Like the tropicalistas of the 1960s,Amaro Freitasbelieves in the sophistication of traditional Brazilian music. Hailing from the northeastern city of Recifea regional neighbor ofGilberto GilandCaetano Velosos Salvadorhe combines the rural sounds of his native region with the cosmopolitan flash of Ro de Janeiro. Since making his debut in 2016 withSangue Negro, Freitas has incorporated the rhythms of rumba and baio with hard bop attitude and an elegant formalism closer to Bach than Bahia.YY, his latest, was inspired in part by a trip to Manaus, a city of two million deep in the Amazon. The only real musical connection the album has to Freitas previous work is his presence on the keys. Gone is the urbane small-ensemble jazz of 2018sRasifand 2021s more adventurousSankofa, replaced with humid, spacious music that moves from tranquility to cacophony with remarkable ease.

OnYY, Freitas vision for decolonized Brazilian jazz isnt a nostalgic or sentimental view of an edenic Amazon before the Portuguese. Its a look into a future in which the wounds of the colonial eraincluding the impulse to cut and snip the fabric of Brazilian music to fit North American and European formshave healed into scars that are faint, but still visible. LikeJohn Coltrane, Freitas has learned how to approach his compositions with the same confident, wildly adventurous spirit he brings to his instrument. In doing so, hes left behind some of the accessibility of his early records, but in its place, hes forged something transcendent. (via Pitchfork)

Label: Psychic Hotline
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: Feb 2024
Genre: Jazz, Latin
Style: Avant-garde Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Latin Jazz

File under: Avant-garde / Free Jazz