Cal Tjader: Amazonas

Multi-instrumentalist Cal Tjader has been gone for over forty years. Had he lived, he would be in his nineties today. The West Coast scene he entered, first as a drummer, then as a vibraphonist, was a world of clubs, acoustic bands, and enthusiastic promoters who pushed their favorite artists' careers. For Tjader, it was San Francisco, the Blackhawk, and jazz writer Ralph Gleason. Tjader broke in playing with Dave Brubeck in 1948. He was continuously employed until his premature death while touring in 1982. While people remember him as a very successful non-Latino exponent of Afro-Cuban music, his career went through various stages.

This recording Amazonas is, in some ways, not typical of Tjader. It was not his greatest commercial success: that was Soul Sauce ( Verve, 1964) Amazonas' roots were in Brazilian music, and Brazilian fusion, or something similar. The major artists were Brazilian: Hermeto Pascoal; Egberto Gismonti; David Amaro; and Raul De Souza. The producer was Airto Moreira. Dawilli Gonga, sounding for all the world like George Duke, was a conspicuous exception. So, one asks, why this vinyl reissue?

Technically, it is a very good one, part of the Craft Recordings and Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series originally recorded by Wally Heider. But the recording was a real departure for Tjader, who had been uneasily positioned between commercial Latin material and boppish jazz. The critical reception of his prior work, especially on the Fantasy label, was usually mixed. For his fans, at least, there was no ambiguity about Amazonas."Xiba(l)ba" by Airto Moreira, starts pensively, but picks up momentum heading, as it were, downstream. "Mindoro" leads off with Tjader on marimbas. If it does not have quite the anthemic quality or heft of some of Jaco Pastorius' work with Weather Report, is still. solidly moving. David Amaro's "Flying" has Tjader contributing an exciting solo and Pascoal with more airy flute brushwork. The same for "Corine," a George Duke tune on which Pascoal shines. Perhaps the lasting influence of this phase of Tjader's work on Latin fusion may be its most enduring feature.

And that is the way with historical releases. One hears them not as they were necessarily conceived, but as they were taken up by subsequent bands and players.

Amazonas may not be Weather Report's Heavy Weather (Warner Records, 1977) or Herbie Hancock's Headhunter (Columbia, 1973) but nevertheless, a very different style of jazz was emerging, and Tjader lived long enough to be a part of it.

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