- California Soul (Nickolas Ashford/Valerie Simpson)
- Travessia (Bridges) (Milton Nascimento/Fernando Brant/Gene Lees)
- Na Onda Do Berimbau (Berimbau) (Osvaldo Nunes)
- Light My Fire (John Densmore/Robby Krieger/Ray Manzarek/Jim Morrison)
- Hey Girl (Gerry Goffin/Carole King)
- Você E Eu (Vinicius de Moraes/Carlos Lyra)
- Miss Balanço (Helton Menezes)
- Guitar By Moonlight (Viola Enluarada) (Marcos Valle/Paulo Valle)
- Value of Love
- Sambinha (Cesar Camargo Mariano/Humberto Clayber)
- Here, There & Everywhere (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
Luiz Eça – electric piano
Bebeto – flute, vocals (01-05)
Dorio Ferreira – bass
Rubens Ohana – drums, percussion
Plus horns and woodwinds (except 06)
Produced by Creed Taylor
Arranged and conducted by Luiz Eça (02-05 and 08-11) and Johnny Pate (01, 06, 07)
Issued as A&M 620867 (originally scheduled as A&M SP 3021)
Recorded on February 4 (01, 06, 07), February 5 (02, 03, 05, 09) and February 6 (04, 08, 10, 11), 1969, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
01 published by Jobete Music Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
02 published by Cam Cine TV Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
03 published by Cap Music Edicos Ltda. Epp.
04 published by Doors Music Company (ASCAP)
05 published by Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc. (BMI)
06 published by Universal Music Publishing MGB Spain S A
07 published by Bendig Music Corp.
08 published by Edicos Musicais Tapajos Ltda.
10 published by Samambaia Music LLC. (BMI)
11 published by Northern Songs, Ltd.
(P)1969, 2019
In May 1969, A&M issued a single by the Brazilian quartet Tamba 4, a cover of “California Soul,” the Ashford & Simpson-penned hit for The 5th Dimension (better known today through Marlena Shaw’s 1969 cover version), backed with a cover of Osvaldo Nunes’s “No Onda Do Berimbau” (as “Berimbau”). The single failed to chart and no album ever appeared – until half a century later. The unreleased album- which had no known title until this release – also titled California Soul, finally appeared as part of Record Store Day (RSD) Black Friday in November 2019.
California Soul would be the third and final album the Brazilian group waxed for the A&M/CTI label.
The reason the album was never issued – likely due to the quartet’s lack of success in the U.S. – isn’t nearly as stunning as the fact that the tapes survived at all. Following the fire that swept across the backlot of the Universal Studios Hollywood on June 1, 2008, countless original tape recordings of albums from the obscure to the legendary are thought to be lost forever. Universal, which owns the A&M archive, had stored the California Soul tapes in their New Jersey warehouse, which meant that the original recordings were safe and sound and ready to be unearthed.
Greg Casseus, a.k.a. DJ Greg Caz, a huge fan of Brazilian music and a long-time champion of this long-lost gem, persuaded Elemental Music’s Zev Feldman to dig through the Universal archives. After four long years, they not only discovered the tapes but managed to license the music for release in a limited edition of 1500 units. The original recordings were then restored and mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed onto 180-gram vinyl by Memphis Press.
Unusually programmed, with the vocal tunes on side one (the disc’s first half) and instrumentals on side two (the second half), California Soul kicks off with its title track. Johnny Pate (b. 1923) adds brief horn punctuations here as well as on “Miss Balanço.” Like Quincy Jones, Pate wore many musical hats as a jazz musician, arranger (most notably for The Impressions, Curtis Mayfield and B.B. King), producer and A&R director. He had previously worked with Creed Taylor on Wes Montgomery’s Verve debut, Movin’ Wes (1964), and would go on to score some of the Blaxploitation era’s funkiest films. Here, “California Soul,” as elsewhere, benefits nicely by the plugged-in sound of Bebeto’s flute and Luiz Eça’s piano.
But the effect is so muted that more than a few contemporary fans have expressed concerns that this album makes the Tamba 4 sound like a guest on their own album.
The mysterious “Value of Love” is thought to be an English title given to the Dori Caymmi-Nelson Motta song “De Onde Vens?,” popularized in 1968 by Elis Regina. American listeners might recognize “De Onde Vens?” as “Where Are You Coming From” by Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, from their 1970 album Ye-Le-Me. Archivist Greg Caz, on the other hand, reports that Bebeto insists “Value of Love,” a title that comes from the original A&M recording logs, is a composition by one Michael Randi, a New York-area pianist who filled in for Luiz Eça while the Tamba 4 keyboardist was back in Rio attending to personal matters. Whatever the provenance of the song, it is one of the album’s genuine treats.
Indeed, Tamba 4’s inability to break out of Brazil probably caused great turmoil within the group. In 1970, Eça left the band and was replaced by pianist Laércio de Freitas. The group recorded one last album, titled Tamba 4, for the Brazilian Orfeon label. In 1971, the original trio of Eça, Bebeto and Hélcio Milito reformed for several albums on the RCA label, culminating in the 1982 recording 20 Anos de Sucessos. Drummer Rubens Ohana rejoined the group in 1989 following Milito’s final departure and the Tamba Trio continued until Luiz Eça’s death in 1992.
About the cover: “Woman” (1974 – California): For California Soul – first issued a remarkable half century after it was recorded – designer John Sellards, working with art director and release producer Zev Feldman, carefully mimicked the iconic (and much copied) design provided to the majority of the original A&M/CTI sleeves by designer Sam Antupit (1932-2003). While it was unfortunately decided that the record – the disc remains unissued on CD – would be issued not in a gatefold sleeve but rather in a single jacket, the “look” is very much in keeping with the original series. (An insert with credits and extensive liner notes by Greg Casseus was included with the record.)
Since Pete Turner (1934-2017) was unable to select the photograph used for the cover, Feldman likely relied on the album’s original producer, Creed Taylor, and Turner’s estate to select the image. The image they chose is titled, by Turner himself, “Woman,” from a series photographed in California in 1974. Turner intended the image to complement his photograph “Man” (1969 or 1970 – Utah), the Turner image Taylor used for the cover of the 1975 Freddie Hubbard CTI album Polar AC.
“I had already done Man and was looking for the pair,” Turner said. “I like symbols and I thought, What good is a man without a woman? Working in California, I took some time off and went out to El Mirage, some mud flats near Palmdale, and photographed a nude woman in silhouette. I always saw the pictures as working together. I knew the horizon line in the first photograph and I maintained the same horizon line in the second. I like the horizon line just about about halfway through a photograph.”1
In typical Creed Taylor fashion, the images of both “Man” and “Woman” were reversed: In the original Turner photographs, the “Man” is on the left looking to his right, while the “Woman” is facing the opposite direction, leaning backward to the right of the image. (Recall that Taylor reversed other Turner images, such as “Road Song.”) Also, while the genitalia of the naked “Man” was not visible in the Turner original, the “Woman”‘s pubic hair was carefully brushed out for California Soul.
The “Woman” photograph seems to come from a series that also includes the Turner images that were used for two 1978 issues, jazz guitarist Jimmy Ponder’s All Things Beautiful (LRC – although the hair here seems to be different) and French bandleader Christopher John’s Super Disco (MFP) and the 1982 Japanese-only compilation titled Patti Austin.
A few years after the RSD release of California Soul on vinyl, Universal Music, rather than issuing the music on CD, released the disc to the streaming services. It is not known whether the conglomerate could not or would not license the Pete Turner image issued on the LP. But when California Soul started streaming, it was issued with the probably public-domain image seen above.
Endnotes:
- Turner, Pete, Photographs (Harry N. Abrams, New York), 1987, p. 125. Incidentally, “Photographs” was also designed by Sam Antupit. Both “Man” and “Woman” are also featured in the 1982 Photo monograph Les grands maitres de la photo: Pete Turner” (pp. 46-47). ↩︎