Artist:
Grupo Um
Genre:
Jazz
Classical
International
Total Time:
40:35
Record Label:
Far Out Recordings
Purchase Album:
CD, MP3,
Apple Music
Release Date
January 30, 2026
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Grupo Um
Genre:
Jazz
Classical
International
Total Time:
40:35
Record Label:
Far Out Recordings
Purchase Album:
CD, MP3,
Apple Music
Release Date
January 30, 2026
Find out more about this album release after the jump.
Product Description: Brazilian avant-jazz vanguardists Grupo Um celebrate their 50th anniversary, sharing a second previously lost 1970s album from the vaults. Nineteen Seventy Seven (titled after the year it was recorded) is another rip-roaring instrumental fusion treasure from the band which spawned from within Hermeto Pascoal’s famed mid-1970s São Paulo collective.
Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil's military dictatorship was at its most repressive. “There were no open doors to those who dreamt to be protagonists in creative instrumental music”, remembers drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, “even popular composers and singers had to submit their songs to censors and many records were banned and confiscated from the stores.”
Just like Hermeto Pascoal's Viajando Com O Som (1977) and Grupo Um's previous album Starting Point (1975), both of which remained unreleased until the 21st century, Zé Eduardo asserts that the 1977 album was flatly 'without any chance to be released at that time."
Recorded at Rogério Duprat’s Vice-Versa Studios in São Paulo, the group were under both time and space restraints, “we chose the small Studio B,” Lelo Nazario recalls, “which had a Tascam (TE AC) 12x8 console and a 4-channel AMPEX AG 440 machine. Therefore, we had to record without overdubs, everything straight to tape.”
Expanding from a trio to a quintet, original Grupo Um members Lelo Nazario (keys), Zé Eduardo Nazario (drums), and Zeca Assumpção (bass) were joined by saxophonist Roberto Sion and percussionist Carlinhos Gonçalves. Carlinhos, Zé and Zeca had already played together in the group Mandala, while brothers Lelo and Zé had just finished a stint backing Hermeto Pascoal during his years in São Paulo.
Lelo was deeply immersed in modular synthesizer experimentation during this period, working extensively with the ARP2600 and EMS Synthi AKS. These electroacoustic explorations formed the sonic foundation for "Mobile/Stabile," one of his first compositions to merge modular synthesis with Brazilian music, a fusion that would ripple throughout the Brazilian jazz scene. The piece premiered at the first São Paulo International Jazz Festival in 1978, performed by Grupo Um with guest trumpeter Márcio Montarroyos. In a shocking moment, festival organizers interrupted the show mid-performance, sparking fierce backlash from both audience members and journalists who denounced the incident as artistic censorship during Brazil's era of political and cultural repression. The version on Nineteen Seventy Seven is the first recording of the composition.
Nineteen Seventy Seven combines Afro-Brazilian rhythm, modular synthesis and a plethora of whistles, percussion and effects pedals. Album opener “Absurdo Mudo” - so titled for the absurd difficulty it poses to the musicians performing it - starts out in a cloud of mysterious dissonance, before the haze breaks for a glorious keyboard and saxophone interplay atop an uptempo samba groove. “Cortejo dos Reis Negros (Version 2)” (Procession of the Black Kings), based on the maracatu rhythm, inverts the traditional jazz song structure by beginning with improvisations, which are followed by the theme and a final coda. “The studio also had two Parasound electronic reverb units,” Lelo notes, “and the timbre is very audible on the soprano sax and percussion.”
Grupo Um’s daring music represents a manifesto of resistance during the dictatorship years, but it’s one which remains just as relevant today. As Lelo puts it: “For me, the aesthetic issue has always been about combining contemporary avant-garde languages with Brazilian music, independent of categories and commercial interests. The result of this fusion takes music to a new level.”
Like their debut album Starting Point, Grupo Um’s Nineteen Seventy Seven was recorded when Brazil's military dictatorship was at its most repressive. “There were no open doors to those who dreamt to be protagonists in creative instrumental music”, remembers drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, “even popular composers and singers had to submit their songs to censors and many records were banned and confiscated from the stores.”
Just like Hermeto Pascoal's Viajando Com O Som (1977) and Grupo Um's previous album Starting Point (1975), both of which remained unreleased until the 21st century, Zé Eduardo asserts that the 1977 album was flatly 'without any chance to be released at that time."
Recorded at Rogério Duprat’s Vice-Versa Studios in São Paulo, the group were under both time and space restraints, “we chose the small Studio B,” Lelo Nazario recalls, “which had a Tascam (TE AC) 12x8 console and a 4-channel AMPEX AG 440 machine. Therefore, we had to record without overdubs, everything straight to tape.”
Expanding from a trio to a quintet, original Grupo Um members Lelo Nazario (keys), Zé Eduardo Nazario (drums), and Zeca Assumpção (bass) were joined by saxophonist Roberto Sion and percussionist Carlinhos Gonçalves. Carlinhos, Zé and Zeca had already played together in the group Mandala, while brothers Lelo and Zé had just finished a stint backing Hermeto Pascoal during his years in São Paulo.
Lelo was deeply immersed in modular synthesizer experimentation during this period, working extensively with the ARP2600 and EMS Synthi AKS. These electroacoustic explorations formed the sonic foundation for "Mobile/Stabile," one of his first compositions to merge modular synthesis with Brazilian music, a fusion that would ripple throughout the Brazilian jazz scene. The piece premiered at the first São Paulo International Jazz Festival in 1978, performed by Grupo Um with guest trumpeter Márcio Montarroyos. In a shocking moment, festival organizers interrupted the show mid-performance, sparking fierce backlash from both audience members and journalists who denounced the incident as artistic censorship during Brazil's era of political and cultural repression. The version on Nineteen Seventy Seven is the first recording of the composition.
Nineteen Seventy Seven combines Afro-Brazilian rhythm, modular synthesis and a plethora of whistles, percussion and effects pedals. Album opener “Absurdo Mudo” - so titled for the absurd difficulty it poses to the musicians performing it - starts out in a cloud of mysterious dissonance, before the haze breaks for a glorious keyboard and saxophone interplay atop an uptempo samba groove. “Cortejo dos Reis Negros (Version 2)” (Procession of the Black Kings), based on the maracatu rhythm, inverts the traditional jazz song structure by beginning with improvisations, which are followed by the theme and a final coda. “The studio also had two Parasound electronic reverb units,” Lelo notes, “and the timbre is very audible on the soprano sax and percussion.”
Grupo Um’s daring music represents a manifesto of resistance during the dictatorship years, but it’s one which remains just as relevant today. As Lelo puts it: “For me, the aesthetic issue has always been about combining contemporary avant-garde languages with Brazilian music, independent of categories and commercial interests. The result of this fusion takes music to a new level.”
TRACK LIST:
1 .
Absurdo Mudo
(05:25)
2 . Cortejo dos Reis Negros (Version 2) (05:30)
3 . Festa dos Pássaros ois Segundos por Segundo (09:39)
4 . Sambapsis (07:20)
5 . Mobile/Stabile (10:20)
6 .Valsa Cromatica (02:21)
2 . Cortejo dos Reis Negros (Version 2) (05:30)
3 . Festa dos Pássaros ois Segundos por Segundo (09:39)
4 . Sambapsis (07:20)
5 . Mobile/Stabile (10:20)
6 .Valsa Cromatica (02:21)
OTHER ALBUM RELEASES:
- New Music Albums: ZAYTOUN (Haitham Haidar)
- New Music Albums: GLUCK ARIAS (Ann Hallenberg, Ian Page & The Mozartists)
- New Music Albums: IMAGINARY REFLECTIONS (Dreamcoaster)
- New Music Albums: MOZART - IDOMENEO (Magdalena Kožená, Andrew Staples, Simon Rattle, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra)
- New Music Albums: BREMEN 1965 (Thelonious Monk) - Live at Sendesaal-Radio Bremen, Germany, March 8, 1965
- New Music Albums: EDGE OF THE STORM - BACEWICZ, BRITTEN, WEINBERG (Telegraph Quartet)
- New Music Albums: SECRET LOVE (Dry Cleaning)
- New Music Albums: QUICKSAND HEART (Jenny on Holiday)
- New Music Albums: OFF STILLNESS (Thomas Strønen & Time Is A Blind Guide)
- New Music Albums: SELLING A VIBE (The Cribs)
- New Music Albums: THE DEMISE OF PLANET X (Sleaford Mods)
- New Music Albums: JUST GRAVITY (Haeun Joo)
- New Music Albums: TRAGIC MAGIC (Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore)
- New Music Albums: CAN'T TAKE MY STORY AWAY (Elles Bailey)
- New Music Albums: OFF THE FENCE (The James Hunter Six)
- New Music Albums: RHYTHM PEOPLE (Eddie Allen's Push)
- New Music Albums: JANA HORN (Jana Horn)
- New Music Albums: MEGADETH (Megadeth) - Final Studio Record
- New Music Albums: BOYCOTT HEAVEN (The Format)
- New Music Albums: DEAD DADS CLUB (Dead Dads Club)
- New Music Albums: WORLD'S GONE WRONG (Lucinda Williams)
- New Music Albums: ELECTROSOUL (DJ Harrison)
- New Music Albums: NO MORE LIKE THIS (PVA)
- New Music Albums: CAN I GET A PACK OF CAMEL LIGHTS ? (Geologist)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please keep the comments as civilised as possible, and refrain from spamming. All comments will be moderated. Thank you !