https://lahabitaciondeljazz.blogspot.com/2025/08/antonio-adolfo-cd-carnaval-songs-were
Tracks
1.É Com Esse Que Eu Vou (I'm Going With This One)
2.Vassourinhas (Vassourinhas Carnaval Group)
3.Oba (Breath of the Jaguar)
4.Mal-Me-Quer (She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not)
5.Vai Passar (It's Going To Be OK)
6.As Pastorinhas (Girl Singers of Carnaval)
7.Exaltação À Mangueira (Ode to Mangueira)
8.A Lua É Dos Namorados (The Moon Belongs to Lovers)
9.Agora É Cinza (Now It Is Ashes).
Interpreters
Antonio Adolfo – piano
Idriss Boudria – alto saxophone
Marcelo Martins – tenor sax, flute
Jesse Sadoc – trumpet, flugelhorn
Rafael Rocha – trombone
Lula Galvão – guitar
Jorge Helder – double bass
Rafael Barata – drums, percussion
Andre Siqueira – percussion
Record label: AAM Music
Release date: July 11, 2025
With a discography of more than 25 albums as a leader, pianist, composer, and arranger Antonio Adolfo has been dedicated to music for nearly 60 years. He grew up in a musical family in Rio de Janeiro (his mother was a violinist with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra) and began his studies at age seven. By seventeen, he was already a professional musician. His teachers included Eumir Deodato and the great Nadia Boulanger in Paris. During the 1960s, he led his own trio, which participated in several bossa nova and jazz shows in Brazil and toured with singers such as Leny Andrade, Carlos Lyra, Flora Purim, Wilson Simonal, Elis Regina, and Milton Nascimento.
He has written over 200 songs, which have been covered by artists such as Sergio Mendes, Earl Klugh, Herb Alpert, Stevie Wonder, and Dionne Warwick, to name just a few.
As an educator, he has taught music classes, especially Brazilian music, all over the world and has written several books. In 1985, he founded his own school in Rio, Brazil, which currently has more than 1,300 students.
Carnival in Brazil is an institution. Since he was a child, Adolfo used to go with his family to see the performances of carnival groups. He has been passionate about Carnival music since he was very young.
The golden age of Carnival songs dates from the 1920s to the 1950s, many of which were presented in music competitions, where the most beautiful songs were chosen. As a result, some have become great classics of Brazilian music.
In "Carnaval (The Songs Were So Beautiful)", Adolfo has selected some of the most representative songs from those decades and others, combining traditional elements of Brazilian music, such as sambas, marchinhas, rancho marches and frevos, with African rhythms and European influences.
Adolfo opens the album with "E Com Esse Que Eu vou (I'm Going With This One)", a 1948 composition by Pedro Caetano, which soon became a carnival hit. The song is a high-stakes samba with a lively rhythm and festive character, where the brass accentuates the contagious beat.
This is followed by "Vassourinhas (Vassourinhas Carnaval Group)," composed by Matias da Rocha and Joana Ramos in 1909 as a tribute to a carnival club in Recife, in the northeast of the country. A song that encourages dancing and has become a Carnival classic. Martins and Galvão perform solos. Adolfo gives it a jazzy swing.
Adolfo had already worked on all the songs on this new album, on the album "Carnaval Piano Blues" (2005), on which he plays only the piano. On all of them except "Oba (Breath of the Jaguar!)," composed in 1962 by Osvaldo Nunes, which quickly became the anthem of a very famous and traditional carnival group called Bafo da Onta. Here, Adolfo gives it an Afro-Brazilian feel from Bahia. The trumpet, saxophone, and guitar solos follow one another, lending the song a jazzy flavor.
"Mal-Me-Quer (She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not)" is a beautiful ballad by Newton Teixeira and Cristóvão de Alencar, popularized by Orlando Silva in 1940. This song embodies the romantic side of carnival. A composition of great beauty that leaves us with a bittersweet, melancholic, and reflective taste.
"Vai Passar (It's Going To Be OK)" is the album's most recent song, composed in 1984 by Chico Buarque and Francis Hime, calling for the country's return to democracy. The album recaptures the joyful optimism of Carnival. Adolfo gives it a modern feel.
"As Pastorinhas (Girl Singers of Carnaval)" was written by two great composers, Braguinha and Noel Rosa for a Carnival song contest in 1934, was best known for Elizeth Cardoso's energetic performance, and refers to Carnival singers. Here, Adolfo transforms it into a very soft, reflective, and nostalgic ballad. Trumpet and flute solos add sparkle to this slow-tempo rancho march.
"Exaltação à Mangueira, (Ode to Mangueira)" composed by Eneas Brittes da Silva and Aloisio Augusto da Costa for the 1956 Carnival, refers to the Escola de Samba Mangueira, the most famous group of samba dancers and singers that performs during the Rio Carnival Samba Parade. This piece has become one of the greatest classics of Brazilian Carnival. Adolfo covers it with jazzy nuances of Latin rhythms. Trumpet, saxophone, and piano solos in a jazz key.
We're nearing the end of the album and we find a lovely title, "A Lua É Dos Namorados (The Moon Belongs to Lovers)," a composition by Armando Cavalcanti, Klecius Caldas, and Brasinha for the 1960 Carnival, released by Ângela Maria in 1961. It's a marchinha that Adolfo fuses with a relaxed samba. The piano carries the weight of the melody.
The album closes with "Agora É Cinza (Now It Is Ashes)," a composition by Alcebíades Barcellos, aka "Bide," and Armando Marçal, published by Mario Reis in 1933. A classic of the genre that heralds the end of Carnival and the beginning of Lent. Carnival ends, but the music—good music—lives on.
Antonio Adolfo has achieved international fame for his magnificent reharmonizations of both jazz standards and Brazilian songs, proving himself a master of piano, composition, and arrangement, both in jazz and Brazilian music.
With this and previous works, Antonio Adolfo, in addition to paying homage to Brazil's rich musical tradition, acts as a guardian of Brazil's cultural soul.