ana mazzotti: ninguém vai me segurar ('74) / ana mazzotti ('77)
Francisco Espregueira
About Ana Mazzotti, the fellow Brazilian legend Hermeto Pascoal would define her as “super-musician”. With only two albums released, Mazzotti’s career was short but rich. What would happen if her career lasted longer?
1974. After rock and roll hit South America in the sixties, a young Ana Mazzotti was one of its early adopters. Some years later, influenced by jazz and music by the likes of Chick Corea and Hermeto Pascoal, Ninguém Vai Me Segurar comes out, enlisting the in-demand arrangement talents of Azymuth’s original keyboard maestro José Roberto Bertrami, who co-wrote several of the tracks and plays organ, piano and synthesizers. Joined by Azymuth’s bassist Alex Malheiros and percussionist Ariovaldo Contestini, with Romildo Santos producing the album on drums, the album encompasses swirling samba-jazz, several groove-heavy Brazilian cult-classics and deeper moments of, by then, future soul synth sounds.
Recorded in São Paulo, around the same time Azymuth recorded their debut album, it’s no wonder the samba jazz-funk pioneer’s distinctive aesthetic is present throughout. Mazzotti’s sensational compositions are made even more beautiful with those magical touches.
1977. Mazzotti takes her debut album back to the studio, releasing it with a new running order and a new ethereal cover art, following the small scale of the independently funded first release. With intimately re-recorded vocals, and the bonus of gorgeous horn arrangements and a new track, the self-titled Ana Mazzotti project delivers the artist’s refreshingly cool musical style even more effortlessly, while retaining all the magical energy of her debut.
Outside circles of Brazilian funk aficionados, these two gems have remained relatively obscure. This was partly as a result of Mazzotti’s premature death (she lost her battle with cancer in her mid-thirties), but also due to financial restraints and the prejudice she faced as a female songwriter, in a fundamentally sexist society. Far Out Recordings is, once again, responsible for the reissue of another cult favourite Brazilian treasure - available on vinyl, of course.