Manfredo Fest Braziliana [CD-459]

Manfredo Fest's music is as diverse as the cultural ethnic landscape of his Brazillian home-land. It represents a rare assimilation of European classical training, Afro-Brazillian rhythms and American jazz. This upbeat and long-awaited recording runs the gamut of this musical tradition. Blind from birth, Fest draws upon the African percussive soul that can be traced to slave drummings on the Portugese plantations of Brazil. Yet he augments these native influences (from which the samba and bossa nova are both derived) with advanced classical piano technique that lends both shape and spine to the unique improvisations he sculpts throughout this CD. - Martin Porter