Eumir Deodato
Eumir Deodato de Almeida ( born June 22, 1943 in Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian jazz pianist, arranger, composer, and producer.
Training
The musical autodidact completed in addition to his academic training, a one and a half year old Berklee distance learning for Arrangement and made an atypical for a jazz musician career. He is already working the mid-1960s intensively as a pianist and arranger in Rio de Janeiro bossa nova scene. Some notable LPs (eg Os catedráticos ) with strong percussive and organ - focus to recordings by Jimmy Smith emerged analogous 1964 /65. Deodato was at that time already an established musician in the most prolific music scene Rios and had participated in numerous recordings. The music composed by him song Spirit of Summer won the first prize at the Song Festival in Rio de Janeiro in 1967. After emigrating to the United States in 1967 on mediation of guitarist Luiz Bonfá he makes after beginnings as a jingle composer, arranger, studio musician and composer at the beginning of the 1970s known as a jazz and funk musician. During this time he worked with, among others, Walter Wanderley, Milton Nascimento, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Marcos Valle, João Donato and.
CTI Records
The following permanent cooperation with the U.S. producer Creed Taylor, the founder of CTI Records, formerly of Verve, A & M and Impulse!, Deodato's career eventually brought in a vital way. He was invited Taylor to arrange for Wes Montgomery's Down Here on the Ground (1968). Although Deodato was reluctant, but he finally accepted for three pieces. These recordings also played with Herbie Hancock, later a pioneer of fusion, a style mix of funk, jazz and rock.
Thus arose milestones of popular American music, such as Sinatra & Company ( 1971), the second album by Frank Sinatra songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim, also emerged recordings with musicians such as Astrud Gilberto, Stanley Turrentine, Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin.
1972 had Deodato on CTI All Star Concert at the Hollywood Bowl with. In the same year the Brazilian album Os catedráticos 73 with the first version of Skyscrapers emerged. The incipient popularity of fusion records in the United States enabled Deodato the realization of his own musical ideas to a greater extent.
Breakthrough
His debut album in the United States, Prelude ( recorded with the likes of Billy Cobham on drums and Ron Carter on bass, and the young John Tropea on guitar), brought him in 1973 the big international breakthrough. The distinctive blend of classical and big band, jazz and rock crossed the border between classical music and popular music. Especially his radio version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra was in England and the United States a great success, earned him a Grammy and other awards and made the main theme from the eponymous Richard Strauss composition a younger, classical music rather distant audience known. In an interview Deodato said, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, would be a largely unprepared, spontaneous Take been.
The short time later picked successor LP Deodato 2 (1973 ) united similar crossover and fusion sounds, in addition to their own compositions again well-known works of classical music, such as Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin or the Pavane by Maurice Ravel. The album was a commercial success failed, which also sales- and distribution policy decisions of the CTI label played a role. This ruined the relationship between Deodato and his producer Creed Taylor and CTI he left. These and the following LPs at MCA and Warner Bros. are now often much more favorably than at the time of their appearance. As of 1975, Deodato tried again and again in the disco genre, so it is a regular entries in the American disco and dance charts until the mid- 1980s. Caravan (1975 ), Whistle Bump (1978) and SOS, Fire in the Sky ( 1984) made it into the Top 10
Further development
Was released in 1989, the date last LP under his own name. Deodato but also participated again in unconventional projects such as 1976 recordings with the singer Massimo Ranieri, in which, among other pieces by Albinoni, Schubert, Chopin, Rodrigo were adapted.
Furthermore composed Deodato since the 1960s, some film scores ( among others The Girl from Ipanema, The Gentle Rain, The Adventurers, The Black Pearl) and played this part also himself a, most recently in Brazilian film Bossanova (2000). In the 1980s and 1990s, Deodato made primarily known as a producer and arranger of Kool & The Gang and Björk.
Current
In 1997 the two albums Prelude and Deodato 2 were re-released in new gemasterter quality under the title CTI Master Series CD. A new version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, delivered the German band Mardi Gras.bb Deodato, composed in 2000.
Since 2001, Deodato will be played again as a live musician. Recent recordings with his involvement are by artists like Carlinhos Brown, Ithamara Koorax, Lisa Ono, kd long and Milton Nascimento.