About 10 years ago, 21st century Brazil finally discovered that, amidst Tim Maia's monothematic discourse on mystical redemption through the beliefs of the Universe in Disenchantment, there were soulbrother musical gems that had been obscured for decades. In addition to the authorial inspiration that permeates the compositions and arrangements of Rational in volumes 1 and 2 (there is also a third record released, with leftovers from the two albums), of course, there were many who pointed out that Sebastião Rodrigues Maia was there in full vocal shape for temporarily giving up what he ironically called triathlon ( simultaneous and regular consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine).
But when realizing that Manoel Jacintho, the infamous leader of the Universo em Desencanto sect, who claimed to receive messages from extraterrestrial beings, was not even the “greatest man in the world”, as the Síndico shouted in The Manly Grand Master, but a notorious charlatan, Tim and the musicians of the band Vitória Régia, who, loyal to their leader, also adopted the white attire and went into abstinence from getting high, decided to come back in a big way on the album released by him in 1976.
With the same musical richness imprinted on the two rational cookies, Tim Maia made this his seventh LP, eponymous like some of its predecessors, another mandatory title in his discography. Better: he repeated the dose, dispensing with the boring speech about Manoel Jacintho and his infamous book of countless opportunistic reprints. As the title of this text suggests, today we will approach the return of the good old “irrational” Tim Maia, an artist we love so much, in the fullness of his best predicates.
Released by Polydor, with executive production by Seroma (Tim's record company, which took the initial syllables of his name, Sebastião Rodrigues Maia), Tim Maya(1976) brings together unsuspected musicians: Tim (drums, percussion, guitar, flute and vocals), Carlos Simões (bass), Reginaldo Francisco (keyboards and vocals), Paulinho Roquete (guitar), Paulinho Batera (percussion and drums), José Maurício (guitar), Antonio Pedro (bass, percussion and vocals), Paulo Ricardo Rodrigues Alves, the inseparable “Paulinho Guitarra” (lead guitar, percussion and vocals), Antônio Claudio, Luis Mendes Jr. and Gastão Lamounier (vocals). Impeccable, the album's arrangements were divided by Tim, the Uruguayan conductor Miguel Cidras and the Brazilian Arthur Verocai, who orchestrated the last song, The Dance is Over, composed by Tim, Hyldon and keyboardist Reginaldo, also author of I was wrong, which opens the B-side of the LP.
If the album ends with the sentence that the dance has come to an end, it is precisely by inviting everyone to dance, with the song Dance While It's Time, which Tim begins the almost 30 minutes of musical delight in the successor to the two volumes of Rational. To the opening hedonistic message, Tim superimposes speeches that deal with diverse issues, such as the love expressed for children in Marcio Leonardo and Telmo(song composed in honor of Leo Maia, his adopted son, and Carmelo Maia, his only legitimate offspring); the nullity that he returned to give to religious creeds, as in Nobody Can Live Forever e Brother, Father, Sister and Mother; and the exaltation of his black haughtiness, manifested in the mighty rhodesia. Another great moment of the album is French Fries the Bike Thief, a title that perhaps makes reference to one of the classics of Italian neorealism, the film bike thieves, by Vittorio De Sica.
In December 2009, reporters Marcio Gaspar and Lauro Lisboa Garcia published in the print edition of Brazilian an unpublished interview with Tim Maia, resulting from a chat with the musician in 1995. Read in full
In September 2012, reporter Natalia Chiarelli interviewed Yale Evlev, marketing director at Luaka Bop, a label created by talking head David Byrne, who had then released the compilation Nobody Can Live Forever – The Existential Soul of Tim Maia.
Passionate about Brazilian music, Evlev emphasized characteristics of originality in the authorial work of Tim and of a guy also loved by us, who, like him, earned the nickname of Babulina, Jorge Ben Jor. According to Evlev, Jorge and Tim are artists endowed with irresistible artifices for foreign audiences.
“Brazilian soul is soul in such a different way, within a genre where that seems to be an impossibility. That's just what's so refreshing about the whole thing they've done. Tim Maia and Jorge Ben are full of soul, even if they don't make music based on the blues like the American soulmen did. But, despite this, the feeling and emotions that give the genre its name, that is, the soul, are widely represented in his works”, defended Evlev.
Happy listening and until the next Quintessence!
Text Originally published on the website of Brasileiros magazine on 30.1.2014
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See the clip of rhodesia
