34th Annual NCJF Opens With A Jobim Tribute
The 2014 North Carolina Jazz Festival opened on Thursday evening with the celebrated music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, featuring the vocal presentation of Maucha Adnet. The accompanying tenor sax of Harry Allen made the evening sound and feel like Jobim with Stan Getz. Maucha sang with Jobim for ten years, so it was a great pairing of artists to the benefit of the Hilton Ballroom’s audience! This evening in advance had been most highly anticipated by me, since I had previously heard Maucha and Harry Allen performing Jobim compositions in Pinehurst and at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York City. In those performances they were joined by Joe Locke on vibes, Helio Alves on keyboards, and her husband Duduka Da Fonseca on drums.
In the NCJF performance Maucha and Harry were accompanied by Chuck Redd on drums, Nate Najar on guitar, Ehud Asherie on keyboards, and Nicki Parrott on bass. Najar and Ehud were making their first appearance at the NCJF, and they created memorable impressions throughout the evening. Chuck Redd and Nicki Parrott contributed to keeping the time for the session and showed their true professionalism. Harry was right at home with the Jobim music and Adnet. He punctuated the vocals of Maucha throughout the evening.
Maucha Adnet sang many of the selections that are represented on her latest CD on the ZOHO label, Milagre. Maucha, a native of Brazil, really was comfortable with the music and was very well received by the audience. Some of the selections that she performed included Oh, Canatador, Waters of March, Desafinada, Amour Infinito, Milagre, Canto Trieste and April Child.
Maucha sang with such emotion and passion throughout the evening the audience never seemed to be concerned with the Portuguese language. Portuguese is such a beautiful language that you get engrossed with the music and forget about the language differences.
The Tribute to Jobim was a beautiful kick off for the festival. In 2015 the Thursday night kick off will be a Tribute to the music of George Shearing. I hope to see you at the 35th annual North Carolina Jazz Festival!
Courtesy of Tom “The Jazzman” Mallison of
PublicRadioEast.org
PureJazzRadio.com
Pandora.com
