interview with Flora Purim

The music of Flora Plurim has been at the forefront of Latin and American jazz music for over 25 years. She has earned two Grammy nominations for Best Female Jazz Performance and Downbeat Magazine Best Female Singer accolade on four occasions.
Flora’s musical partners have included Gil Evans, Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie and she has collaborated with Airto Moreira on over 30 albums since 1967 when they arrived in New York with him in from their native Rio.


Her musical taste and genius developed thanks to her father, a Russian émigré, who played violin and her mother who was a talented pianist in her own right. Before leaving Brazil to escape the repressive regime of the time, she, like many Brazilian musicians, had mastered playing piano and guitar whilst developing her impressive vocal talent.
After arriving in New York Flora and Airto became central to the period of musical expression and creativity which produced the first commercially successful Electric Jazz groups of the 70s.


Pianist Duke Pearson was the first American musician to invite Flora to sing alongside him on stage and on record. She then toured with Gil Evans, and she worked with Chick Corea and Stan Getz as part of the New Jazz movement that also contained the influence of the great Cannonball Adderley.




In the early 70’s, two classic albums - "Return to Forever" and "Light as a Feather" introduced the fusion jazz sound!

Her first solo album in the US, Butterfly Dreams was released in 1973, which catapulted her straight into the Top Five Jazz Singers on the Downbeat Magazine Fame Jazz Poll.

During her career Flora has given her contribution to some of the greatest recordings of the seventies - Carlos Santana, Hermeto Pascoal, Gil Evans, Chick Corea and Mickey Hart . In the mid-Eighties, Flora and Airto resumed their musical partnership to record two albums for Concord for which she received a Grammy nominations and she continues to record and perform right up to the present day.

Jazzmotel is proud to present a LADY OF JAZZ.

This is the interview with Flora Purim.





One question I always ask the artist interviewed for Jazzmotel is: What are your musical origins? How did your taste develop?


My music origins are Brazilian and classical.

In 1967 you left Brazil for New York. Up until then with whom had you collaborated and what had been your experiences in Rio. Tell me about the musical atmosphere that was around Brazil at that time.



I became a professional singer in 1965. I worked extensively with Hermeto Pascoal, Sambalanço Trio, Sambraza Trio and recorded my first LP, entitled Flora é MPM, for RCA Victor. I also sang with the big bands of Maestro Cipó and Pocho as well as with the small ensemble called 7 de Ouros. I worked at the night club Stardust and at the temple of the Bossa Nova in
São Paulo, the João Sebastião Bar. The musical atmosphere was of the high quality of musicians and musicianship that had only one interest in mind: play, play, play! Brazil was beautiful and very inspiring in many different ways.


Musically speaking, what differences did you notice between New York and Brazil?


When I arrived in New York, it was December of 1967, and all I wanted was to listen to my favorite singers and musicians in jazz, which I did in a couple nights when I found out that in the Harlem was a jazz hang called Club Baron. Every active musician in town would converge to that club after their regular gigs, with the purpose of jamming. In other words the difference was only one. I could improvise in any style, and that was acceptable and welcome.
That time was indeed energetic and electric.


How was your first musical contact with New York jazz and in what way did you become part of the jazz musicians scene?


Then I joined Chick Corea and the original Return To Forever, along with bass player Stanley Clark, saxophonist and flute player Joe Farrell, Airto Moreira on drums, while I played percussion and sang unison lines on the melodies with the saxophones and flutes of Joe Farrell. When the group was not touring I would be rehearsing and singing with one of my mentors Gil Evans and his Big Band.


The first time I heard your voice was when I heard "Stormy" from the album "It Could Only Happen With You" of Duke Pearson. And I loved it.
Tell me something about your experience with the music of Pearson and Blue Note.


Duke Pearson fell in love with Brazilian music at first contact. And besides being an A&R and executive director for Blue Note, Duke had his Big Band and invited me to sing in two of his vinyl (LP) records: “How Insensitive” and “It Could Only Happen With You”. It turned out very nicely. He loved it and so did I.


Gil Evans has influenced your music and your artistic development in many ways. Of all his work, what has left its mark on you the most?


One his collaborations with Miles Davies entitled Miles Ahead: Miles Davis +19.


How can we define that New Jazz movement introduced by you, Airto, Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke among others? That sort of Electric Jazz with tropical undertones from the beginning of the 70's that they call Fusion.


I feel that fusion is not a bad way to describe it, except that we have to clarify that there are many types of fusion. That was a Jazz/Brazilian fusion; maybe we should call it illusion.


George Duke, Deodato, Hermeto Pascoal, Duke Pearson, Cannonball Adderley, are a few of the musicians with who you have worked. How much have they influenced your way of making music?



George Duke and Hermeto Pascoal as well as Airto and Gil Evans were the ones who helped me to decide the way I chose to sing by encouraging me to go ahead with my experimentations and validating me by coming to recordings and being part of my process of evolution.


What do you think of contemporary music that fuses 70's jazz with electronic
music?


I think is fine to try it but not everybody knows what it takes to successfully achieve a good result.

Do you think it has the same significance as the electric jazz that you used
to play?


No, I don’t think so.

Flora Purim
Paris - France, June 10th 2008.

Interview with Lonnie Liston Smith

At this time we need Spiritual vibrations more than ever.
I had the great opportunity to get in touch with one of the great jazzmen
who was and still is very Spiritual in his way of thinking and exploring
jazz.
As you have read in my introduction to Lonnie Liston Smith he was very into
that Spiritual, Creative, Astral , Deep movement, along with Pharoah
Sanders and Leon Thomas (Peace be with him) among others...
As I knew, I discovered a Deep Man, a great musician and a new friend !
He also gave me some unpublished pics that you will see for the first time
here in JAZZMOTEL!!
This is what Lonnie Liston Smith and I talked about...










Lonnie , How have you defined your style, your piano playing style?
Which pianists or musicians have inspired your vision of jazz music?


I always wanted to develop a universal style of music, and when I am playing the piano and keyboards I try to be aware of the importance of using space. Miles Davis told me one time that musicians don't realize that what they don't play is just as important as what they do play.Miles Davis and John Coltrane inspired my vision of music the most!  Also Debussy and Ravel inspired my vision of music.





One of your first important experiences was with Art Blakey, thanks to the help of the player Mickey Bass . Tell me about your experience with Art Blakey and the great jazz scene .

Working with Art Blakey was a great experience because each member of the group would write songs and Art would not come to the rehearsals until we had learned all of the new songs, then he would come in and sat behind the drums and play each song as if he had heard these songs before.  It was amazing how Art could interpret these songs so quickly.




Another drummer who helped to increase your credibility was Max Roach. You played with him for about a year and then later recorded two albums with Rahsaan Roland, right up to 1968 when you met Pharoah Sanders.
what is changed after the encounter with Sanders ?



Working with Max Roach was quite a different experience because Max played in so many different time signatures (5/4, 7/4, etc.).  People don't realize Max Roach taught Dave Brubeck and his band how to play in 5/4 time. When I played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk I had to play all types of music.  Rahsaan liked to play the blues, dixieland music and also straight-ahead jazz.





That period was very much influenced by the spiritual slipstream left over by Coltrane. You started to experiment with the electric piano indian tambura and composed a few songs that later became defined as Cosmic Jazz .
Tell me about that sort of energy that influenced you, Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders and many other musicians of that period…
“Thembi “, "Upper Egypt", "Karma", "Creator Has a Master Plan", "Summun, Bukmun, Umyun", and "Jewels of Thought” were a sort of astral journey of jazz.
What kind of feeling was there in that period and how did jazz music blend with spirituality?



Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders and myself developed a whole new concept of jazz.  I wrote most of the music for the group when we were together.  We would stretch the music as far out as we could, and then bring the music back down to earth.I wrote "Astral Traveling" for Pharoah and that song really represented "Cosmic Jazz".  In that song I tried to capture the feeling of floating through space.
I want my music to heal all of the problems on the planet Earth, like wars, man's inhumanity to mankind, because if we don't learn to live in peace and harmony, then this whole planet will be destroyed.



You also performed on the recordings of Miles Davis’ “On The Corner” and “Big Fun”. How much did your closeness to Miles contribute to your evolution in jazz, a music that was becoming evermore experimental and open to certain influences and experimentations with electric instruments and free expressions in music.




Working with Miles Davis was the "ultimate"!  Miles was a musical genius on stage and off stage!  Every night working with Miles I had to be very creative because Miles had me playing a new keyboard, "The Yamaha Electric Organ".  He wanted to hear a new sound and the only time I had an opportunity to play the new keyboard was on stage. 




In 1974, after the experience with Gato Barbieri and the Flying Dutchman label, Bob Thiele, who had supported the album by Sanders, helped you to obtain your first contract for an album as a solo artist and leader. That album was “Astral Travelling”
Than the Cosmic Echoes were born .
Did that album allow you to record what you had in mind at the time?



After working with Miles Davis I formed "The Cosmic Echoes".  I saw that Miles had hooked up a lot of pedals to his trumpet, like the wah-wah pedal, etc..  So
I decided to hook up all these different pedals to my Fender Electric Piano and that's how I discovered the Lonnie Liston Smith Sound on the Electric Piano. 



How did the passage to Jazz Funk happen? Which sounds inspired this move?
In 1975, with “Expansions” you defined your style by creating a sort of Funky Jazz, very fresh but still maintaining your spiritual and astral vein. What can you tell me about this album?

After I recorded "EXPANSIONS", The Entire World labeled me "THE GODFATHER
OF JAZZ FUSION FUNK".



“Visions of a New World” and “Renaissance” were the next step, electric piano with echo and wah-wah effects, percussions and funk. In all of your work percussions are always much involved and you use more than one percussionists on one album.
How important were the percussions to you sound?



The sounds of different percussion instruments are very important because the sounds are so cosmic and universal, so I try to use percussion instruments as much as possible.

thanks Lonnie .

Thanks JAZZMOTEL Peace

Interview to David Axelrod " The Axelrod Tape "

Quote David Axelrod web site :

An award-winning producer for Capitol Records who produced, great jazz, funk, and soul records during the 1960s and '70s, from Stan Kenton to Lou Rawls to The Electric Prunes to Cannonball Adderley. David Axelrod created his own distinct style. He has earned one Grammy and five nominations, along with seven gold records. Serious jazz lovers will recognize his name.
Axelrod freely uses drums, horns, strings, string bass as well as woodwinds along with key board, in his compositions. Poetry has been an influence on his compositions. He is considered a visionary and the father of fusion.





As I wrote in a previous transcript I got in touch with David
Axelrod's son Dana to interview "The Maestro" .
Interviewing him for the first time was a strange sutuation for me, I
was very shy to ask all the normal questions that every Jurnalist would
like to ask, after all what more can I ask to a living legend like David
Axelrod...?
Experience, Sampling, Productions, Origins, Taste...



David Axelrod for me is a kind of " Deep Composer ", I never knew
what to call his Style, so deep so intelligent, a kind of "Baroque
orchestral message". Funk Jazz tinged ...Out of any " regola " Free from
music standards, a kind of Archetypal music.

The first time I heard him was like an illumination,
"Who can mix Classical moods , Jazz , Soul , Funk and Rock together
with God's blessing"?


So I started to research as always... and collecting... new experiences!

Song of Innocence
Song of Experience
Rock Messiah
Earth Riot

Loads of productions, lots of them sampled by big modern artists like
DJ Shadow, DR Dre and many more...



It was like living in the 70's when I received the "tape" with the
recorded answers, it was pretty strange for me receive a tape in 2007
but this is all part of the legend that is Axelrod...

I don’t have a tape recorder any more, shame on me! How times have
changed.
I found the "tape recorded" interview so cool because, Axelrod
answered me directly. Answers without questions... for me it was a type
of poetry.
When I listened to the tape I decided to put the interview here on
Jazzmotel, laid bare without questions, just like a kind of statement,
David Axelrod "SPEAKING BY HIMSELF" to answer me... the interviewer...
A true privilege and one interview I will never forget.




In the internet and electronic era it is quite cool receive a tape,
so this my friends is the "Axelrod tape!"





How you doing Alessio?

Everything is fine here in the States. It couldn’t be better.


Well, sampling and music seems to be here, although they are cutting down on it, and I don’t mind having my music sampled. I think it’s kind of neat, that so many people are interested in it, especially if it’s done right.

No, I wasn’t angry when I first heard myself being sampled, I thought it was kicks. I broke up laughing. Then came some serious samples, and if you can get someone like the way Dre did it, the way he did Next Episode, when he sampled The Edge, and what I used as the intro, he put behind the first four bars of the band. And it worked, it really did work.

Also Diamond D, the way he did things when he sampled Mental Traveller, when he put the guitars in different places than I did, and I kind of liked it, as much as what I did was the only way I had done it.

So what’s the sense of getting angry, it’s going to be done anyway, you just have to hope that whoever does it does it musically.

Well downloading is here, and it won’t be a problem once the majors figure out how to utilize it and sell their product on it. The only thing I don’t like about it, is the sound itself. Certain things become very tinny, especially if they have any kind of orchestra, the orchestra sounds very bad. If you using a quartet or a quintet or something you’re far better off. I just don’t like the sound

Well before the sixties and seventies, I was just into a great deal of jazz, as a matter of fact as from about 1954/1955 through the early 60’s, that’s all I listened to. But as I said, before that, I was listening to jazz and rhythm and blues,. People like Amos Milburn and Little Milton and others and especially T-Bone Walker.

Learning music on my own was very very difficult. I don’t recommend it. Did it add to my personal style?..Probably. Because I was already writing before I got involved with certain rules that had to be supposedly applied with. I broke those rules and now that I know better, I still break them. But you better learn. Whether it’s your own or whether it’s within a school. I’ve often told Randy Newman, who I’m very very fond of, that I envy his education at USC (*University of Southern California). A degree in music is a great help.

I don’t hear a lot of cohesive albums any more. It’s like concept-albums seem to be out. I don’t know why that is because I love concept albums and I’ve been doing them my whole musical life, starting in 1967. So why that’s not happening now I don’t know. Maybe it’s the labels. If so, they’re making a mistake. If someone has a good idea for a concept, it’s always going to be cool. Check out people like Alan Parsons

Yeah, I would like to tell your readers to check out davidaxelrodmusic.com

They will really enjoy it.
And… thank you


All the pictures curtesy of Davidaxelrodmusic.com

Carlos " Patato " Valdès

I just knew from my Latin friends in America that Patato was not good ...
Then i had the bad notice from my friend Harvey Averne that the Great percussion player passed ...
I had a look around to get some infos about Him and I went to see a great article on herencialatina.com.
Nobody could explay better than Herencia Latina , the life , the feelings , the vibe and the story of thig little great Brother !
So I invite you to go there and have a read at this story .
Rest in peace Brother Patato and " beat" them all with your Congas !
Jazzmotel