Blue Wave/Dreams Are Real

In 1999, Milestone/Fantasy reissued two albums that José Roberto Bertrami had recorded in the 1980s, Blue Wave (1983) and Dreams Are Real (1984), on a single 73-minute CD. When the albums were first released on LP, they came as a major surprise to those who knew Bertrami for his work with Azymuth, a band that had been offering a very accessible and melodic style of Brazilian pop-jazz. Quite a departure from Azymuth's albums, Blue Wave and Dreams Are Real found the keyboardist/pianist taking a more cerebral and complex jazz-fusion/post-bop approach. Like Azymuth's recordings, pieces such as "Parati," "Chorodo," and "Nova Ipanema" are quite melodic and have a definite Brazilian flavor. They aren't nearly as groove-oriented as Azymuth's work, however, and they're definitely more intellectual. When Blue Wave and Dreams Are Real came out, some Azymuth fans wondered if Bertrami was getting ready to leave the band permanently. But in fact, he recorded several more albums with the band before leaving in the late 1980s (though he would rejoin the outfit for sporadic appearances in the 1990s). With the recordings on this CD, Bertrami had a chance to express another side of himself, and he did so with challenging and impressive results.