CLARE FISCHER: SÓ DANÇO SAMBA - CLARE FISCHER PLAYS ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM & CLARE FISCHER [Re-up]

CLARE FISCHER
Eu admirava Clare Fischer desde que ouvi seus arranjos vocais e instrumentais para o disco "Hi-lo's Happen to Bossa Nova". Jamais poderia imaginar que viesse a conhecê-lo pessoamente de forma tão prosaica: ele de chinelos, camiseta e bermudas, completamente à vontade, na casa do nosso grande e saudoso amigo TENÓRIO JUNIOR, em Laranjeiras, onde CF se hospedou, quando veio ao Brasil, pela primeira vez, nos anos 60. 
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ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM
Não vale a pena tentar falar sobre o gênio dos gênios, o pai-de-todos-nós, músicos da bossa-nova, o "maestro soberano", um dos seis maiores compositores populare do mundo em todas as épocas. A literatura sobre a vida de Tom é vastíssima e nada falta a ser acresentado, a não ser um raro episódio que presenciei e vou contar. Na era "pre-motel", quem não tinha dinheiro pra manter uma "garçonniere", tinha que se contentar em levar as namoradas, de carro, ali prá "ponta do cocô", na subida da Av. Niemeyer. Uma tarde eu estava lá com uma namoradinha e quando olhei pro lado, deparei com um Volkswagen verde (argh!), em cujo interior, TOM JOBIM trocava ardentes carícias com a linda e famosa atriz francesa MILENE DEMONGEOT...Nada demais: como se sabe o irresistível "latin lover" vivia às voltas com o aluguel e não podia se dar ao luxo de manter um apartamentinho para encontros amorosos. As far as I know, Milene se deu por muito satisfeita e teve vários "repetecos" - em recinto fechado,  depois que um amigo do Tom emprestou um apartamento, para que o ilustre casal não ficasse exposto à curiosidade pública. Isto, porque porque não consegui manter a boca fechada: passei no Veloso, contei pro pessoal  e o tórrido evento se tornou o assunto do dia (e das semanas seguintes). Com a curiosidade natural dos homens, tão logo Tom apareceu no reduto, foi crivado por uma saraivada de perguntas inconvenientes - o teor você pode imaginar...Com muita elegância,  Tom se esquivou de respondê-las, mas ficou indignado com a (minha) indiscrição. Mas: você manteria segredo?
(CB)
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CLARE FISCHER
Clare Fischer (born October 22, 1928 in Durand, Michigan) is an American composer, arranger, and pianist. His parents were of German, French, Irish-Scot, and English backgrounds. In grade school he started his general music study with violin and tuba as his first instruments. At the age of 7 he began to pick out four-part harmony on the piano. After two years of piano lessons the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where 12-year-old Clare began composing classical music and making instrumental arrangements for dance bands. At South High School he took up cello, clarinet and saxophone. His high school instructor, Glenn Litton, took aninterest in the boy and, because the family could not afford it, gave him free lessons in music theory, harmony, and orchestration. Clare returned the favor by orchestrating and copying music for him. Whenever the concert band needed an instrument, Clare would be supplied with it and the fingering chart to play it in concert. This gave him a personal training in orchestration that was invaluable. He started his own band at 15, for which he wrote all the arrangements. After graduating in 1946, he began undergraduate studies in 1947 at Michigan State University, majoring in music composition and theory, and studying with H. Owen Reed. During his teens there were no funds for him to study piano, so he was mostly self-taught. Therefore his major instrument in college was cello, and piano a minor. Later he changed his major to piano and minor in clarinet.
Fischer graduated in 1951 with a B.M., cum laude, and began his first year of graduate work in composition. The U.S. Army drafted him the next year, sending him to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for basic training. There he played alto saxophone in the band and ended his service as an arranger at the U.S. Military Academy Band at West Point, N.Y. After the army, Clare returned to Michigan State. In 1955 he received his Master of Music. Next Clare was living in Detroit, Michigan, where after a concert he offered his duties to the vocal quartet The Hi-Lo's. For five years he was pianist and arranger for this group. He wrote his first vocal arrangements and recorded several albums as pianist and sometime vocal and instrumental arranger. Herbie Hancock once explained that these arrangements were a major influence on him. By the time I actually heard The Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings -like the harmonies I used on 'Speak Like A Child' -just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
(FROM WIKIPEDIA)
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ALBUM REVIEW
This album is a treasure! There's a whole set of invaluable gems penned by two genius - Fischer and Jobim. Clare Fischer, as far as I know, was the first american pianist who really got into the spirit of the refined language of Bossa Nova. He was not one of the pioneers of the new style as great names of the international jazz scene had already tackled it. Some compositions written by Fischer became "bossa-jazz" standards, such as PENSATIVa, JOÃO, and MORNING. Clare's rendition to the songs of Jobim, brings elements of jazz into the Brazilian flavor.
(By CB)
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MINHA OPINIÃO
A música de Tom Jobim, nas mãos de CF, só pode mesmo ser...OURO EM PÓ, não é?
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CLARE FISCHER: SÓ DANÇO SAMBA - CLARE FISCHER PLAYS ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM & CLARE FISCHER
Year: 1965

PERSONNEL
Clare Fischer - piano, organ
Dennis Budimir - guitar
Bob West - bass
Collin Bailey - drums

TRACKS/FAIXAS:
1.Quiet nights
2.The Girl from Ipanema
3.Desafinado
4.How insensitive
5.João (a.k.a Carnaval)
6.Ornithardy
7.Pensativa
8.One note samba
9.Amor em Paz