RSVC (Adventure Music, 2013)
Sleek and silky, lush and lovely, Adventure Music’s release of RSVC is a delicious dive into the musical collaboration of Brazilian guitarists Ricardo Silveira and Vinicius Cantuaria. In this debut collaboration Mr. Silveira and Mr. Cantauaria saturate the listener in a plummy Brazilian jazz smoothness that’s sure to wow fans. Sporting six original tracks on this ten track CD, RSVC was recorded in Rio de Janeiro, with the pair sharing producing duties along with Eduardo Chermont, who also lends a hand with percussion loops and programming. Relying on a sound comes across as unhurried, breezy and easy, this recording is all about the interlocking collaboration of electric and acoustic guitar of these two extraordinary musicians, as well as swapping percussion and vocals throughout the CD.
Brazilian jazz fans will know Mr. Silveira by such recordings as Small World, Storyteller, Til Tomorrow (Ate Amanha) and Outro Rio (Another River), as well as some seven other recordings. Having spent over thirty years in the music business and a demanding schedule as a studio musician, Mr. Silveira has collaborated with the likes of Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta, Ney Mattogrosso, Joao Bosco, Herbie Mann, David Sanborn and Pat Metheny. Equally revered, Mr. Cantuaria, Brazilian by birth although he now lives in New York, has a wealth of credits in his own career with such recordings as Indio De Apartamento, Bill Frisell & Vinicius Cantuaria, Vinicius and Samba Carioca. He has played with the likes of Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Brad Mehldau, Arto Lindsay, Marc Ribot, David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
RSVC is sure to appeal to both world music fans and jazz fans in this smooth blend of both guitarists. Shimmering electric guitar lines waver over the intricacy of acoustic guitar against a backdrop of Brazilian rhythms.
Mr. Silveira’s vocals warm opening track “Preciso Falar Com Voce” in this dreamy, delicately worked number. RSVC just better and better with tracks like “Sessao Das Onze” with Mr. Cantuaria’s on some jazzy vocals. Listeners slide smoothly from the poignancy of “A La Dori” into the sassy “Pe Direito” into the percussive heavy opening of the brightly worked “Dia de Sol.” Other goodies include “Mais Nada,” “Matuto” and dark depths of “Trilha Polar.”
Creating a sound with remarkable depth, this duo leads listeners off onto a musical landscape that incorporates a Brazilian sensibility without giving away the ability to step into the uncharted territory of that jazz often enhances. It’s a truly delightful collaboration and I hope to see yet another collaboration in the works for this pair.
Buy RSVC
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
