The 1979 classic album Light As A Feather finally sees a coloured vinyl reissue courtesy of Far Out Records, a timeless and beautiful album that revels in unorthodoxy, experimental arrangements & instrumentation, cutting edge synthesis and native Brazilian rhythms, imbibing a unique breed of Brazilian Jazz-Funk that blossomed on UK dance floors in the late seventies and early 80’s. During this period, tracks such as Miss Cheryl by Banda Black Rio and Azymuths Jazz Carnival gained underground popularity, let alone George Duke’s Brazilian excursions which duly filtered back to dance-floor ready London club audiences. It was certainly an album that put the Samba Doido of Azymuth and their Jazz-Funk innovation on the global map for all to see.
Their first release on Milestone Records, the album stayed in the UK album chart top 20 for eight straight weeks, becoming one of the best-selling LPs of 1979 in the UK. Their popularity in the UK was enshrined on Thursday, 31st January 1980 when dancing troupe and working mens club favourites Legs & Co danced to the track on Top of the Pops, adorning a wild array of anthropomorphic costumes and exotica. The album is illuminated throughout with the superfluous sound of Jose Roberto Bertrami’s Fender Rhodes electric piano which cascades and mesmerises at every turn, hitting the most incisive and wildest of changes with strong backing from the rhythm section, comprised of Ivan “Mamão” Conti and bassist supreme Alex Malheiros, who continues to dazzle some 43 years later with his latest release Tempos Futuros enjoying recent spins on cooler floors.
Partido Alto, the albums opening track, is based on a particular style of Brazilian samba, a shuffling and tropical number that Airto Moreira subsequently covered on a Warner Brothers album of his called “Touching Me Touching You”, Malheiros’ bass harmonics giving a sonic gravitas to the recording while the off-kilter drumming patterns from Mamão are a play on the Partido alto, a particular samba pattern associated with rural communities in Brazil, a relative of West African drumming—an example of Brazil’s inherent musical and rhythmical affinity to Africa. Avenida das Mangueiras keeps things in step with a four to the floor pattern which kicks things into action, a bizarre and haunting arrangement with outer-worldly synths whirls into the frame, giving the song the aesthetic of a rare slab of proto-house music, certainly a blueprint for the type of sound sculpture that the likes of Theo Parrish would put their hand to later. There is in fact a Sound Signature “translation” of this track, released on Far Out funnily enough, which sounds practically identical to the original. A forward thinking and unusual piece of music with a deep, chunky groove, somewhat retro-futuristic. Jazz Carnival, the key track on the album and a standalone charting UK single is a shuffling and upbeat number, churning percussively from the outset and overscored with a squelching and whirring moogline from Bertrami that unlocks the tracks potential and catapults it into the Jazz-Funk hall of fame, along with smatterings of cool Rhodes and squeals of Hammond organ. Timbales, assorted bells and tambourines clatter along with a purposeful South-American swagger, amping up the samba. Sitting at around 130 bpm, this is a track that’s sole intention is get people up and moving in the floor and at 10 and a half it certainly finds ample time in which to achieve this. It builds constantly towards a cacophonous, soaring crescendo, a track adored by dancers and fans all the same.
Listen to the album HERE
Buy exclusively instore on online from Friday 29th April at 20:00 hrs
