Hora Do Rush - Jazz Fusion group

Live at the Rain Forest

				Hora do Rush Jazz Rock Fusion featuring Alex Saba, Beto Frega, Julio Gamarra & Paulo Bergo
Beto electric piano/synth	Alex acoustic guitar/effects	Julio drums	Paulo bass/effects	there is an old page here with more info all pictures by João Paulo Cintra Ferreira

The year was 1984. We were playing together for one year or more. That night would be only another night, but we decided to record the show. Filipe - our sound engineer, made it simple, with a K7 recorder and two mics crossed at front stage. It was a great solution, because we were carrying a lot of things and a Reel Tape Recorder was too much for that time. The equipment included a Rhodes electric piano, drums, three big amplifiers, plus bass, acoustic guitar and the Pro-One synth. We put all of this inside two little cars. No vans, no roadies.

Playing live in those days, involved a lot of work and little money, but we loved playing live, specially at the “EXISTE UM LUGAR”, the owner loved the band and the bar was a circular building, windows all around, inside the Rain Forest. At night, if we weren't playing, people could almost listen to the forest breathing.

It was always a pleasure to play with these guys, specially Julio. He had terrible schedule problems, playing with many great names at Brazil and Europe (Didier Lockwood, Marcus Resende, Kid Abelha, etc) and us. He was always smiling and his happiness was our great power source. Of course he was a great drummer too, but he was our friend and that’s why he wanted to be with us.

There is no special edition on the recording. We only cleaned the sound from some hiss and that’s all. No instruments were additionally played at studio. Nobody did anything. The sound is exactly what we played that night. All mistakes are there, all the musician ship and some audience's interference.

Doing this work and revising what we did was a great pleasure and another way to play honor and remember our great friend Julio.

He lives forever inside our hearts.

Alex

Live at the Rain Forest

the songs

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The show starts with PELA PRIMEIRA VEZ, written for Filipe's ex-wife. She didn’t enjoy our friendship.
The second one is 702, alternating between 5/4 and 6/8; it was finished in Curitiba while we were thinking about the group’s sound and was inspired by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond.
ONDAS is one of the calm moments of the show, a beautiful and atypical Beto's ballad, based on the circular movements of the oceans.
BELO HORIZONTE is a funk where Julio suggested Beto to do his impro on piano. It was a real challenge.
BILUCA was written for a friend of my father who passed away and here you can listen for the first Paulo’s impro.
Beto's partnership with singer Claudio Nucci had resulted in the weird and beautiful samba 7 PRO QUARTO, alternating 7/8 e 6/8.
ROSANE is another ballad, written for a Curitiba's lady.
HORA DO RUSH is one of our best songs, another samba with some spice of "american jazz" on it. Here we can hear a beautiful drum solo, which was always a big moment of the show.
VALE ENCANTADO is like flying over a beautiful valley, with a nice house and some disillusions.
TEMA EM 5 is a jazzy composition, a 5/4 waltz.
PENALTI was another funk and it’s difficult to explain it. Paulo and Julio did some interlude.
OBSSESSIVO was composed while Beto and I were playing and fiddling with bass lines at my living room.

sounds interesting? Look here

We decided to included a “bonus track”, that is another version of HORA DO RUSH. I talked with Beto by phone about using another Julio's solo from a rehearsal with our own instrumentation. Beto sent me by mail a tape with the role music where he played the piano, the synth and had written all drum programming. In the midddle of it there is the original Julio's impro. I included the acoustic guitars and that’s it.

Live at the Rain Forest

the band

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Hora do Rush was:

Alex Saba - Ovation acoustic guitar
Beto Frega - Rhodes electric piano & Pro-One synth
Julio Gamarra - Acoustic drums and assorted percussion
Paulo Bergo - Fender electric bass + effects
with
Filipe Cavalieri - Stage manager and sound engineer

Live at the Rain Forest

videos

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Here we have two videos without Beto Frega. He was off shore when we were invited to record a TV program.

We called Marcelo for the piano. The man played with Kid Abelha while Julio was also on the band.

Martini Seco is a song written from Alex. He wrote it for Paul Desmond, The great sax player told he seems his sax sounds like two Martinis. This song try to capture the feeling of two dry Martinis.

Our childhood friend Guilherme Briccio comes aboard to play alto sax for these two takes.

702 is a song from Alex & Beto and tells a story about a girl, a phone call and the window of her apartment, something like a modern Rapunzel.

It's curious but the first time I listen to this video I thought some one was singing. My mistake. Acoustic guitar and sax together sounded like a human voice.

Both videos are from a Brazillian TV show circa 1985.

Feel free to share the videos with your friends, but remember: these videos have completely different versions from the songs of the CD and the sound it's the usually YouTube bad mono type.

Available at
Brancaleone Record and CDBaby

Brancaleone
Records