Eumir Deodato

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Eumir Deodato de Almeida (1970)

Eumir Deodato de Almeida ( pronunciation : [ ẽʊ̃ˈmiχ djoˈdatu ]) (born June 22, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro ) is a Brazilian jazz pianist , arranger, composer, and producer.

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Prelude
  DE 38 06/15/1973 (8 weeks)
Singles
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (2001)
  DE 21st May 21, 1973 (9 weeks)
  UK 7th 05/05/1973 (9 weeks)
  US 2 02/03/1973 (12 weeks)
Rhapsody in Blue
  US 41 08/25/1973 (8 weeks)
Peter Gunn
  US 84 10/23/1976 (6 weeks)
Happy hour
  US 70 06/19/1982 (5 weeks)

education

In addition to his academic training, the self-taught musician completed a year and a half Berklee distance learning course for arrangement and made a career that was atypical for a jazz musician. He was already working intensively as a pianist and arranger in Rio de Janeiro's bossa nova scene in the mid-1960s . Some notable LPs (e.g. Os Catedraticos ) with a strongly percussive and organ focus analogous to recordings by Jimmy Smith were made in 1964/65. Deodato was already an established musician in the extremely productive music scene in Rio at that time and had participated in numerous recordings. The song Spirit of Summer , which he composed , won first prize at the Song Festival in Rio de Janeiro in 1967. After his emigration to the United States in 1967 on the mediation of the guitarist Luiz Bonfá , he started out as a commercial jingle composer , arranger, studio musician and Composer made a name for himself as a jazz and funk musician in the early 1970s. During this time he worked with Walter Wanderley , Milton Nascimento , Antônio Carlos Jobim , Marcos Valle and João Donato , among others .

CTI Records

The following permanent collaboration with the American producer Creed Taylor , the founder of CTI Records , formerly with Verve , A&M and Impulse! , ultimately brought Deodato's career forward. He received Taylor's invitation to arrange for Wes Montgomery's Down Here on the Ground (1968). Deodato hesitated, but ultimately accepted for three pieces. Herbie Hancock , later a pioneer of fusion , a mixture of styles between funk, jazz and rock , also played a part in these recordings .

Milestones in popular American music were created, such as Sinatra & Company (1971), Frank Sinatra's second album with songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim, as well as recordings with musicians such as Astrud Gilberto , Stanley Turrentine , Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin .

In 1973 Deodato took part in the CTI All Star Concert at the Hollywood Bowl . In the same year, the Brazilian album Os Catedraticos 73 was created with the first version of Skyscrapers . The incipient popularity of fusion records in the United States enabled Deodato to realize his own musical ideas on a larger scale.

breakthrough

His debut album in the United States, Prelude (recorded with the likes of Billy Cobham on drums and Ron Carter on bass and the young John Tropea on guitar) gave him his great international breakthrough in 1973. The idiosyncratic mixture of classical music and big band , jazz and rock crossed the line between serious music and popular music . In particular, his funk version of Also sprach Zarathustra was a great success in England and the United States, earned him a Grammy and other awards, and made the main theme of the Richard Strauss composition of the same name for a younger audience who were more distant from classical music known. In an interview, Deodato said, Also Spoke Zarathustra was a largely unprepared, spontaneous take .

The successor LP Deodato 2 (1973), recorded a short time later, combined similar crossover and fusion sounds, as well as original compositions in turn, well-known works of serious music, such as Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin or the Pavane by Maurice Ravel . The album failed to achieve commercial success, although sales and distribution policy decisions by the CTI label also played a role. This ruined Deodato's relationship with his producer Creed Taylor, and he left CTI. These and the following LPs from MCA and Warner Bros. are judged much more positively today than when they were released. From 1975 Deodato tried again and again in the discogenre , so he regularly made entries in the American disco and dance charts until the mid-1980s. Caravan (1975), Whistle Bump (1978) and SOS, Fire in the Sky (1984) made it into the top 10.

Further development

In 1989 the last LP was released under his own name. Deodato also took part in unconventional projects again and again, such as in 1976 with recordings with the singer Massimo Ranieri , in which pieces by Albinoni , Schubert , Chopin and Rodrigo were adapted.

Furthermore, Deodato has composed some film scores since the 1960s (including The Girl from Ipanema , The Gentle Rain , The Adventurers , The Black Pearl ) and some of them recorded himself, most recently in the Brazilian film Bossa Nova (2000). In the 1980s and 1990s, Deodato made a name for himself as the producer and arranger of Kool & The Gang and Björk .

Current

In 1997, the two albums Prelude and Deodato 2 were re-released on CD in remastered quality under the title CTI Master Series . A new version of Also sprach Zarathustra was delivered by the German band Mardi Gras.bb with the participation of Deodato in 2000.

Since 2001 Deodato can be heard again as a live musician. More recent recordings with his participation come from artists such as Carlinhos Brown , Ithamara Koorax, Lisa Ono, kd lang and Milton Nascimento .

Albums as musicians

  • 1964/65: Inutil Paisagem , Ataque , Impulso , Samba Nova , Tremendão , O som dos Catedraticos
  • 1972: Percepção
  • 1973: Prelude
  • 1973: Os Catedraticos 73
  • 1973: Deodato 2
  • 1974: 2001 Space Concert at Madison Square Garden , New York with Airto Moreira
  • 1974: In concert with Airto Moreira
  • 1974: Whirlwinds
  • 1974: Artistry
  • 1975: First Cuckoo
  • 1976: Very Together
  • 1976: Meditazione
  • 1977: Concierto di Aranjuez
  • 1978: Love Island
  • 1979: Knights of Fantasy
  • 1980: Night Cruiser
  • 1982: happy hour
  • 1984: Motion
  • 1989: Somewhere Out There
  • 2002: Summer Samba
  • 2007: Eumir Deodato Trio - Ao vivo no Rio
  • 2010: Eumir Deodato - The Crossing

Web links

swell

  1. Eumir Deodato in the album charts
  2. Eumir Deodato in the singles charts
  3. US chart information, Allmusic
  4. ^ Joel Whitburn: Hot Dance / Disco 1974-2003 , 2004, page 75, ISBN 0-89820-156-X