Disk Tum Derrei (Chorando e Sambando)

In terms of both geography and population, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America -- and it stands to reason that a country of that size is going to be musically diverse. Indeed, a long list of musical terms is associated with Brazil, including baião, frevo, embolada, forró, and sertaneja. This CD celebrates two of Brazil's most famous rhythms: samba and choro. While the samba and choro rhythms can be used in Brazilian pop or modern Brazil classical music, Disk-Tum-Derrei (Chorando e Sambando) uses them for instrumental jazz purposes. Thiago de Mello co-led this 2006/2007 session with American clarinetist Dexter Payne, who also joined him on the excellent Another Feeling album. Creatively, Another Feeling was a major success; so it was only natural for de Mello and Payne to be reunited on subsequent sessions. De Mello and Payne (who are joined by Haroldo Mauro, Jr., Helio Alves, or Cliff Korman on piano) enjoy as strong a chemistry on this 61-minute CD as they did on Another Feeling, and Payne's playing is pleasingly lyrical throughout the album. Payne is also a skillful saxophonist, but this time, he plays the clarinet exclusively, and the instrument serves him well. All of the songs on the predominantly instrumental Disk-Tum-Derrei (Chorando e Sambando) were composed by de Mello; some of them combine jazz with samba, and some of them combine jazz with choro. But whatever the rhythm, de Mello's organic percussion and Payne's warm clarinet are a consistently appealing combination on this engaging album.