicings for whatever songs he feels moved to interpret. "I do my
own harmonies on the original melody, and with my phrasing and feeling on
guitar it becomes Brazilian," Garcia says. "As I like to say when I
introduce a tune, here's a great song by the Brazilian composer named Gershwin.
These American standards are so beautiful. When you have great melodies you can
do whatever you want."
Drawn by
some musical opportunities he moved to Chicago in 1979. While he quickly gained
attention among his fellow musicians, he spent many years working a day job to
support his family. It was only in the mid-90s that he started focusing on
music full time, and since then he's released a steady flow of stellar albums,
often in collaboration with other artists. Uninterested in courting the
spotlight, he's been a behind the scenes force, producing concerts by some of
Brazil's most celebrated artists and sharing his knowledge as an educator.
Garcia
and tenor saxophonist Greg Fishman have released half a dozen acclaimed albums
and toured internationally as Two For Brazil, their homage to the legacy of
João Gilberto and Stan Getz. He's worked and recorded extensively with the
inventive Polish jazz singer Gra_yna Augu_cik, another transplant to Chicago
who has forged a singular sound. Garcia also tours and records with flute
master Julie Koidin in the duo Dois No Choro, an intimate ensemble that has
forged a chamber music approach to an array of Brazilian styles (samba, frevo
and bossa nova) with a particular focus on choro. Garcia has released several
solo albums, but with Beautiful Love, this quietly brilliant artist is poised
to become a late-blooming jazz star.
No comments:
Post a Comment