{"id":8883,"date":"2017-11-30T22:54:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T06:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=8883"},"modified":"2017-12-01T08:47:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T16:47:28","slug":"recent-listening-urban-fado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2017\/11\/recent-listening-urban-fado\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent Listening: Urban Fado"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Ann McSweeney<\/strong>, Urban Fado<\/a> (McSweeney)<\/p>\n

In Lisbon, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Tokyo\u00e2\u20ac\u201damong other places around the world\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmusicians are melding jazz and Fado. Fado\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s origins in Portugal extend to at least the early 1800s, and quite likely even further back than that. Like jazz, the music has folk roots and seductive emotional power that thrives on rhythmic expressiveness and melodic invention.<\/p>\n

\"\"The New York bassist Mary Ann McSweeney may not be the first American musician to combine these sympathetic forms, but her album of chamber music effectively covers their common ground and emphasizes the poignancy of both genres. Her group, varied in size and personnel from track to track, includes veteran classical and jazz musicians. Among them are guitarist John Hart, drummers Tim Horner and Willard Dyson and the expressive violinist Sara Caswell. In their solos, saxophonists Marc Mommas and Sam Marlieri capture various aspects of the idiosyncratic Fado warmth of feeling. Ms. McSweeney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bass, muscular and incisive, is at the beating heart of the project. Her bowing is laden with emotional power, notably so on the title track. A highlight is Nana Simopoulos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocal on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Esquina Do Pecado,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d composed by the late singer Am\u00c3\u00a1lia Rodrigues, a Portuguese cultural icon. Another is Margret Grebowicz vocalizing in duet with Ms. McSweeney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arco bass on the leader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Portrait of Fado.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A listener spending time with this collection is likely to come away inspired to learn more about Fado and the growing inclination of musicians to explore its spiritual connection to jazz.<\/p>\n

Ms. McSweeney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s husband is the valve trombonist Mike Fahn, a native New Yorker who spent\"\" several years in Los Angeles gigging and recording with large and small groups including those of Billy May, Lionel Hampton, Maynard Ferguson, Bill Holman Frank Strazzeri, Andy Simpkins and Jack Sheldon. He has been back in New York for several years. In the Encyclopedia of Jazz<\/em>, critic Leonard Feather called Fahn \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the few genuine virtuosos\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on his instrument. Ms. McSweeney is the bassist on ”\u00a0East & West<\/em><\/a>, recorded by Fahn quintets in New York and L.A. in 2006 and now available again. She also wrote several of the album\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrangements, demonstrating a solid grasp of small-group dynamics. Fahn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo work\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnow tinged with bravado, now with restraint\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis at its customary high level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Ann McSweeney, Urban Fado (McSweeney) In Lisbon, New York, Montreal, Paris, and Tokyo\u00e2\u20ac\u201damong other places around the world\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmusicians are melding jazz and Fado. Fado\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s origins in Portugal extend to at least the early 1800s, and quite likely even further back than that. Like jazz, the music has folk roots and seductive emotional power that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}