
Saudade, Colour Of Love (Challenge Records)
Maria Mendes
Released October 7, 2022
AllMusic Favorite Jazz Albums 2022
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mcUZBftUzwiw8NicgaPHMetP9By03XO0w
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/6SyJBCCLkgzo8va2aSXizy?si=6ZniNRnUQqus0XyalMpNcw
About:
Fado music is undeniable for the Portuguese
people and for all of those who seek for nostalgic love in the past and
present. And so is saudade – a Portuguese word that doesn’t translate to any
other language in the world. Fado and saudade are forever bond. They both
express the melancholic longing for the past and the hopes it becomes present
once again. They also express the belief in destiny as a fortunate and
fatalistic power that you cannot escape from. Surprisingly, I find these
comparable with love, as love can strike at any moment leaving us powerless,
colouring our lives with grey as well as bright rainbow colours. When I first
listened to Fado, I felt an indescribable connection with how words and melody
were delivered so intensively. That experience stayed with me over the years
until I could no longer escape from the desire to combine my love for Jazz with
my affection for Portugal.
A project was taking shape. And magical things started to happen. Advised by my
dear friend, my bassist Jasper Somsen, I’ve reached out to John Beasley for a
collaboration on arranging and producing these Portuguese folk songs.
Alongside, I have written originals and was gifted a song by Hermeto Pascoal.
The Metropole Orkest joined us opening up new musical possibilities. My third
album Close To Me (2019) is the result of this enriching collaboration that
gracefully wasn’t doomed to be over then.
This album you are holding in your hands is a result of a long-awaited dream. A
live recorded album represents the truthful and thrilling opportunity to expand
the music in ways you cannot when recording in a studio. New songs and new
orchestrations were specially written for this material, premiered and recorded
in Amsterdam, at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in May 2022. On stage: an
exceptional team of thirty musicians – my band and the Metropole Orkest
conducted by John Beasley. With us in the venue was the audience who kept
ignited the joy of why live music is irreplaceable. Wittgenstein said “the
limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. I believe in music as an
unlimited language that can defy stylistic boundaries and can trigger (in us
musicians, and you, the listener) surprise and enchantment. This music is about
how I feel Fado and how I love it, free of definitions, free of limitations.
This is no Fado album. This is no traditional Jazz music. This is an adventure
that is real and can be felt by everyone. As love is.
Track Listing:
1. Com Que Voz (A. Oulman / Luís de Camões) 8:44
2. Tudo Isto É Fado (F. Carvalho / A. Teixeira Nazaré) 6:58
3. Verdes Anos (C. Paredes) 7:49
4. Foi Deus (A. Janes) 5:24
5. Hermeto’s Fado for Maria (H. Pascoal) 5:43
6. E Se Nâo for Fado (F. Hilme / T. Torres da Silva) 4:31
7. Dança Do Amor (M. J. Mendes) 6:58
8. Quando Eu Era Pequenina (Tradicional) 8:07
9. Meu Pobre Capitão (M. J. Mendes / J. Beasley) 5:33
Personnel:
Maria Mendes: vocals
Jasper Somsen: double bass
Cédric Hanriot: piano and keyboards
Mário Costa: drums
Metropole Orkest
Conductor, KeyWi, keyboards: John Beasley
1st violin: Vera Laporeva, Jasper van Rosmalen, Sarah Koch, Pauline Terlouw, Christina Knoll, Saskia Frijns
2nd violin: Herman van Haaren, Willem Kok, Ruben Margarita, Robert Baba, Xaquín Carro Cribeiro, Leonnid Nikishin
Viola: Norman Jansen, Mieke Honingh, Iris Schut, Isabella Petersen
Cello: Joel Siepmann, Emile Visser, Annie Tångberg, Jascha Albracht
Flute: Mariël van den Bos, Janine Abbas
Oboe/cor anglais: Maxime Le Minter
Clarinets: Christof May, Max Boeree
French horn: Pieter Hunfeld
Recorded live May 11 & 12, 2022, at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ Amsterdam and at Parkstad Limburg Theaters Heerlen, the Netherlands, and on May 2022, at Slow Music Studios in Lisbon, Portugal
FOH, recording engineer: Chris Weeda
Microphone technicians: Vince van Seggelen, Tom de Haas (Da Capo)
Metropole Orkest’s producer: Gert-Jan Blom
Sound engineer: Udo Pannekeet (NL) and Nuno Simões (PT).
Mixed and mastered by David Kowalski, New York, USA in May-June 2022.
Produced by John Beasley
Arranged by John Beasley and Maria Mendes
Review:
A collaboration between vocalist Maria Mendes and the Netherlands’ Metropole Orkest with pianist/composer John Beasley, 2022’s Saudade, Colour of Love is a gorgeous Brazilian-inspired jazz production. Born in Portugal and based in the Netherlands for over a decade, Mendes brings a worldly sophistication to her vocal jazz. It was that sophistication that garnered her and Beasley a Latin Grammy nomination for their previous collaboration, 2019’s Close to Me. Saudade, Colour of Love is very much a spiritual companion piece to its predecessor as Mendes and Beasley deftly weave together Portuguese fado, bossa nova, and expansive symphonic jazz arrangements. Vocally, Mendes has a pitch-perfect style, marked by a warm resonance, bright articulation, and endless lyricism that she punctuates with forays into improvisational vocalese. Tracks like the opening “Com Que Voz” and “Tudo Isto E Fado” have the lush, swinging warmth of Frank Sinatra’s 1960s albums with arranger Nelson Riddle. But whereas Sinatra would sink into a song with his light baritone, Mendes soars, lilting birdlike over a verse before rising skyward with a tremulous accent. It’s a style she fully embraces on the kinetic Latin number “Verdes Anos,” diving and fluttering with falsetto vocalese improvisations against a shimmering piano and the orchestra’s vibrating strings. Elsewhere, we get the fusion-esque “Quando Eu Era Pequenina” with its muted, alien horn lines and the equally infectious Tropicalia-sounding “Meu Pobre Capitão,” both of which evoke the vibrant, stylistically cross-pollinated ’70s work of artists like Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa.
Matt Collar (AllMusic)