Dom Salvador: Simplicity

As the calendar pages turn on the year, Simplicity is positioned to be one the best jazz album released in 2025. The music was recorded back in March 1993, in NY, bringing together the huge talents of piano legend Dom Salvador, bass hero Bill Moring and wizard drummer Vanderlei Pereira. The level of energy, creativity and inventiveness is unbelievable, as well as the warm and bigger-than-life sound quality reminiscent of Rudy Van Gelder recording room, something impossible to be achieved nowadays, except in very few studios.

Only engineering geniuses like Van Gelder, Phil Ramone and Al Schmitt were able to reach such a glorious sound like that one obtained here by Michael Brorby at his own Acoustic Recording Studios (in Brooklyn, NY) and mastering ace Chris Sulit at Trading Eights Studio. In one single day (June 11, 2024), Chris perfected and enhanced the original master tapes with the seven tracks recorded live in the studio, which remained on the shelves for 32 years.

On the credits, it is mentioned that the recording was done to an ADAT tape in 1993, but actually it was taped to a PCM machine, with no edits or overdubs—ADAT technology would appear some years later, and started to be largely used in NY studios only after 1996.

These glorious seven themes, all composed by Dom Salvador (now aged 86 and a NY resident since 1973), are filled with complex harmonic structures and challenging rhythmic patterns, although flowing with a joyful and soulful sense of urgency in fascinating loose performances.

Salvador's brilliant career started in his native city Rio Claro, near São Paulo, but flourished after he was heard in early 1964 by singer Flora Purim and drummer Dom Um Romao (married at that time) during a set at the Baiuca night club in São Paulo. The couple was so impressed with Salvador's performance that they immediately invited him to move to Rio de Janeiro to play with them.

Both Purim and Dom Um were preparing their debut solo albums, and on the following day when Salvador arrived in Rio he was invited to a studio session at Philips for Dom Um's self-titled debut album. Soon after, he recorded Purim's debut album for RCA, formed Copa Trio with Romão and bassist Manuel Gusmão, and they became the touring band for Elis Regina's first concerts, which included iconic performances with Elis and Marcos Valle.

After Dom Um relocated to the USA in 1965, Salvador founded other famous bands —Rio 65 Trio, Salvador Trio and Dom Salvador & Abolição —, toured Europe with Sylvia Telles and Edu Lobo recording for MPS, joined Victor Assis Brasil's quintet, and got a job as in-house pianist for the Odeon label, becoming the top-choice pianist for great arrangers like Pixinguinha, Gaya and Eumir Deodato, recording also with such pop stars as Tim Maia, Edu Lobo, Pery Ribeiro, Claudia, Marcos Valle and Roberto Carlos.

Since moving to the Big Apple in 1973, Salvador has built a cult following as resident pianist at River Café since the opening day June 6, 1977 (still performing there four nights a week for 48 years!), and developed an impressive career recording with Herbie Mann, Luiz Bonfa, Charlie Rouse, Dom Um Romao, Harry Belafonte, Paul Horn and more, including the underrated maestro Gaudencio Thiago de Mello, with whom Salvador collaborated on six great records. As a leader, he has released over 20 albums. On his turn, bassist Bill Moring has recorded with Lionel Hampton, Bill Mobley, Eliot Zigmund, Sarah Partdrige, and cult guitarists Vic Juris, John Hart, Wally Dunbar, Dave Stryker. Drummer Vanderlei Pereira, living in NY since 1988, leads his own Blindfold Test band (featuring his wife, singer Susan Pereira), and often recorded with Manfredo Fest, Hendrik Meurkens, Janet Grice, Susannah McCorckle, Judith Kay, Sue Maskaleris, and Santi Debriano, among others.

On Simplicity, everything sounds spontaneous, from Pereira's first cymbal crash and snare attack in the opening track, which immediately creates the same kind of magical mood established by Jimmy Cobb on Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Colombia, 1959).

Even more astonishing is to find out that the title track, "Simplicity," was written by Salvador in 1957 (!) in his native city of Rio Claro, seven years before his move to Rio de Janeiro, where his career initially flourished under the guidance of Dom Um Romão.

Other highlights include works dedicated to the late trumpeter Claudio Roditi ("Clauditi"), Duduka Da Fonseca ("High Energy," a tempus fugit samba which allows Pereira to confirm his position as "the Brazilian Roy Haynes" while Salvador's fingers fly over the keys), and Mauricio Einhorn ("Pro Mauricio," a contrafact to the standard "Have You Met Miss Jones," a straight-ahead jazz piece with a stunning piano solo.)

Not to mention "Etcetera," defined by bassist Moring (always solid and groovy at the same time, in the tradition of Richard Davis and Buster Williams) as "a cauldron of crossing rhythms with a lyrical melody propelled by Pereira's backbeat combined with Salvador's punctuated groove."

Oh, Ron Carter provided liner notes. It must mean something. And I know what it is since the first time I listened to this magical album when the trio was interviewed on Jassvan de Lima's radio show "Som do Brasil," on WKCR FM-NY.

As for Simplicity, do not expect to listen to mellow songs, soft arrangements, linear structures, smooth jazz grooves. Neither kitsch bossas with pseudo- psychedelic effects. It, instead, is the epitome of hard-bop meets samba-jazz, a powerhouse of energy, with Dom Salvador applying all his wisdom on thought-provoking performances full of explosive solos by this trio. Like Ron Carter points out, "seven songs of wonderful music, with slick arrangements, great melodies, lots of samba rhythms, mixed with New York swing." In other words, pure dynamite.

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