Grupo Um
Starting Point
★★★★
FAR OUT RECORDINGS. CD/DL/LP
Lost 1975 debut album by revered Brazilian experimental jazz act.
During the mid-1970s, in the midst of establishing a reputation in Brazilian composer/multiinstumentalist Hermeto Pascoal’s group, keyboardist Lelo Nazario, his drumming brother Zé Eduardo and bassist Zeca Assumpção formed spin-off project Grupo Um. The trio fused contemporary jazz and Afro-Brazilian rhythms in a São Paulo basement as a sonic challenge to the strictures of Brazil’s oppressive military dictatorship. Debut album Starting Point moves between spacey jazz-funk revelries and introspective abstractions: beginning with a ghostly berimbau, Onze Por Oito builds tension through Assumpção’s spiralling bass patterns, Lelo’s piano melodies reaching for the cosmic as Zé Eduardo plays fast and loose; Cortejo Dos Reis Negros recasts the maracatu rhythm as a platform for meandering piano. Accented by jokey percussive asides and a distant barking dog, Starting Point was too ahead of its time to find a release until now, and thankfully the master tapes have aged well.