Jorge Ben Jor Was Timeless at Miami's JVC Jazz Fest

Photo By Liliam Dominguez
www.liliamdominguez.com/

Jorge Ben Jor has always been ahead of his time. Moving freely between movements without ever committing fully to any one, he's done things his own way for more than four decades. A prominent figure in Brazilian music with more than thirty albums under his belt, Ben Jor is the country's most chameleonic singer/songwriter and one of its greatest musical alchemists. He is without a doubt every bit the urban poet he rightly claims to be. From the very beginning, during the early sixties' bossa nova boom, Ben Jor set himself apart, spurning the hushed cool of bossa in favor of a funkier, groove-driven hybrid. His first record, 1963's Samba Esquema Novo, which he so graciously signed backstage after his recent show in Miami, is a collection of swinging sambas melded with jazz horns, rock, funk, and rhythm and blues. The first track, "Mas Que Nada," has been covered more than 200 times by a panoply of artists around the globe and likely predated the Brazilian soul sound, minus the overt political edge, that would launch the Black Rio movement of the seventies. After bossa nova faded out Ben Jor contributed to the rock-infused Jovem Guarda scene and then later gave the Tropicália movement its Afro-Carioca injection. With the passing of each new wave of music in Brazil, Ben Jor has remained vital and culturally resonant among his peers and younger generations. A furiously eclectic songwriter, he continues to concoct bewitching brews that are never formulaic. His songs celebrate life, soccer, sexuality, carnaval, science, existentialism, Rio, beautiful women, and the historic black figures of Brazil (Zumbi and Xica da Silva, amongst others) who have blurred the line between myth and reality.

During the recent JVC Jazz Fest at Miami's Bayfront Park Amphitheater Ben Jor shared the bill with R&B singer Anthony Hamilton, Grammy-nominated artist Ledisi, and Sergio Mendes -- another Brazilian great. Ben Jor pounded out hit after hit song backed by a tight, seven-piece ensemble, A Banda do Ze Pretinho. To my delight and surprise he opened the set with the quirky "O Homem da Gravata Florida" ("The Man With the Floral Tie"), his homage to a medieval alchemist named Teofrasto Paracelso, infused by soulful sax and trumpet. The song is from one of my favorite albums, the awesomely mind bending, psychedelic, esoteric, and cosmic A Tábua de Esmeralda. Though it came a little late, in 1974 to be exact, it was Brazil's response to The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper and The Beach Boy's Pet Sounds. Next Ben Jor turned up the funk with "A Banda do Ze Pretinho," blending pulsing rhythms anchored in taut basslines. It was followed by the more melodic "Santa Clara Clareou," which segued into the wah-wah groove of "A Minha Menina," a song covered in the sixties by Sao Paulo band Os Mutantes and a few years ago by Brit outfit A Band of Bees. Of course there was "Mas Que Nada," which climaxed into a polyrhythmic explosion as all band members engaged in a percussive samba school rumble, pounding hand-held tamborims in unison with sticks. "Zumbi" was retrofitted as a reggae accented by the chekere and "País Tropical" took off on the synergy with some blues-rock riffs delivered by Ben Jor himself. The living legend ended his hour long set with the sultry "Spyro Gira" reminding fans that above all his jeito is gostoso and that music should start at the hips before penetrating the soul.