Bahia, like Cuba, may show its earthy African side in carnaval or its intellectual European side in a conservatory setting. Passions openly indulged in the first case, as with the band Olodum, are often restrained and sublimated in the second, as we have seen with Egberto Gismoti, whose guitar music is more wild and free than his semi-classical piano. Pianist and composer Marcelo Zarvos strikes this listener as having affinities with the pianistic Gismonti. as well as the harmonic surprises of Brazilian composer HeitorVilla-Lobos. São Paulo-born of Greek ancestry, Zarvos captures images that might have derived inspiration from the remote amid highlands of the Peleponnese as much as the open landscapes of his home state in Brazil. Some melody lines, as on Abrigo, call up unusual modalities suggestive of Greek (i.e., pentatonic, whole tone) scales. His musical vision, as Gismonti's, ranges both far and deep even his closing "blues"; (in a slow 6/8) has a wild, Eastern strain in it.

Zarvos joins forces on this album with soprano saxophonist Peter Epstein in recording nine pieces that, while largely composed, leave prescribed open spaces dedicated to improvisation. The pieces, stately and restrained, usually combine Brazilian dance forms, such as the opening Baião, with song forms, such as on "Opening." The duo's lyrical elements emerge strongly throughout, yet nothing predictable or forced emerges. "Lullaby" is no crib song, but a mysterious and quietly dramatic paean to childhood, with a dreamy, though hardly impressionistic, and beautifully dovetailed central section of dual improvisation. Zarvos' emphasis on left-hand syncopated rhythms recall African roots via the playfulness of boogie-woogie as well as the discreet formality of Cuban danzón.

Abrupt endings of some tracks and extremely long pedal decays ending others show extreme care both in recording technique and in preserving a haunted mood. The album was recorded live in Kusatsu, a Japanese mountain village, during the annual Music Festival, though not before even the most polite live audience, but rather in a "studio" silence

March 1996

To order Dualism, or other Zarvos recordings,
click here.