Customer Reviews

Per Un Pugno Di Samba

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This little-known album is an amazing collaboration between famed MBP singer Chico Buarque (on political exile in Italy) and Maestro Ennio Morricone. Morricone's colleagues in the Cantori Moderni join Buarque for some wonderful, experimental Brazilian music. The songs are all by Buarque (including 3 that may have been written for this album, but please do not take this as fact). However, they are given Morricone's masterful touch, and his Latin-style arrangements have his compositional finesse and omnipresent originality in spades. Dissonance; soothing strings; segues; vocal interplay between the Cantori, Buarque, and the usual wordless female vocalist employed by Morricone; unusual instrumentation--it's all here and more. Morricone is even bold enough to include the pipe organ--with wonderful results! Sound is crystal clear despite the 40-year age of this album, and like most of Morricone's works, is an undiscovered gem. Beware, though--lovers of traditional Brazilian samba will not be expecting the unusual soundscapes presented here.

Beware that the MP3 album titled "Chico Buarque and Ennio Morricone" is a poor re-release of this album, with over-dubbed Portuguese lyrics supplanting the original Italian lyrics that are heard here. The extra money is worth its weight in musical gold, however, so buy the product advertised on this page.

What do you get when you mix Brazilian samba with the arrangements of modern film music's greatest composer and innovator? The answer: extremely original, enjoyable and technically brilliant music with Latin samba rhythms. Anyone who knows the talent of Ennio Morricone and his regular crew of Roman studio musicians knows what's in store when the Italian Maestro and his Brazilian fellow musician de Hollanda join forces on this fine record. The arrangements for samba music seldom have church organs, clavicords or choirs as background accompaniment. Here they have, and the end result is just great! Morricone's musical background in classical music can be heard here, too, as he blends with popular music some of his modern classical music techniques from his seemingly bottomless arrangement trickbag. As words cannot tell what I mean, you better try to get this CD and hear for yourself.