M: Filactera

Inspiration can come from strange sources. Some find it in the mundane, others in the unusual. All that matters is that the results are positive. For Mário Delgado, comic books were the source of his muse. Did they work? Judging from this album, where one enjoyable track leads to another, they sure did!

Delgado takes his music down different paths. The streams flow most beautifully, but beauty does not lie only in quiet permutations or in melodic well being; it comes in the throb of bebop, in the fire of free and furious exchanges, and in the luminiscence of a ballad. “Blues Dos Freak Brothers” is a blend of several elements that fuse seamlessly. The melody sings and dances with a twist of rock’n’roll, a hint of rhythm‘n’blues and some New Orleans jive, a good shaking of a free booting conversation between Nymark and Olejniczak before it all settles down for some blues from Delgado. Change and surprise have been well served. More blues come in on “A Tensão U=RI”, the acoustic guitar, clean and precise in a loping conversation with the smeary, slurry trombone. Short, tasteful and downright dirty!

Delgado uses fat notes on the opening track, voice tracking the theme. The tenor casts an abrasive edge and as the métier gets sinewy, the trombone comes in to growl and jab and somersault. The pulse is well contained, hardy and deep down in the groove. The mood is quite different on “Corto Maltese”; the haunting melody sustained by the richly textured orchestration of the ensemble passages.