Now in his mid-eighties, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and all-around visionary Hermeto Pascoal has entered an agreement with England's wonderful Far Out Recordings. Their initial project with him was the first-ever release of the stellar Viajando Com o Som: The Lost '76 Vice-Versa Studio Sessions, in 2017. He is overseeing the Far Out reissue of his Airto Moreira/Flora Purim-produced 1970 self-titled debut album, and provided them this tape: the first-ever release of 1981's Planetário da Gávea. It is among the first concerts by Pascoal's long-lived supergroup, who would come to be known simply as "O Grupo." Pascoal plays saxes, flutes, bass horn, and piano, and he's joined by drummers/percussionists Pernambuco, Marcio Bahia, and Zé Eduardo Nazário, bassist Itiberê Zwarg, keyboardist Jovino Santos Neto, and soprano saxophonist/flutist Carlos Malta. This show took place at Rio's Planetarium in 1981. It was their coming-out party; the band had spent months practicing seven days a week, and wouldn't record in studio until later that year. Much of the material here is previously unissued.
This soundboard tape is more than 40 years old. Daniel Maunick's restoration is remarkable. While some instruments are a tad unbalanced, fidelity is excellent. He went to great pains to preserve the gig's raw atmosphere and the band's knife-edge drama. The opening medley of "Paz Amor e Esperança" and "Homônimo Sintróvio" lasts more than half an hour. The former, which appeared on 1980's Cerebro Magnético, begins with spectral improvisation from melodica, horns, and droning keys before Zwarg, Pascoal's bass horn, and the drummers kick it into gear. It flows across samba, free jazz, and fusion for the next 18 minutes, creating a tapestry of spirited interplay. After flute and keyboard solos, the previously unissued "Homônimo Sintróvio" whispers in with folksy soprano sax lines, Rhodes piano, and syncopated percussion before exploding into an orgy of rhythm. "Samba do Belaqua" offers reedy post-bop horns up front, balanced by a groovy Rhodes piano integrating killer melodic improvisation and quotes from CTI-era Bob James. Pascoal's tenor solo is resonant, colorful, and complex. He introduces the previously unreleased "Bombardino," an elegant exercise in improvised jazz fusion welded onto electric samba. The composer's oft-covered famous "São Jorge" appears in a killer medley with the funky, then-unrecorded jam "Ilza na Feijoada," offering an amazing Malta soprano solo. Set closer "Jegue" commences as an astonishing 7/4 samba, juxtaposing complex lyric and dissonant harmonies inside a melodic vamp suggesting the Weather Report era of Heavy Weather and Mr. Gone. The interactive polyrhythmic invention and interplay is labyrinthine; it surrounds the front line and bathes them in joyously syncopated pulses. Pascoal and Malta offer striking call-and-response conversation before moving toward swinging post-bop. Planetário da Gávea is a grail for fans of Pascoal and vintage Brazilian jazz. This music is presented as wooly, raw, joyous, and virtuosic. This band not only fired on all cylinders here, they created wildly inventive new directions for electric samba, Brazilian jazz-funk, and '80s fusion.