Far be it from me to write anything definitive on the work/life of the late, great Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos, but let me take a stab to write about a sleeper favorite of mine. Naná Vasconcelos’ Rain Dance wasn’t released on any formative label like ECM, or released with any audacious artist like Milton Nascimento, Don Cherry, Pat Metheny, Joyce or the countless other greats he’s worked with. No, Rain Dance was released on some obscure Island Records subprint called Antilles New Directions, becoming one of the many releases forming a catalog trying to cash in late on the “world music” craze.
A collaboration with a total one-off collective of Brazilian experimentalists, The Bushdancers as they’re dubbed here, Rain Dance showed Naná Vasconcelos creating something that has its ears to the streets of contemporary music and the other to the mystical musical world only he can travel to. It’s an odd bird in that it sounds like little else in his oeuvre but sounds exactly like it could only come from him. Fourth world would be an apt genre to slot this under.
Zeroing on this work, truth be told, it doesn’t appear that Naná had to do much soul searching to arrive to its sound. In the late ‘80s, latching on to hip-hop, funk and soul-jazz were things that had started to be the music (whether through taste or session work) had gravitated to. Pulling back from the gorgeous, ethereal percussion and vocal work he had been lending to others like Lyle Mays and Gianluca Mosole, Naná appeared to want to meet the world a bit closer.
It had been years since Naná had functioned under a band concept, as he had with his ethno experimental group Codona. Convening a crew of Brazilian upstarts that had accompanied him on recent European tours, these Bushdancers were made up of Cyro Baptista (known for his unique, percussive instrument creations), Sergio Brandao who’d helped likeminded Arto Lindsay out, and future film composer extraordinaire, Swiss keyboardist Teese Gohl. Working as under his guise, they were able to flesh out the interesting experiments with urban dance, dub, and electronics Naná was gravitating to.
On songs like “Anarrie/Raindance”, you’re still able to catch some of Naná’s classic berimbau playing. What makes you imagine the album going one way, only to suddenly take a u-turn, appears to be Naná’s renewed look at his own roots in candomble and the tantric music of his own Recife. In the past, maybe with Milton, some of the more organic parts would have been played on some unknown percussive instrument. Here, though, synthetic elements reach their head and make something kind of iffy, sound instantly captivating. There’s a joy in the arrangements of this music. You could hear Naná was trying to meet the mind with the booty. Jazz meanderings seem to remain in 1st gear, letting more immediate things take over.
I would argue on songs like “Bird Boy”, “Olhos Azuis” and others you’d hear the evolution of work laid by Naná on Bush Dance, just a few years prior. On Bush Dance, Naná had explored mixing drum machines with his own Brazilian experimentation. This bit of wandering, I think allowed him to refresh his ideas. It’s something that would explain his sublime little-known work in Italy with Antonello Salis and Pino Daniele. With the former, in Lester, they stumble upon a crevice of African, Apennine, and latin spiritual jazz that’s wonderfully ethereal. On the latter, they create a rare Balearic masterpiece bringing deep Brazilian polyrhythms to Italian disco dance floors.
Rain Dance is a favorite of mine because it is dance floor material. Subsonic bass romps like “Eh! Bahia” suss out meditative sonics of the candomble. “Batida” infuses absolute joy into what seemingly is a contemporary minimal music composition, growing into a mix of carnaval and Philip Glass-like etudes. “Bird Boy” (co-written with Don Cherry) revisits the inbetween sound of Lester, as a rework of tubby dub proportions fusing tropical electronics with his own deep, jungle exploration with them. “Bemtevi/Festa” then bookends the album on a floating dance that seems to raise the ground with every new, sonic twist. Rain Dance avoids all the pitfalls of a “world music” album and settles into something decidedly more forward thinking and universal.