Coincidence or destiny?
As we took a taxi here in Copacabana en route to the local oasis of good pop and jazz music, the Blue Note, I didn´t have to ask our driver to lower the sound on the usual awful rap or repetitive drum loop called “music “these days we hear in most taxis.
For our driver was playing on his soundtrack apparatus saxophonist John Coltrane and other great Afro-American stars of American jazz heritage!
So, despite all the rumble called “music” these days there still is an audience for “good” music!
The attraction Thursday evening (16 January 2025) officially was Carioca-born singer Carol Saboya who was launching her 14th album celebrating her 25th year of a musical career.
Called “Another Tone” the singer-pianist´s show featured compositions of her father Antonio Adolfo,77, who just happened to be the bald “senior citizen” sitting next to me at my front row table and took his seat behind the keyboard when his daughter was playing and singing.
The son of a violinist of Rio´s Municipal Theater orchestra, Adolfo ´s name is best known as an educator due to his Centro Musical Antonio Adolfo, which currently has three wings in Botafogo,Leblon and Barra da Tijuca.
Nevertheless, to our aging ears—despite his celebrating 60 years of his career–Adolfo was the youngest musician onstage, a virtuoso bossa nova and jazz pianist, who has accompanied Elis Regina among others.
Carole´s “show” resembled the equivalent of the Trapp (“Sound of Music”) family of Rio de Janeiro with her two daughters, Amanda and Joana, front-lining as her pop chorus when Carole´s eminent father didn’t substitute her at the keyboard.
Her musical backing included Guto Wirtti, bass, Gabriel Quinto, virtuoso guitarist and Renato Massa, drums.
On the first floor of the nightspot—where a jazz lover pays only for what he or she drinks and eats (rather than the 150 reais fee for the show on the second floor)—the talents of jazz pianist Adaury Mothe,47, are displayed Thursdays to Sundays.
“Adaury is a wonderful pianist of a new generation,” correctly writes veteran pianist Gilson Peranzzetta on Mothe´s CD “Dois Amigo” (“Two Friends”).
Hopefully Blue Note´s producers will eventually give Mothe a chance to host his own presentation with a trio or quartet on the second floor reserved for veteran stars.