Bem Aqui

Album review

Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and producer Dadi is a delightful musician who taps from the roots of Brazilian music without taking standard stock samba and bossa nova music interpretations to obvious ends and means. It's an original music written by Dadi and several friends like Marisa Monte, Chico Buarque, Arnaldo Antunes, Seu Jorge, bandmates Kassin (bass), and Domenico Lancelotti (drums/backup vocals) that crosses over to pop music, soul-jazz, and tropicalia. Playing acoustic and electric guitar or keyboards, with some subtle percussion and electronics overdubbed, Dadi broadens his color palette exponentially on this disc that was recorded in Rio de Janeiro. Every track features a differently configured band, with Dadi's many multi-tracked instruments as the focal point for the others to take off and soar on their own. Of the three numbers co-written with Monte, "Devo Lhe Dizer" is a pop song with Adriana Calcanhotto's second vocal line, "Nao Tente Compreender" is a funkier pop tune, and Jorge's co-op penned "Nao e Proibido" is a fun-filled groove-type boogaloo with marginal sax fills from David Binney. Ten cuts were composed in part by Dadi, including the light, delicate, 6/8-paced title track, the swooning, romantic, late-night, acoustic guitar-based "Quando Voce Me Abraca," and with Antunes, a surprisingly hard rock-toned "Voz de Commando" purely for fun, and the hollowed-out melody of "Por Que Nao" with a march rhythm plopped in the middle. Buarque's famed "A Banda" features a jazzy, five-piece horn section, a harder samba beat, a vocal chorus, and a bright persona, while along with the strutting "Depois da Chuva" in two-beat fashion, all represent the selections that standout and away from conventional structures. Dadi himself is quite the strumming troubadour as heard during his acoustic feature "Passando" where the stance is implied rather than obvious. His talent is tremendous within this group context, while individually here, it is not so much obvious or pronounced as it could be. That should come some other time, but the seeds are sown for Dadi to perhaps become the next Hermeto Pascoal of instrumental Brazilian-based music.

© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo