CTI Records is a hot jazz label right now, and with artists like Airto, Hubert Laws, Ron Carter and similar heavies in their stable, the future looks bright indeed for the Creed Taylor clan. But despite its reputation as a progressive jazz label, CTI's most commercially successful artist to date has not been a "jazzman" in the traditional sense, but Brazilian arranger Eumir Deodato. Buoyed by the startling success of the "Also Sprach Zarathustra" single it spawned, Deodato's Prelude LP has been one of the year's most popular records, purchased by a broad cross section of folks of various musical persuasions.
technique, Deodato's major contributions to both
Prelude and
Deodato 2 are not as a performer. Putting music together is his forte, and the most striking facet of both albums is the fiendish intricacy with which they're constructed. Under Deodato's direction instruments are liberated from their traditional roles in music-making, each becoming a vehicle for a particular passage, the sum total of which is the bulk of his musical statement. Each instrument is thus a simultaneous lead/rhythm axe and the arrangements are so letter-perfect that not a note is lost in the myriad musical transitions.
The new album's most immediate attention-grabber is "Nights in White Satin," here performed in a way the Moody Blues would doubtless have never imagined. Deodato and John Tropea trade off alternate measures of the melody and vocal line, then break into a lengthy "jam" built around their synthesizer and guitar work. As mentioned before, the arrangement is impeccable—the precision with which the musicians perform is mind-boggling.
At its roots Deodato's music could scarcely be classified as "jazz," and the artist himself is the first to admit it. What he's interested in creating is a high-energy jazz-rock fusion, something he hopes will capture the hearts of the "young audience." "Skyscrapers" and "Super Strut" may well prove effective in that regard—they're both extremely energetic compositions heavy on instrumental funk. A jazz-influenced Booker T., if you will. But strangely enough, despite their presence on this album, and despite its inclusion of yet another classical extrapolation (this time George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue), the one thing that most interests me here is the serene "Pavane for a Dead Princess." Call it "dentist's office muzak" if you must, but you'll have to admit that it's awfully pretty.
Deodato is now at a point where he can be a tremendous influence on happenings in the jazz and mainstream pop fields. Long a veteran on the studio circuit, his most recent accomplishments appear on the new Roberta Flack LP, which has to be held indicative of both his arranging talents and the respect they command. If he can keep his approach to music from becoming stereotyped, Deodato may well become
The Brazilian keyboardist/producer/arranger was responsible for some of the funkiest instrumental jams laid to wax during the 1970s. For his second solo LP, he delivers a relentless array of party-centric jams that still hold up today. "Skyscrapers" and "Soul Strut" are completely out of control.
