Starting Point is the previously unreleased 1975 debut album by Grupo Um, a jazz trio composed of drummer/percussionist Ze Eduardo Nazario, keyboardist Lelo Nazario, and bassist Zeca Assumpcao. They were all members of Hermeto Pascoal & Su Grupo, where they played alongside guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Toninho Horta and saxophonist Nivaldo Ornelas. The album reveals the youthful rhythm sections swinging collective voice. Starting Point was recorded as the military junta that ruled Brazil cracked down on all forms of publicly distributed artistic expression: music, literature, visual art, etc. Many of Brazils best-known artists went into self-imposed exile. Grupo Um cut these six tracks in two days at Vice Versa, one of Sao Paolos finest studios, with engineer Renato Vida. The trio couldnt find a label to release the album, so it sat in Lelo Nazarios private vault for 47 years, until Londons intrepid Far Out Recordings came looking for it. The album commences with "Porao da Teodoro," a frenetic, flailing drum solo from Ze Eduardo. Just over 90 seconds long, it showcases startling polyrhythmic invention. A berimbau (stringed percussion instrument) introduces "Onze por Oito," a glorious meld of samba and jazz that relies on lyricism and fluid dynamics from all players. The Rhodes solo by Lele spirals, but remains grounded in its use of punchy melodic vamps as Assumpcao plays a circular pattern riding the improvisation by his bandmates. "Organica" is an out piano ballad rendered acoustically. The loose, scattershot percussion underscores Lelos scalar investigations in the middle and high register as the bassist merely plays on the body of his instrument for ballast. "Suite Orquidea Negra" is the albums best cut. The trio winds hard bop around samba and swings like mad. Lelos elegant chord voicings extend the harmonic reach and range, exhorting close listening from his bandmates. They answer halfway with contrapuntal rhythmic intensity as the mode changes. By contrast, "Jardim Candida" is a completely formless percussion improvisation wherein the trio dialogue on agogos, caixa de maracatu, atabaque and conga drums, and berimbau. Closer "Cortejo dos Reis Negros" opens with a Rhodes piano vamp that recalls the lyric synth in Weather Reports "Black Market" (which was also recorded in 1975). Assumpcao endlessly repeats a martial funk riff as Ze Eduardo syncopates, breaks, and lays deep in the cut on his entire kit. The dialogic interplay is dazzling. Electronic sounds and wordless vocals cascade into the center of the mix amid otherworldly yet celebratory melody, spidery funk, and interlaced percussion. Combined they deliver a dazzling, almost transcendent finish. Starting Point is raw, sometimes angular, and restlessly kinetic. It is also profoundly listenable even at its edgiest. The album is not only a welcome discovery but an essential release from a creatively fertile period in Brazilian music history. ~ Thom Jurek

Rovi