Please note this is an old page and Fly Global Music has now moved. Please follow this link and search for the entry in the new site.

One of the new generation of Brazilian songwriters who has inevitably been compared to Gilberto Gil and Bebel Gilberto, Fonseca served his apprenticeship as Gil’s guitarist for a while and has played with many of the greats, from Caetano Veloso to Gal Costa and Nascimento. His guitar work is as gentle as his voice, and the well formed, but rather conventional songs on Rive Gauche Rio give the listener the tracks have been around for decades and are already a solid part of Brazilian music history.

Beautifully smooth bossas (‘Feriado<’) and sambas (‘O Rio para tras’) are all strictly low key and one of the few surprises and one of the more unusual choices on Rive Gauche Rio is the percussion-heavy cover of Damien Rice’s ‘Delicate’, which, despite being decidedly less delicate than the original, is a fairly decent version.

Also worthy of note is ‘Don de Fluir’, a duet in Spanish with Jorge Drexler (he of the Best Song Oscar fame for his song in The Motorcycle Diaries) for the soft and complementary vocals.

However, overall Fonseca has not moved far from, for example, the Getz/Gilberto album, with the exception of adding a few samples and a Rhodes piano.

The sleeve notes place the recording at Geleia Geral Studios (with a view over the Atlantic) in Rio, so close to the sea in fact you can almost hear the waves, and I have an absurdly romantic image of the group sat on lounge chairs, on a wooden veranda, recording with waves lapping at the bassist’s feet.

Rive Gauche Rio is released now.

Link:
www.celsofonseca.com.br