You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - First Take Wednesday: Anat Cohen & Marcello Gonçalves

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Peter and Adam show their real-time first impressions of a tune. Today's episode features Anat Cohen & Marcello Gonçalves.Watch the performance of this tune right hereCheck out Anat Cohen's official websiteHave a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipe at link.youllhearit.com/speakpipeSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link openstudiojazz.link/yhiLearn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, man. It's the first take of our first take Wednesday. Let's try not to mess this up, okay? Okay, I'm ready. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hearer podcast.

Music, advice, and inspiration, and listening. And listening. And listening. Coming at you. Coming at you today, sponsored by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJazz.com. For all of your jazz lesson needs, Peter, we're going to try a new feature today. This is first take Wednesday.

Yes. This was your idea. Yes. Your title. My title. Like 27. We're really using our strong suits here. I know. I know. Yeah. No, I, I, I'm super excited about this. I think this is going to be a little, a little thing that we do for, mark my words, Mr. Maness, for quite some time.

So tell the people what the idea is behind this. Okay, the idea for this is we're going to listen to a new album. There's so much great music always coming out still. And we, you know, if we have any faults here at the You'll Hear a podcast, Adam, it's that we delve too far and not exclusively, but, maybe a little bit weighted on the seesaw a little bit too much into the past. Not the far past, but like 1964 and before. It's true. We do love that golden era there. But, you know, I'm reminded of something I've mentioned here before on a podcast. I listened to this audio book once about, it was about famous creators through history and like looking at their daily diaries and what they spend time doing. Yes.

A lot of artists and musicians spent a lot of time. ingesting their medium. So listening to music or looking at paintings. And there's a ratio they would do between listening to older music or new music. Like there's, that's a balance that they strike. And some artists would listen to more older music, mostly, mostly more older music.

Because it's, think about it, it's proven that it's like, it's great, right? It's survived, right? And also it's usually like, it's been around longer, it's grown up with the artist. But artists also, music, musicians, especially composers, musicians, would listen to new music as part of their daily routine as well.

I know we are both interested in that. We've leaned heavily on the past here in the podcast for sure, although we've gotten into some new stuff, but we thought we would make the new stuff a little bit more of a regular thing. Yeah, and I mean, I think, too, we're just like we're looking for full disclosure, a little bit of an excuse to check out some new stuff and explore it with you guys. And so the idea is what would happen if we pull the curtain back a little bit, if you will, and listen to something for the first time.

Now, you, the dear listener, may have heard this. So we're going to try to keep things new and contemporary and interesting. This is pretty new what we're listening to today. This is very new, yeah. But the idea on this will be that we're experiencing for the first time because there's nothing like the first time. There's nothing like the 700th time, if it ever gets to that as well. But when you get that first impression opening up our ears, I think it can be fun.

So we're going to listen to something that is, well, they're friends of ours. They're friends of the shows. Friends of the pod. Yeah, and which is really fun. This is Anott Cohen and Marcelo Gonzalez. Is Marcelo or Marcello? Marcelo. Marcelo.

And this is a little unclear. Their new record that just came out here in 2021. Yes. Called Reconvecho. I think that's how you pronounce it. That's very good. E-R-E-C-O-N-V-E-X-O. Yes.

And we'll just, are we listening to the whole thing or just the first track? We'll listen to just the first track. Okay, so this is the title track, Reconvaccio. This is Anna Kohn and Marcello Gonzalez. Good stuff. No surprise there. No, I love it. That's my reaction.

We've had the, I love it. That's your idea. We've had these two, Anna and Marcelo, on Open Studio before. They did a little bit of a concert, a little mini concert with Romero Lou Bambo, didn't they? Yes. And in fact, we were going to link to one of the songs. They did a, well, they did a number of beautiful things, but there was one in particular that we kind of pulled out. as a clip that I believe is still available.

If not, we're going to try to get it up there because it was just amazing. They did it from their apartment in Rio de Janeiro, and it was just stunning. I mean, what they do here in the studio, what they did at their little home setup. I mean, just musicianship at such a high level. So we'll link to that below.

But did you know, this is a Caitano Velosa song. Is it really? It is. Caitano Velosa, for those of you. It has that vibe. It totally has that vibe. one of the masterful. I mean, it's funny when you're like a great Brazilian songwriter,

you're one of many because it's a place. I mean, I think of two places, Italy and Brazil, among many others, of course. Katano Veloso loves this court. He does. Absolutely. He does. As does Yvonne Linz, as does many of the great Brazilian composers.

But Keitano is not only still is doing his thing, great singer, songwriter, And then this was, I was just looking it up, was, I don't know if he wrote it for it, but it was first performed and recorded by his sister, who's a wonderful singer Maria Bethania. So I think, you know, my first reaction, like I said, is just the joy from Marcello and Anat comes through in this recording. Having heard them live as well, I can tell you that the way that this is set up when we're here listening at the OS headquarters in the pod suite. Yeah. With the headphones on. Big shout out to Sony.

but I mean what a great job of mixing this I mean the placement of it the guitar is wide is that a seven straight it's not a seven straight it's not a seven straight yeah going down low on that

oh man but you know I think this is one of the cases for yes the production is great but this is a case of like it starts with the sound that the musicians all you got to do is capture just don't mess it up

they're both masters of sound yes Anat sound is so beautiful and rich and like personal and it's everything you would want in your own sound as an instrumentalist. And it's, I mean, she's got the woodiness, but the depth.

Her intonation is just flawless. Annoingly good. It's annoyingly good, but it's not, like there's so much soul in her playing. Like sometimes when you play with perfect intonation on a woodwind instrument or even a brass, it just kind of loses some of that stank. But she's got, I mean, their rhythmic concept

is so locked in. I mean, of course, that's a hallmark of many great Brazilian musicians as well as others, but Anat has immersed herself so deeply. She's an honorary Brazilian music. She's an honorary Brazilian. She speaks Portuguese. I mean, she speaks like a bunch of languages. She speaks Portuguese. But, you know, count me in the Anad and Marcello fan club. And I can't wait to listen to the rest of this record. Anat, you know, among other things, is a prolific recording artist. I don't know if there's been a jazz artist over the last eight to ten years and longer, but certainly in the last 10 years that has released more material than she has.

high level too. At such, and exclusively a high level. And many different projects and I don't know how she does it. Well, there's a reason why she's always on the top of, you know, critics lists and readers poll list for all the big magazines and stuff like that is because she's so great, you know? She's so high quality all the time. Let's tear her down now. No way. There's nothing to tear down.

I also love too how this, it's, we talk about the opening tracks of records, which this is, this is the title track, Reconvech Show. And we talk about how it's a place setter, right? Yeah. And I love how simple this song was. It's under four minutes long. and it was just a beautifully stated melody,

a recapitulation of the melody a little bit. And that's a technical term. You like that? I like that. And then they go out. I mean, it's just, it's a beautiful opening statement, you know, and it tells you everything you need to know.

I also can't wait to listen to the rest of the record. Yeah, and we will direct you. There'll be a link below, but you can also be directed. I would say just go to Anach Cohen.com. That's going to be your easiest place to listen to this, to stream it and all that good stuff. And, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, one thing that'll be. fun to talk about on these first take Wednesdays is how, you know, the entry point of the first track.

Like I used to kind of push back at this a little bit. It was like, you got to listen to the whole record. And I think, I think that we could use the first track of an album possibly as an entry point. Do we want to go further? Like when I was younger, it would be like, if I didn't like the first track, I wasn't feeling it, I would push my way through. Yeah. But I'd actually do this.

And this might be sacrilege to some of you more literary folks. but you know I like to read a lot as you do and sometimes I'll read a book and I don't always finish it not because it isn't good but sometimes it's like okay this isn't the mood that I mean I don't throw it away

I might put it to the side put it on the bedside but you know what I mean like it should tell you something about what's to come you know yeah absolutely I mean yeah if it's a novel

it would have to be pretty bad for me not to actually finish it would be like walking out of a movie right if it draws you in or if you're in the mood for it yeah I would have to it would take a lot for me not to finish

it. But I do read a lot of nonfiction, and it would take a lot for me to finish a nonfiction book. Because usually the point is made in the first 100 pages for the most part. Like if you're dealing with a point, it's very rare that I'm like, I'll, you know, I read a lot about like meditation or things like that. It's usually like, okay, after the first 10 chapters, like everything else is kind of like, and what if you're colorblind then you meditate? Right, right. We kind of catch it at the beginning. Absolutely. So one other thing, just to think about, for this because I can totally tell what the vibe of the record is going to be from this first track and I know I'm going to like it and I know kind of the situation I want to listen to it. You know what? I'm not going to lie. I might bust out of Kuiperina

a while I listen to this record. Sue me because I like limes and koshasa. But the idea is that not only support the artist, support yourself. I'm tired of this when people like, yeah, buy the album or stream it. First of all, when you stream something, you're not supporting the artist just so you know. Yeah. I mean, you're supporting

if you understood how like the economics of it works. But that's fine. this is the thing support yourself go get this album because it's going to support you yeah like we talk about everybody's like oh what am i going to get for christmas the supply chain am i going to be able to get the gi jo with the kung fu grip for little johnny

and all this stuff it's like the beautiful thing about this music is you can download you can stream it you can even get a physical copy if the supply chain is in order but i mean you can enjoy experiences i mean like who has who well you just moved i mean do you have not enough stuff in your life not enough items not enough physical items Yeah, I couldn't have any more.

Literally, there's no way I could have. Do you have two housefuls? Somehow that happened, yeah. So consider this experience. It's like taking a little trip to Rio, which you may not be ready to do for another three to six months. So let Anat Cohen and Marcelo Gonzalez

take you on Reconvexo, their new record. Sorry, you said it better. How did you say it? I said Reconvecho. I think that's how you say. I don't know if that's true. X is hard. X is tough.

But go to notcoen.com. Check that out. And until next first take Wednesdays, you'll hear it.