1. The Hill (O Morro) [aka O Morro Não Tem Vez (Favela)]
    (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
  2. Flower Girl (Moça Flor) (Durval Ferreira/Luiz Fernando)
  3. Iemanja (Baden Powell)
  4. We And The Sea (Nós e o Mar) (Roberto Menescal/Ronaldo Boscoli)
  5. Chant Of Ossanha (O Canto De Ossanha) (Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes)
  6. Dolphin (Luiz Eça)
  7. Consolation (Consolação) (Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes)

Adalberto José de Castilho e Souza (Bebeto) – flute, bass (01, 05), solo vocal (02), vocal (except 01 and 07)
Luiz Eça  – piano, organ, vocal (except 01 and 07)
Dorio Ferreira (Dorio) – guitar, bass, percussion, vocal (except 01 and 07)
Rubens Ohana (Ohana) – drums, jawbone, conga, vocal (except 01 and 07)

Produced by Creed Taylor

Originally issued as A&M LP 2004 (mono) and A&M SP 3004 (stereo)
              also issued as NOSOTROS Y EL MAR (A&M/Tizoc TAAMM-22004 [Mexico]),
              A&M/Hispavox HDA 371-20 [Spain])

Recorded on September 6 (04), September 7 (03, 06, 07) and September 11, 12 and 14 (01, 02, 05), 1967, at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

01 published by Corcovado Music Corp. (BMI)
02, 04, 05 and 07 published by Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI)
03 published by Allo Music Editions (ASCAP)
06 published by Polara Music (ASCAP)

(P) 1967

Originally released in December 1967,We and the Sea1 introduces the Brazilian band Tamba 4 to international audiences. Originally known as the Tamba Trio, the group was formed in 1962 and comprised the pianist, composer and arranger Luisinho “Luiz” Eça (1936-92), Bebeto Castilho (b. 1939) on flutes and bass and Hélcio Melito (1931-2014) on drums and percussion. Melito was replaced in 1964 by Rubens Ohana (a.k.a. Ohana), on drums and percussion, while Dório Ferreira, on bass, guitar and percussion, was added to the group in 1968. Their biggest hit in their native land was a 1963 cover of Jorge Ben’s “Mas Que Nada.” The Tambas were widely recorded and wildly popular back home, yet virtually unknown outside of Brazil, despite a 1965 appearance as the “Luiz Eça Trio” on Paul Winter’s Columbia album Rio. Eumir Deodato – who had worked with the group on Milton Nascimento’s eponymous 1967 debut as well as several compilations – suggested the quartet to Creed Taylor,2 believing the producer could bring the group the renown they deserved.

The group’s American debut, We and the Sea, is especially notable as one of Creed Taylor’s more progressive productions. The classically-trained Eça, in particular, swings the group between the breezy keys of Jobim and, surprisingly, the more aggressive waves of Cecil Taylor. On this album the quartet revisits and reconsiders much of its musical past. Only Eça’s original, “Dolphin,” and Jobim’s “The Hill (O Morro),” are new to the band’s repertoire. The melodically evocative “Dolphin” – a.k.a. “The Dolphin” – suggests a seaworthy companion to Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage.” The captivating performance here hints at a samba, yet there is a classical undertone that renders the piece with a certain timelessness. Indeed, “Dolphin” became something of a minor jazz standard with notable covers by Bill Evans, Stan Getz, John McLaughlin, Denny Zeitlin/Charlie Haden, Toots Thielemans and others. “The Hill” gets a heady workout here – like “Consolation,” which concludes the album – traversing the calmness of the melody and the ferocity of its message.

The underrated composer Baden Powell is represented by three titles here, what he calls “afro sambas,” including the hypnotic “Iemanja,” the enthralling “Chant of Ossanha (Canto de Ossanha)” – both heard in earlier versions on the 1966 album Tamba Trio – and the ungainly “Consolation (Consolação),” covered very differently on the Trio’s 1964 album Tempo and quite beautifully on Luiz Eça & Cordas, also 1964. Durval Ferreira’s “Flower Girl (Moça Flor)” was first heard on the Trio’s 1963 album, Avanço. Here, Eça lends the melody (also recorded by Wes Montgomery in 1965 on Movin’ Wes) a lovely vocal and, in a nice contrast, some particularly spikey piano work. Roberto Menescal’s breezy and beatific “We and the Sea (Nós e o Mar)” was originally part of the Trio’s eponymous 1962 debut. Here, the group works in a perfect synchronicity to deliver one of the album’s most joyful bossa highlights.

Surprisingly, We and the Sea turned out to be A&M/CTI’s first commercial dud. Producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro has said that “[a]mong the many Brazilian artists with whom Taylor worked over three decades – such as [Luiz] Bonfá, [Eumir] Deodato, Astrud and João Gilberto, [Antonio Carlos] Jobim, [Airto] Moreira, and [Walter] Wanderley – the Tamba group was one of his few commercial failures. This group’s two albums for CTI, although first-rate in artistic terms, simply flopped.”3We and the Sea wasn’t received particularly well by critics either. In a two-and-a-half-star review (one of the few the album received), DownBeat despaired of Luiz Eça’s erratic performance, swinging wildly between “cocktail piano” and “pretentious twaddle.”4 It’s easy enough to detect that the makers of Samba Blim, Tamba 4’s next album, clearly read this review. Because the next album sounded like a wholly different unit than the one captured here.

About the cover: “Sailing” (1967 – New York Harbor). Taken from a helicopter as it was flying near the Statue of Liberty, this photograph conveys the sun-dappled blissfulness of a lone sailboat. “The sailboat is not really a favorite of mine,” said Turner “because, in this case, it got literal: ‘sea’ and ‘sailboat.’ I don’t think it worked as well as the Wave cover. In fact, as we went through the progression of the CTI covers, we kept referring back to Wave. ‘Stay away from the literal.’”5 The group photo on the back cover is an equally haunting composition of inscrutable faces and artisanal hands.

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Endnotes:

  1. We and the Sea is, notably, the last of the A&M/CTI albums to be dually issued for sale in mono (2000 series) and stereo (3000 series) LP pressings. With the exception of monoaurally-produced promotional releases – issued to record stores and radio stations – all further A&M/CTI LPs were issued for sale in stereo pressings only. ↩︎
  2. The reference was likely seconded by Herbie Mann, who had performed with the Tamba Trio at Catholic University in Rio during his first trip to Brazil in July 1961. ↩︎
  3. Arnaldo DeSouteiro, liner notes to A Trip to Brazil: 40 Years of Bossa Nova (Motor 565 382-2, 1998). ↩︎
  4. Pete Welding, “Tamba 4: We and the Sea” review, DownBeat, August 8, 1968, p. 25. ↩︎
  5. Pete Turner, “Pete Turner Interview,” interview by Richard Warner, September 2002 (courtesy of the author) . ↩︎