Marcel Camargo and The Brazil You Never Heard is an ongoing concert series that strives to celebrate music from all over the world via the lens of Brazilian arranger/composer Marcel Camargo. This EP marks the beginning of a series of records that will be the studio counterparts of these live shows. A note from Marcel : Behind Jobim was the title of our second concert and the concept was to have a quick look into the mind of Antonio Carlos Jobim, arguably Brazil's most internationally renowned composer/songwriter. When I put together the repertoire I designed it to mostly feature music that I knew was influential to Jobim and, when I did include his compositions in the set, the idea was to tie those to other pieces by composers that were his heroes, thereby giving the set a sense of narrative. Since Jobim's music draws from many sources - mainly classical music, Brazilian popular and folk music and Jazz - I had plenty of room to create a set list that was very eclectic but that still held together as a unit. The show featured music of his favorite classical composers; Debussy, Chopin and Villa Lobos, of his predecessors in the legacy of great Brazilian composers; Pixinguinha and Garoto, of one of his mentors; Radamés Gnattali, and two of his peers; Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque. When it came time to do this record the producing duties became split between Léo Costa and I - Léo also plays drums in the group. For this EP we chose to record pieces from the Behind Jobim concert that we felt made the biggest statements about what our sound is and what we want to accomplish musically and in terms of creating narratives. Here is a little background on each piece: Lamentos do Morro was originally written for solo guitar by the great Brazilian guitarist Garoto (aka. Anibal Augusto Sardinha), in the late 40's. I had played this piece before the show and love Garoto's music in general, but I thought that re-orchestrating this one might bring it closer to the hearts of non-guitar players. I also felt that the main melody of the piece has something in common with Jobim's Samba do Avião. I know Jobim loved Garoto as well and thought perhaps Lamentos do Morro might have been of special importance to Jobim. Lamento is one of the great Choros by the perhaps most influential composer of Choro music, Pixinguinha (aka. Alfredo da Rocha Viana, Jr.). When this tune was released in 1928 it was labelled by critic Cruz Cordeiro an "Americanization" of the typical Brazilian style in both melody and rhythm. Mr. Cordeiro seemed offended by it on his article for the magazine Phono-Art. But we love this piece and we think Jobim loved it too. I thought I'd twist this Choro even further with some different harmonies and rhythms that, while still referencing the older style, make the tune seem modern. Prelude/How Insensitive is a medley of sorts, here I arranged Jobim's How Insensitive but using Frédéric Chopin's Prelude nº4 in E minor (Opus 28) as an introduction. Jobim's piece is clearly based on the Chopin prelude and I thought it would be fun to listen to them together. The original Chopin piece was written for solo piano as part of a collection of preludes first published in 1839, here I transcribed that piece for string quartet and made it resolve into my arrangement of How Insensitive. We feature Gretchen Parlato on voice. I Fall in Love Too Easily was featured in our set because of Jobim's love for Jazz music. Originally written by Jule Styne in 1944, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn, this tune made it to the 1956 release "Chet Baker Sings;" a record that was a huge influence on the Bossa Nova crew of the late 50's. Here we have Gretchen Parlato singing it as a duet with myself on the guitar. We thought this was a nice contrast to the other tunes on the EP because of the sparse instrumentation and because this is mostly an improvised interpretation whereas the other pieces on this record are very planned out and arranged. Imagina is said to have been Jobim's first composition, from 1947. It was a homework assignment, originally written for solo piano; a few years later Chico Buarque wrote the lyrics. Since this is essentially a classical piece - sounding a little like a late romantic or an impressionist piece - I thought I'd make our string quartet the main sonic force here. I added harp and celeste to emphasize the dreamy quality of this arrangement and the voices are done here by Gretchen Parlato and myself as they were originally sung by Chico Buarque and Paula Morelenbaum. Produced by: Léo Costa and Marcel Camargo Recorded at Coney Island Studios, Léo and André's Studios and EMP Studios between December 2012 and July 2013 Recording engineers: Joel Soyffer, Alberto Lopez, André de Sant'Anna, Léo Costa and Lynne Earls Mixing Engineer: André de Sant'Anna Mastering done at JP Masters by Dave Locke Design and Artwork: Adriano Fonseca de Carvalho Participating musicians: Voices: Gretchen Parlato and Marcel Camargo Woodwinds: Katisse Buckingham (flute), Brian Walsh (clarinet), Miguel Gandelman (Bari Sax) Brass: Amy Sanchez (french horn), Garrett Smith (trombone) Strings: Daphne Chen, Marisa Kuney, Katie Sloan (violins) Thomas Lea, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (violas) Artyom Manukian, Claire Courchene (cellos) Harp: Alison Bjorkedal Rhythm Section: Marcel Camargo (guitar, celeste) André de Sant'Anna (bass) Leo Costa (Drums and Percussion) Marcos "Gibi" Dos Santos (Percussion) Alberto Lopez (Percussion) Marcel would like to thank... There are many folks that have contributed to this record in different ways and I would like to thank everyone, starting with the participating musicians, whose talents, skills and beautiful personalities have made the experience of working on this project an absolute pleasure. A special thanks to Léo Costa for stepping up into a producing role and André de Sant'Anna for all the engineering and mixing. Thank you kindly Coney Island and EMP Studios for being so hospitable to us, Adriano Fonseca de Carvalho for the support not only with this record but the whole project, Vera Ludmila Vanatko for all the encouragement and help pushing this idea forward, Joon Lee for the fantastic classical guitar, Alan Chang for the celeste, my loving wife and family for supporting me in putting this project together and keeping it alive.