Y'Y

Chronique

There's a moment during Y'Y, the breathtaking new album by Brazilian jazz pianist-composer Amaro Freitas, seemingly designed to clang its way through your eardrums and shock your psyche. It arrives halfway through the eight-minute adventure "Dança dos Martelos," after Freitas has already offered three exquisitely-played set pieces on piano and prepared piano. Opening with the free-floating, palate-cleansing miniature "Mapinguari (Encantado da Mata)," Freitas moves to a hypnotic four-minute, piano-as-drum melodic exploration "Uiara (Encantada da Água) – Vida e Cura" and then to "Viva Naná," which mimics with shakers, whistles, percussion and voice the sounds of the Amazon basin.

Having just proven his piano skills, four minutes into that gently percussed "Dança dos Martelos" Freitas lets loose and begins loudly hammering his hand onto his keys as if in disgust. He switchblade-stabs at notes. As if losing control, he and the band move into a relentless looping melody, one repeatedly interrupted by a Freitas piano tantrum. Both an affirmation and a denial, the rhythmic clusters are the most jarring and striking on an album dense with fearless, sublimely dynamic piano jazz.

Freitas' third album comes three years after his acclaimed Sankofa landed on many year-end lists. That work featured Freitas, who was born and raised on the far eastern tip of Brazil in the city of Recife, interacting with a rhythm section to deliver eight tight odes to different Brazilian musicians.

For Y'Y, Freitas set his thematic sights on the Amazon basin and the indigenous Sateré-Mawé people of the region. As far from Recife as Los Angeles is from New York, the environment inspired the pianist to experience "a new realm of musical creation, one rooted in magic and possibility and tempered by a sense of stewardship for the earth's bounties…"

Freitas entered the studio with a bunch of heavy hitters, many of whom he met while touring in support of Sankofa: flutist-saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming), hotshot harpist Brandee Younger (Makaya McCraven, Meshell Ndegeocello), guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217), drummer Hamid Drake (Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock) and Cuban double bassist Aniel Someillan.

On "Uiara," Freitas guides an electronic bow across piano strings as a way "to generate noises like that of the pink river dolphin," as explained in the release notes. Elsewhere, Freitas uses adhesive tape to distort piano strings "to emulate the sound of synthesizers" and otherwise messes with the mechanics of his instrument. "Mar de Cirandeiras" vibes like a mid-1970s ECM ambient jazz piece, replete with eerie vocalists à la Eberhard Weber. Freitas taps the keys so gently in some spots that you can hear the hammer's contact but not the string's reaction.

Through it all, the pianist creates miracle after miracle. Rare is a piano jazz album like Y'Y—one filled with so much spontaneous energy, so many breathtaking chops and such a singular approach. Filled with as many roller coaster twists and turns as a Quentin Tarantino movie, Y'Y is a record to get lost in. Listen loud and with intention. © Randall Roberts/Qobuz