Featured Artist: Nanny Assis

CD Title: Double Rainbow

Year: 2006

Record Label: Blue Toucan Music

Style: Brazilian Jazz / Brazilian Pop Jazz

Review:

Heralded by many in the music industry for his drumming/percussion session work, Brazilian artiste Nanny Assis shines as a lead vocalist throughout this wondrously produced and not over-baked studio session.  Featuring a large cast, alternating duties on selected tracks, Assis’ whispery and sentimentalized manner of spinning a tune, intimates a breath of fresh air.  Amid soft horns and buoyant percussion grooves, Assis also layers background vocals here.  With somber violins accenting many of these richly melodic works, featuring breezy flutes and top-notch support by Americans; cellist Erik Friedlander, bassist John Patittucci, and trumpeter Michael Leonahart. 

Assis sings in Portuguese on the classic Brazilian pop hit, “Mas Que Nada.” And with the piece titled “Brasileininho, Patittucci imparts one of his patented, upper register bass solos to round-out a rapidly paced samba groove pumped up with percussion rhythms, native to So. America. 

These arrangements sparkle, and are not overly enamored with syrupy strings, but Assis’ sincerity and warmly pronounced vocals are tinged with mood-evoking notions.  These attributes are evident during “Chovendo na Roseira,” where Assis sings atop a romanticized acoustic guitar motif, segueing into ethereal and drifting sensibilities.  No, this isn’t one of those ho hum Brazilian, jazz-tinged outings.  Here, Mr. Assis looms as a prophet of good cheer and eternal hope throughout this stylistic date that warrants repeated listens.

Tracks:

Double Rainbow, A Rã, Bihete, O Pato, Nenhum, Mas Que Nada, Melhor Refrão, Magalenha, Sorrir (Smile), Brasileirinho, Folhas, Fecas, Salsinha, Dali Tutu, Kiss from A Rose, Passarim, Revolucão Rural, Chovendo na Roseira

Record Label Website: http://www.bluetoucanmusic.com

Reviewed by: Glenn Astarita

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