Customer Reviews

From the Hot Afternoon

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Paul Desmond FROM THE HOT AFTERNOON was originally released on vinyl as A&M SP 3024 in 1969. It was available as CD 824 during the late 80s but has been out of print until now. Thanks to Verve's tremendous reissue program, those who missed out earlier can have it. All songs on this set were written by two premier Brazilian jazz performers and composers, Milton Nascimento and Edu Lobo. In fact Lobo sings and plays guitar on this album. "Faithful Brother" and "Catavento" are my favorite tunes (both by Nascimento). "To Say Goodbye" has an interesting twist. The arrangement was set in a key so low that Vocalist Wanda de Sah could barely whisper the low notes. Rather than change the register, Desmond kept it, a brilliant move which enhanced the tragic effect of the lyrics. Fans of Desmond's A&M work can anticipate the planned reissue of his double LP on A&M/Horizon, QUARTET LIVE. Perhaps soon Verve will be kind enough to issue SUMMERTIME (A&M SP 3015) and BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER (A&M SP 3032), both of which have been unavailable on domestic CD thus far. If you already own a copy of FROM THE HOT AFTERNOON, consider buying the Verve reissue to get the outtake bonus tracks. A real treat!

I absolutely agree with the previous reviewers comments on this album. Of the late Paul Desmond's long and distinguished career, this long out of print album is one of the highlights. Featuring versions of songs by great Brazilian composers like Milton Nascimento("October"), and Edu Lobo("Crystal Illusions"), Desmond's playing is wonderful throughout. I'd also love to see his "Bridge Over Troubled Water" album reissued, hopefully the good folks at Verve are listening.

Ostensibly, From the Hot Afternoon is a showcase for a couple of post-Jobim/Gilberto Brazilian song writers and for some new Brazilian instrumental and vocal talent. This sounds like an interesting idea for an album. To be sure, Desmond had a remarkable flair for the bossa nova style. He even recorded an album with Jim Hall in 1962 called Bossa Antigua which contains several of Desmond`s own lovely bossa-style compositions. (This, despite the ruefully punning title, was only two years after Getz and Byrd recorded the ground-breaking Jazz Samba, which introduced American jazz fans to the "new thing" and started a craze in jazz and popular music of the time.)

Anyway, it must have seemed like a good idea to everyone, even as late as 1969, to return for another take on the Brazilian jazz-samba style. Unfortunately, the two featured composers--Milton Nascimento and Edu Lobo--are not remotely in the same league with someone like Antonio Carlos Jobim; nor is the rhythm section (with the exception of Ron Carter on bass) up to the caliber of Jim Hall's guitar and Connie Kay's drums on Bossa Antigua.

But these problems would not alone be enough to completely sink an album featuring the incomparable Paul Desmond.

What does succeed in ruining it, though, is Don Sebesky. For some reason, Sebesky was hired to add light orchestral arrangements ("sweetening" it was called) to many jazz albums that were produced by Creed Taylor in the late 70's-including several other Desmond/CTI releases as well as sessions by other jazz greats. Whether the incorporation of these dreadful over-dubbed orchestrations was a symptom of blatant commercialization, or whether Taylor genuinely thought it constituted some kind of revolutionary pop/jazz/classical fusion, I don't pretend to know.

But I do know the results are, to say the least, un-jazzy. Sebesky's arrangements are so insipid that they make elevator music seem exciting--so pop and goofy that they make new-age music seem hot. Moreover, they are so poorly realized that they even submerge the principal musicians! You have to constantly switch channels just to hear Desmond over all the strings, flutes, French horns, clarinet, oboe, harp, and electric piano. Can it be that some engineer really thought Desmond's alto merited no more prominence that the first violin or the oboe?

The final result, then, is a miasma of muzak, with the ghost of a jazz giant floating around in it.

Still, there is a reason for a diehard Desmond fan (like myself) to own this re-release; and that is for the extra takes that are laid down without the overdubbed orchestra parts, thus giving us a chance to hear Desmond in his natural, small-group setting.

Sad to say, however, these takes seem uninspired at best-especially when compared with the same sort of music and the same sort of instrumentation that resulted in the effort captured on Bossa Antigua. On the Hot Afternoon tracks Desmond sounds like he's spinning his wheels, rather than giving out with the remarkable lyrical invention that graces all of his work prior to and after this lamentable Sebesky period. On most of these cuts, he takes a modal and undirected approach to his improvisations. He seems to be playing almost as if he knew that his voice would be lost in the mixing anyway--playing like an accompanist, rather than like the featured soloist. Moreover, the cuts are all traditional pop-song length (two and a half to four minutes), which is not a format Desmond ever used, or sounds good on, either with the Brubeck quartet or with his own groups.

Desmond once remarked that he was not the type of musician to dominate a session-that his work very much depended on a rapport with his fellow band members. This album seems to prove the point: without a seasoned rhythm section, good material, and room to stretch, even the greatest of alto players found himself far too constrained to produce his best work.

Desmond manages to simmer, sizzle, and be sultry all at once with these cuts. He said, I hear, that he wanted to sound like a dry martini. Well..he suceeded on all of his albums. This one is one of the best.

I never really got into Paul Desmond when I was a teenager and this was current chiefly because my music budget was much more limited than it is today. But I did like bossa nova and as my music collection grew over the years, part of that growth came from 60s-70s jazz I was getting into. But somehow I missed From The Hot Afternoon.

A couple of years ago, I read a review of this as one of the essentials of a Paul Desmond selection so when I saw it at a good price, I snapped it up. Now that I've heard it and listened to it many times, I wonder what all the fuss was about! Its a decent enough album, but it is decidedly not the first rate recording I was led to expect.

I find it amusing that on taking notes while listening, I ended by best liking two songs and their alternate takes. Those two are Gira Girou and the title cut and both are Milton Nascimento compositions. Beyond those, most of the rest are merely OK. Two songs did not pass muster at all. Those are To Say Goodbye on which the vocals kill an otherwise decent tune and Crystal Illusions which suffers from cringingly lame lyrics and vocals. Vocalist Wanda de Sah makes Astrud Gilberto sound masterful in comparison, and I don't care for her voice either.

The digipak casing includes a booklet featuring album info, the original liner notes that are little more than hagiographic commentary on Desmond and composers Nascimento and Edu Lobo who wrote the pieces performed here. If you are a Paul Desmond completeist, then you will likely want to own this. But if its bossa nova you are looking for, go listen to Jobim, Gilberto and Bonfa instead.

You probably are unfamiliar with the small CTI collection featuring the prolific Bruback sax sideman. Sad, because these are amoung the best he did with a larger backing. This has Brazilian lushness right from the first cut. Outubro is a Nascimento tune that will astound you. Look, we are talking Airto, Ron Carter, Dorio Ferrira and Edu Lobo with a who's who in studio greats led by Don Sebesky. You will not regret this masterpiece for one moment. Hell, even the outtakes are gems. Martha & Romao gets so lush you'll put it on repeat at least for an hour..did I regress? Sorry. If that sounds like an exaggeration, wait until you hear the Sergio Mendes '65 alumni, Wanda de Sah literally "breathe" the song "to Say Good-bye." By the way, most people do not know that Sergio Mendes thought this CD up! Here it is, too many of the RCA cuts and too many of the Brubeck stuff is heavily contrived. That is why the Carnegie Hall Live Concert set gives you the REAL Brubeck quartet. This is the same thing. It is so soft and "jazz pure" that the strings only make this CD, and Desmond's next CTI release "Bridge Over Troubled Waters," better. This is a "must have" for any real lover of good music.

Many of the comments in the review below (robertllr)are accurate, and perhaps those looking for examples of Paul Desmond's purer jazz style should look elsewhere. The orchestration is very '70s strings, but it was after all recorded in 1969(?), so I believe the review is overly subjective.

All the featured performances are excellent, Paul Desmond's playing is superb, taking a little more of a back seat, but with some beautiful, memorable phrasing. Not mentioned in other reviews are three vocal tracks featuring Wanda de Sa, "To Say Goodbye", "Circles" and "Crystal Illusions". In "To Say Goodbye", she was forced by the recording schedule and low register of the instrumental part to sing well below her normal register, producing a striking and sultry version of this song, a must-have for her fans. Edu Lobo may not be Jobim, but "Crystal Illusions" is perhaps his best known work. He performs on the track and Wanda (his wife) sings it beautifully. The swirling '70s orchestation suits the song very well, the edgy chord shifts provide Paul with a challenging backdrop for his solos; this is probably my favourite version.

I have the original LP, so I haven't heard the alternative takes, these are a bonus for Desmond fans.

This is an easy listening classic which is head and shoulders above others in the genre and has the power to move you with some exceptional performances by several icons of jazz and the '60s "Bossa" sound.

A friend referred this disc to me as we discussed American saxophonists who played Brazilian music during the 60s. Having known of Desmond's work with Dave Brubeck, I was very intrigued and purchased the disc after sampling a few tracks here. Must say I was pleasantly surprised. Here we don't find any of Getz's overplaying. Desmond understood what Brazilian music was about, and adapted his style to fit the music he was playing.

Which makes me wonder what would have happened had there been a Desmond/Gilberto disc...

OK, OK - Take a bunch of Brazilian stars and get them into the studio with a Jazz master. There is a big chance to work out well but here the chemistry simply did not hip. This is a post-Bossa Nova event with post-Bossa Nova composers Milton Nascimento and Edu Lobo. All very good but this CD ...

WAY to many lush violins. A few cuts are ok. Not the best of desmonds albums.