FOREIGN EXCHANGE
CLARE FISCHER (meu velho amigo, que conheci no Rio de Janeiro, na casa do pianista Tenório Júnior) sempre foi apaixonados por conjuntos vocais. Não por acaso foi um dos arranjadores mais marcantes na carreira dos "Hi-lo´s" e dos "Singers Unlimited". E não era para menos, pois ele e Gene Puerling eram "almas gêmeas". A outra grande paixão de Clare Fischer são os ritmos latinos e a bossa-nova. Neste album, ele junta as duas coisas: as vozes sensacionais do quarteto vocal misto, alemão, FOREIGN EXCHANGE, formado por CF para interagir com a instrumentação. Como ele mesmo explica mais adiante, não se trata de um conjunto vocal cantando com acompanhamento,
mas participando do arranjo como parte integrante, como uma seção de instrumentos.
(*)Recomendo que confiram a postagem do album LATIN PATTERNS, no CB Latin Jazz Corner. É um complemento deste álbum.
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CLARE FISCHER
Born on October 22, 1928, in Durand, Michigan, Clare Fischer began his musical life playing tuba and violin in grade school. He started studying the piano when he was nine and by high school, he’d taken up the cello, clarinet and saxophone too. A high school instructor recognized his budding talent and provided free lessons in theory, harmony and orchestration. By 15, Clare had his own band and was writing all the arrangements too. After he graduated cum laude with a B.M. in Composition and Theory from Michigan State University, the Army interrupted Fischer's graduate studies. He played alto sax in a local band and later wrote arrangements for the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point. In 1955 he returned to Michigan State and received his Masters in Music. While in school, he had studied everyone but clearly developed his own personal style and approach. Such diverse masters as Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Duke Ellington influenced him, but he also took in the palettes of Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Meade Lux Lewis, Bud Powell, Nat King Cole and Lee Konitz. "My music,"
Fischer says today, "is a manifestation of my training, which is equal parts academic and street training." Through Latin roommates at school, he learned to speak Spanish and became fascinated by Cuban music. Later he became interested in Brazilian music, long before the arrival of Bossa Nova in the United States. Heading to Los Angeles in 1957, Fischer found work crafting arrangements for the Hi-Lo’s, Gene Puerling's highly popular and influential singing group. Fischer became the Hi-Lo's musical director for five years, arranged for some of their Columbia and Reprise albums, and toured the world as the group's pianist. During this time, he also arranged Donald Byrd’s SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON (Discovery, 1957) and came to
prominence as the arranger of Dizzy Gillespie’s A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON (Verve, 1960). In his liner notes for one of Fischer's MPS albums, the noted jazz critic and lyricist Gene Lees recounts his initial reaction upon hearing that Dizzy Gillespie album: "Once during my tenure as editor of Down Beat Magazine, Dizzy Gillespie told me he was going to make an album with a superb young arranger he'd encountered. He continued at some length about the scope and the depth of the young man's abilities. Some years later, Verve released an album titled A PORTRAIT OF DUKE ELLINGTON. The orchestral writing was nothing less than brilliant, but, alas, the album gave no arranger's credit. The writing sounded like Ellington, yet not like Ellington; like Gil Evans but not like Gil Evans. It was in fact apparent that the arranger had studied everything and everyone and then developed his own highly personal
approach to writing. Unable to reach Dizzy by telephone, I set out to find out who had done this remarkable writing. It turned out to be the young man about whom Dizzy was so wildly enthusiastic, and this time I did not forget his name: Clare Fischer."
Fischer quickly became one of the busiest jazz and studio musicians in Los Angeles and arranged and recorded for Pacific Jazz with such West Coast luminaries as Bud
Shank, Joe Pass and the Jazz Crusaders. He joined Cal Tjader in the early 60s, recording often with the great vibes player and Latin jazz’s first great populist. As a leader Fischer recorded prolifically throughout the 1960s and 1970s for such prominent labels as Columbia, Atlantic and Revelation Records. In the early 1970s, former Hi-Lo’s Gene Puerling and Don Shelton had found new success with the Singers Unlimited, four singers who made complex harmonies sound like an elegant breeze. The vocal quartet, originally founded for radio and TV advertising jingles, recorded regularly for the German MPS label in Villingen, Black Forest. Fischer was invited to arrange the fabulously swinging orchestra that backed the quartet on their funky album, A SPECIAL BLEND, in 1975.
(Source: MPS Records website)
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FOREIGN EXCHANGE (1981), an album which added an ethereal quartet of vocalists to the Salsa Picante concept. This compilation features tracks from MPS albums.
Not surprisingly, Clare crafts his singers within the tonality of his group on these
recordings, blending the beauty of sounds each brings to the other. It’s not singer and backup. In his linernotes for the album FOREIGN EXHCANGE, Fischer describes
his approach towards recording with these singers: "When I first organized Salsa Picante, I had been thinking about the use of four singers to appear with the group. The opportunity was now given to me and I set out to audition singers. What I needed were vocalists with good ears, some linguistic ability and interest, some extra vocal range to sing with the Latin Jazz concepts. My choice were Darlene Koldenhoven, Mary Hylan, Amick Byram and John Laird. About the time of the third rehearsal I noticed a special spirit developing and at the same time the beginning of a blend. The heaviest of the load fell on my two sopranos and especially Darleen. What I needed was akin to splitting two trumpet players in a shouting brass section, one able to spell the other if needed. However, every time the lead changed, the need to readjust the blend varied. Darlene had been singing solo and mostly in her lower range so the demands made on her range were severe. Little by little strength and endurance grew until the upper ranges solidified. When, after a private rehearsal, they sang the end of 'Leavin' and the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, I knew they had arrived."
(By Douglas Payne)
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MINHA OPINIÃO - Clare Fischer é uma das maiores autoridades quando o assunto é vozes & latin grooves. Pra não deixar qualquer dúvida, aí está a linda versão do clássico MORNING, um dos hinos do latin-jazz. O grupo FOREIGN EXCHANGE, como CF explica aí em cima, foi formado para se integrar ao seu grupo instrumental denominado Salsa Picante. Desnecessário dizer que é um casamento perfeito de vozes e instrumentos, com a assinatura do mestre. OURO EM PÓ!
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FOREIGN EXCHANGE & CLARE FISCHER:
CD compiled and produced by Matthias Künnecke
Remastered by Willem Makkee
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Darlene Koldenhoven
Mary Hylan
Amick Byram
John Laird
CLARE FISCHER: piano, keyboards, vocal and instrumental arrangements.
TRACKS/FAIXAS
1. Du..du
2. Legacy
3. Morning
4. Guajira pa´la jera
5. Leavin´
6. Funquiado
7. Thru the eyes
8. Melancolico
DOWNLOAD: AQUI
