Francesca and I heard Eliane Elias in performance on Sept 14, 2024 at Birdland. I'd never heard of her but my brother Howard tells me she's a big deal. We were there because Elias is married to Francesca's dad, bassist Marc Johnson. She tells me HE'S a big deal. Clearly I have a lot to learn.
They were part of a quartet: Elias on piano and singing, Johnson on bass, Leandro Pellegrino on guitar, and Satoshi Takeishi on drums. I wish I had a set list, since I knew only a few of the songs. The program was (to my ear) entirely Brazilian songs with a samba or bossa nova beat, but not in the loose, laid-back style I was expecting - - this was REAL JAZZ.
Their opening song had an infectious rhythmic vitality. Within five seconds my torso was grooving left and right in my seat. The second song started with a piano solo, lovely and lyrical. Elias started singing and I thought it was a ballad, something I sort of recognized. It kicked into gear and it was "Brazil"!
I feel I should apologize for Carmen Miranda, but I'm not going to.
Elias sang a couple of verses, accompanying herself on the piano, and when she stopped singing her piano playing really took off. The combo really worked themselves into a lather. The ending was tight and very carefully arranged. That was one of the joys of this performance - - the arrangements were often quite complex. Good jazz feels good in your body and is also intellectually stimulating. They hit both those notes big time.
The next song had a more laid back tempo and a gentle, splashy ending on the piano. The fourth song was something she wrote for her five-year-old granddaughter. It was playful and upbeat. I could really hear both hands "going mental," as Kathy the Mezzo would say - - the left hand was laying out the harmony in an intensely rhythmic way and the right hand was doing major flights of fancy. Marc had a solo in this song. I was struck by the tasty sound he has in the upper register of the bass.
They did a song from her Grammy-winning album Mirror Mirror, which she recorded with Chick Corea and Chucho Valdes. This song and the next two songs all had the same format: they started with her singing with the guitar and a tiny bit of drums, maybe a little plinking on the piano. Later in the song the bass came in and the sound landscape filled out. The last song in this trio had a sped-up finale and a quote of the Dizzy Gillespie song "Salt Peanuts" at the end. Cute.
The next song, "At First Sight," had no vocals, it was a chance for Elias to show off her chops as a pianist. It was also nice to have Marc back on bass for a full song after only playing half of the previous three songs. Marc had a solo in this song that exploited the whole range of the bass. The finale had Elias playing a steady chugging rhythm of chords but each chord was a 16th note ahead of the beat. That was exciting to hear.
Here are Eliane, Marc, the same guitarist we heard, and a different drummer doing that song in San Francisco two months before. She starts doing that chugging thing at about 6:57.
This video was posted by Elias herself. She should credit all four musicians in the blurb on YouTube. Am I right?
The next song was one of the few songs I knew, "A Felicidade." Marc had a long amazing solo, playing totally alone. The ending of this song was so exciting it made me feel less white.
Here's a recording she made in 1998:
Elias introduced the three guys. The guitarist was from Brazil, the drummer was from Japan, and "Marc Johnson from Omaha Nebraska!" But with her Brazilian accent he was from "Oma-hya."
The last song was an original by Elias, "The Time Is Now." It opened with a fun, free-wheeling piano solo with some crunchy chords. The second half of the song had a sexy strut kind of beat, something we hadn't heard before. A nice guitar solo and an ASTONISHING bass solo by Marc, another true solo with no one else playing. In one section he alternated a few repeated patterns. After a few repetitions I picked up on something unusual popping up out of the texture - - I realized that in addition to plucking furiously with his right hand he was adding one note on an open string, plucking with his left hand. That blew me away.
The whole night was extraordinary, such a joy to hear first class jazz. I want to hear Marc and Eliane every time they play New York.
I'll close with a couple of sweet pictures of Marc and Francesca.
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