https://houseofprog.com/antonio-adolfo-carnaval-the-songs-were-so-beautiful-2025/
Antonio Adolfo: Carnaval [The Songs Were So Beautiful] (2025)
I have been fortunate enough to review quite a few of Antonio’s albums over the years, and here he has visited one of his passions, Brazil’s Carnaval. While I am sure everyone is aware of Brazil’s love of carnivals, I did not know that music used to be written specifically for these occasions, and here Antonio has taken some of the tunes he loves and has moved them into jazz to create a distinctly Brazilian style which is fully of joy and those Latin rhythms. For example, take “Vassourinhas” (“Vassourinhas Carnaval Club”, all titles are given in Portuguese and English). It is a frevo, a vibrant Brazilian dance and music style usually performed at Carnival and was composed in 1909 as a tribute to a Carnaval club in the northeastern town of Recife, but this never sounds as if it is more than 100 years old as it is full of life and passion.
Adolfo is a pianist, and while he does take the odd solo here and there, for the most part he is more than happy to provide the backbone and the arrangements and let the others get into the spotlight, and although the electric guitar does feature, these songs rely on the percussion and horns to give it vitality. Bright and full of sunshine, this album may have started as an idea to try and keep some older tunes in the spotlight (only one of these songs was written in the last 50 years), but it has become a triumphant celebration of life and dance and is a delight from beginning to end.