Cyro Baptista presents 'Vira Loucos'
March 23, 2018
Knoxville, TN @ The Mill & Mine - Big Ears Music Festival

Shure MV88 > iPhone 7 > Motiv Audio App > 16/44 WAV > Cool Edit Pro (normalization) > CD Wave Editor (tracking) > FLAC

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Note: This recording is the first 37 minutes of their set.

Notes:
By 1996, Cyro Baptista had already built a reputation as one of the world�s foremost percussionists. During his two decades in the United States, the Brazil native had built a startling r�sum� of contributions and collaborations. He�d become a regular on John Zorn�s albums, won a Grammy alongside Cassandra Wilson, joined Paul Simon�s band, and recorded with the likes of Edie Brickell and David Byrne. It was fitting, then, when esteemed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas invited Baptista to Miami to help him bring order to a complicated program centered around Heitor Villa-Lobos, the famed Brazilian composer who so capably filled European classical structures with Brazilian folk inspirations. �My immediate reaction,� Baptista later said, �was to play the berimbau and sing the simple Brazilian folk melody that Villa-Lobos had based his composition on.�

A year later, Baptista made good on that impulse with the release of 'Vira Loucos,' his debut album under his own name and the jumpstart his band-leading career needed. A bit like a mixtape, 'Vira Loucos' (that is, Villa-Lobos turned crazy) combines snippets of Villa-Lobos� original pieces with excerpts of the source material, warped and webbed together by Baptista�s polyglot enthusiasm for the sounds of the entire world. With an impressive supporting band that�s as capable of conveying the lively originals just as well as Villa-Lobos updates, Baptista has taken the concept to Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center alike. The result is as entertaining as it is educating�a constant in Baptista�s fruitful career.

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