José Mauro - Variação Sobre um Antigo Tema

José Mauro's "A Viagem Das Horas" is available on vinyl LP, CD and digital from the links below:

Far Out Shop: https://www.faroutrecordings.com/products/jose-mauro-a-viagem-das-horas
Bandcamp: https://josemauro.bandcamp.com/album/a-viagem-das-horas

For years it was believed that José Mauro was dead. Rumours on blogs and comment sections circulated that the mysterious Brazilian genius had either been killed in a road accident, or been ‘disappeared’ by Brazil’s military junta in the 1970s. But following Far Out’s 2016 reissue of José Mauro’s debut album Obnoxius, the label heard word that José Mauro is in fact alive and well, living a quiet life on the outskirts of Rio.

After years of trying to track him down (with many twists and turns along the way), Far Out Recordings is overjoyed to finally present, with the blessing of the man himself, the long-awaited release of José Mauro’s forgotten masterpiece A Viagem Das Horas, featuring three previously unreleased and unheard tracks from the original studio sessions.

Recorded in 1970 at Odeon studios in Rio de Janeiro: the same time and place as all the music he ever recorded, José Mauro’s A Viagem Das Horas wasn’t released until six years later, when label owner and producer Roberto Quartin licensed the tracks to fellow Brazilian label Tapecar, who curiously released the album with several tracks already released on Obnoxius. Finally, over half a century on, A Viagem Das Horas will be released with three never before heard tracks, “Rua Dois”, “Moenda'' and “Variação Sobre Um Antigo Tema”, as Mauro and Quartin had originally intended.

Conceived under the gloom of Brazil’s military dictatorship, from which many artists had either fled or been exiled, José Mauro and his songwriting partner Ana Maria Bahiana, combined their shared interest in Candomblé - a syncretism of traditional West African religions and Roman Catholicism - with MPB, psychedelic folk and orchestral music. Expressing a spiritual response to the world they found themselves in, the result was a sacrosanct, post-tropical music of pure transcendence. “Finding our place in a country under a brutal dictatorship, and not believing in either civil war or fascism, we were part of a generation in transit, searching for another option.”

Many of the musicians who played with José Mauro would go on to become some of Brazil’s most important and prolific, including Wilson Das Neves, Dom Salvador, and Ivan ‘Mamao’ Conti, and their raw talent in these early days is palpable throughout A Viagem Das Horas.

Ana Maria Bahiana eventually moved to the US, and followed her passion for writing and journalism. Interestingly, she notes that while none of her lyrics were ever censored by the Brazilian government, for many years, most of the articles she wrote for independent outlets (including the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone) were either banned or botched.

Compared to the notoriety he gained with Forma, Roberto Quartin saw little commercial success with the label named after himself. He too moved to the US where he would work (most notably) with Frank Sinatra, with whom he also became great friends.

Jose Mauro, however, stayed in Rio. “After my second album, I started working with music for theatrical plays, both as a composer and as music director, especially at Rio’s prestigious Tablado Theatre School. I also devoted myself to guitar teaching, and I was very good at that. I had a long waiting list of prospective students.” But before long Mauro faced health complications and was forced to stop playing altogether. “My body pushed me away from music, health became a stumbling block for me. If I had the strength to carry on with composing, I would have... always focused on achieving a sense of beauty, a sense of wonder.”

It’s tempting to think of what could have been, had José Mauro been able to continue making music. But what he achieved in those few sessions in 1970, with the help of Roberto Quartin, Ana Maria Bahiana, Lindolfo Gaya and the musicians and studio engineers, stands alongside some of the great works by Brazil’s most celebrated artists. Over half a century since it was created, José Mauro’s music has lost none of its power to totally mesmerise and bewitch.

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