Vol 1

In the early 70s, Brazilian guitarist Tapajos booked some sessions at Buenos Aires’ ION studios, sometimes dubbed the ‘Abbey Road of tango.’ The venue worked pretty well for Tapajos, too, as he produced fine songs with Arnaldo Henriques and Maria Nazareth and with percussionist Pedro ‘Sorongo’ Dos Santos. Two albums were issued by the Argentinian record label Trova; this one, released only in Argentina in 1972, is a stunner, full of intense, fresh-sounding, perfectly balanced duets in which Tapajos’ virtuoso fingerwork finds its perfect complement in the varied beats and sound effects generated by Dos Santos, who uses spoons, deodorant containers, matchboxes and other unconventional instruments. All 12 songs have some quality or guiding motif – this is not experiment for experiment’s sake – but standouts include ‘Munganga’, on which bird sounds, human screams and hoots open a space in the jungle for languorously strummed guitar, insistent chants and sultry samba refrains, and ‘Sorongaio’, where a pulsating rhythm blithely and beautifully ignores the mellow strumming and a meandering flute.

This isn’t jazz, or choro, or samba or bossa. It’s an original mix of all these, with a drop of neo-classical daring and a pinch of pure freedom, perhaps benefitting from being laid down far away from the swaggering schools and post-tropicália scenes of Rio and Salvador. In the Argentinian capital, roots are a mess of memory and misplaced Europhilia. Vol 1 is a suitably abstract title for this subtle Afro-Brazilian intervention.