AIRTO MOREIRA — Free (review)

AIRTO MOREIRA — Free album cover Album · 1972 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Having left Weather Report and now being a member of Return To Forever, Airto didn’t stop making his own solo album, and this one is contemporary of his RTF days, and just in case you didn’t catch it the first time around, he included the opening track to remind you of it. Actually, you’ll find the whole of RTF guesting at one point or another in the course of the album, even if wife Flora is the more discreet of the quintet. Among the better-known other guests are Jarrett, Carter, Laws, Benson and Berliner. As was the case with some fellow Brazilians (Deodato comes to mind), Airto found refuge on Creed Taylor’s CTI label, for better or worse.

Opening on the superb and epic Corea-penned RTF, the album promises to be a superb fusion album, the cover having more spunk than the original eponymous tune on the debut album as the whole group delves deeper in themselves. Well the ECM production might have also something to do with that as well. The following Flora’s self-penned Song has a definite Latin sound, partly due to Berliner’s near-flamenco guitar, but it develops into an enjoyable but gentler fusion piece, where Laws’ flute contrasts with Farrell’s winds and the brass section in the background providing great depth.

The flipside opens with another lengthy title track that opens rather free and dissonant, as if we were in the jungle at dawn either in Africa or in the Amazon and later develops in a lengthy African-raga-jam, but nothing dissonant. Definitely not my fave, but interesting enough if not played repetitively. The short Jarrett-penned Lucky Southern (featuring Keith himself) sticks out a bit from the rest of the album, but it’s more a production thing (loudness) than a non-Latin feel, which it has. The closing Creek is again gentle Brazilian bossa that is rather pleasant, but it fails to match the energy of the fusion of the A-side or the transe set in the title track.

Two bonus tracks have been tagged on the original album for the first CD reissue, the Jarrett-penned first So Tender being some kind of fast-paced little sister to the Lucky one, while the latter is more linked with the bossa of Creek. As is often the case with the CTI label, Free is relatively soft-sounding, but in this case, the music is not always safe semi-elevator jazz. Definitely worth the investigation for the first side, the flipside might have you pondering on the investment. A schizophrenic album.

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