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Thus answered Eumir Deodato
PREVIEW: EUMIR DEODATO
Jazz Café
ALSO Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss, is not one of my favourite pieces of music.
Perhaps it’s the connection with Friedrich Nietzsche, inspired as it was by the book of the same name, its overwhelming grandeur or maybe it has just been ruined by endless repeating on television and by Stanley Kubrick’s setting in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
However, it was rescued for me in 1973 when a little known Brazilian musician called Eumir Deodato created a jazz and funk version.
And this week he is coming to Camden Town to perform at the Jazz Café as part of what must be an exhausting world tour – the two previous nights he is due to perform in Oslo and Budapest.
A wonderful musician, particularly gifted on the piano and keyboard, he found his talent as a composer and arranger and it was on his 1973 album Prelude that his skill was fully appreciated.
In stark contrast to Strauss, Deodato added a lightness of touch, giving space to the instruments to express themselves.
It is a track that sums up the best of funk jazz, along with Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and Weather Report’s Birdland.
The album was a huge success and the track won a Grammy Award.
As a producer and arranger, he has worked for a wide range of musicians, from legendary jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery in the 1960s and smoky-voiced singer Sarah Vaughan, to Icelandic pop star Bjork and Kool and the Gang.
So on Sunday he is appearing at the Camden Town venue alongside percussionist Stefano Paolino and bassist Pier Luigi Mingotti.
A rare and valuable opportunity to see this great musician.
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