Context: The Piano Trios of Brazil

A brief playlist exploring one stylistic shift after bossa nova

The piano trios that rose in Brazil during the middle 1960s represented an aesthetic pushback from the Quiet Nights serenity of bossa nova.

Where bossa nova sold the world an idealized calm, these groups romped through tunes at breakneck speed. The musicians seemed forever in frantic pursuit of something just out of reach, and didn’t mind plowing through a crowded parade to catch it. They played like revelers lurching down stairs after too much to drink. They changed tempos and rhythmic feels in mid-phrase, with remarkable unity. They engaged in elaborate rounds of hide-and-seek with the Orishas. The soloists chattered and danced on the front edge of the beat, echoing the intricacies of hard bop phrasing. The drummers, meanwhile, emphasized the melodic peaks with crafty syncopated big band-style set-ups, the kind the Count Basie Orchestra made famous.

The groups shared tricks and tactics, but each had its own signature: Tenorio Jr., the subject of the animated film They Shot the Piano Player discussed earlier this week here, favored understatement, contrasting sleek melodic swerves against intricate and capricious chordal jabs. Cesar Camargo Mariano, the pianist of Sambalanco Trio and Elis Regina’s longtime musical director, used elaborate stop-time breaks and fanfare-like arranging devices to propel radically reimagined versions of Baden Powell tunes. (Many of the trios did versions of “Consolocao” and “Berimbau.”) Hermeto Pascoal (piano and flute) aligned with percussionist Airto Moreira and bassist/harmonica player Humberto Clayber for one deeply imaginative (if occasionally florid) album, Em Som Maior from 1965. In addition to being one of the energetic releases associated with this little scene, En Som Maior is relevant to Brazilian music history as a stepping stone for Pascoal and Moreira, who in 1966 formed the classic (and also, alas, short-lived) Quarteto Novo.

This playlist is intended as a series of starting points: Each of these records deserves spins from start to finish.