Duo Nazario | Amálgama | Texts
Duo Nazario | Music | History | Personnel | Amálgama | Vídeos
Read about Amálgama and Duo Nazario’s music. Here you will find the album’s liner notes. This page is far from complete and will be updated and extended along the way with interviews and other information.
About Amálgama
Patricia Palumbo | journalist, she hosts the Brazilian music radio show
Vozes do Brasil and the project Instrumental Sesc Brasil
Amálgama’s liner notes
Jorge Mautner taught me that the concept of amalgam applies to Brazilian culture since the days of José Bonifácio, the Patriarch of Independence of Brazil. He was the first to say that the nation's identity is defined by knowing how to mix so many influences, flavors, and rhythms together into a unique expression. So it is with the Duo Nazario's work. Brothers Lelo and Zé Eduardo are both exceptional and very distinctive musicians. They both play great, and when I say this, I mean not only they play very well, but play in different ways, from different sources, with numerous accents, lots of music information. Amazing ambiences, sounds, effects, and melodies flow from Lelo's keyboards and computers. And from Zé Eduardo's percussion, the rhythms of the world. A perfect combination. Pure alchemy. Sounds based both on classical music and the magic of creative improvisation. And we know that, for this mixture to succeed, it is essential to have a solid background and a lot of talent – and the brothers have it all.
Amálgama is music to attentive and curious ears, it is electroacoustic music, contemporary music, jazz improvisation, and Brazilian rhythms. When I saw Duo Nazario playing live I kept thinking how such an unusual and unexpected experience suited me well. I felt myself adequate to that dodecaphony, to the spatial sounds, crazy textures, and noises that Lelo and Zé Eduardo turned into music. Just like in life, there are awry and awkward days that go out of tune or in another rhythm. We talked about this after the concert and brothers Nazario understood me perfectly. We were in the same strange tune. So, just jump right in. It can happen the same to you when listening to this music.
Music of Invention
From the production of Amálgama, Utopia Studio
Amálgama’s liner notes
The most inspiring and inventive of today’s music is less a fusion of elements than a quest to give sense to experimentation and a reflection on the complex contemporary world. Composer and pianist Lelo Nazario and drummer and percussionist Zé Eduardo Nazario are examples of the blend of virtuosity and inventiveness that leads to a new aesthetic elaboration, which expresses the marks of our time.
The paths of brothers Lelo and Zé Eduardo intertwine over forty years. When very young, they joined Hermeto Pascoal’s band and founded Grupo Um, a true legend of modern music. They worked with Pau Brasil and formed the Percussonica trio. They have been playing side by side on recordings, concerts, and tours. Nothing more natural than to go even deeper into this partnership.
Based both on an unusual configuration and on contemporary music, Duo Nazario was formed in 1989 and has been developing an original repertoire that brings together avant-garde languages, jazz, electronic resources, and Brazilian rhythms. With this purpose in mind, Lelo wrote a series of compositions including Limite and Aurora, both performed by the São Paulo Symphonic Band, and both for symphonic band, electronic sounds, and the Duo as a soloist.
“Exploring the multiple possibilities for open-ended dialogues between musical languages and universes with complete creative freedom is the main concept of the Duo’s work,” Lelo explains. “The idea was to create a new project with a very unusual formation that gave us a timbre advantage,” Zé Eduardo recalls. In the hands of artists like these, such a singular fusion gains a new relevance and expressiveness. “Many compositions reflect the huge amount of events and information that is produced every day in the world, seeking to express in sounds all aspects of this increasing entropy and its consequences for life on the planet,” Lelo observes.
Amálgama embodies the inventive and transgressive spirit that advances frontiers. Here, brothers Nazario, true landmarks in Brazilian music, feature reworked versions of older themes as well as new and previously unreleased compositions. Each track was recorded directly in one take to capture the spontaneity and energy of a live performance. A sophisticated and modern music in which keyboards and drums come together with elements of different origins and traditions to create a wealth of timbres and an intense and unexpected sound with an exciting Brazilian vibe. Music of invention.