Behind the Tea Chronicles 2023

 

After releasing 2018's utterly wonderful Criterion of the Senses, an homage to late-'70s smooth soul, contemporary jazz, and funk, Ed Motta took five years to realize his next direction. The Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, producer, bandleader, composer, arranger, and icon has, for more than three decades, offered kaleidoscopic combinations and reinventions of the sounds, styles, and genres that influenced him. But Motta doesn't merely utilize them, he invents new uses for them as aesthetic touchstones in a vast musical vocabulary and vision. His creative persona is a highly individualized sum total of the music he loves, approaches, composes, and plays. On Behind the Tea Chronicles, Motta brings his lifelong love of movie and television soundtracks under his already large creative umbrella. He hired an all-star cast of Brazilian studio aces including bassist Alberto Continentino, pianist/keyboardist/musical director Michel Limma, and guitarist João Oliveira. Motta recorded backing vocals in Los Angeles, horns in Detroit (directed by Kamau Kenyatta, Gregory Porter's producer), and strings in Prague by the Czech Republic's FILMharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adam Klemens.

A sextet and strings fuel the opener, "Newsroom Customers." Limma threads together Rhodes, grand piano, and funky clavinet buoyed by Motta's xylophone fills. They elasticize the tune's harmonic center and rhythmic flow. Motta's smooth tenor vocal is cultivated, joining together jazzy soul and airy polished funk around a hip lyric that namechecks Philip Marlowe. "Slumberland" is a sweeping midtempo groover introduced by Cristina Braga's crystalline harp, strings, drums, piano, and harpsichord. When horns and guitars enter, the tempo jumps, revealing the seam where 1980s film soundtracks, Joe Jackson's classy pop, and Steely Dan's Aja meet; for his part, Motta transforms them into something wholly other with backing vocals provided by Philip Ingram and Paulette McWilliams. "Safely Far" joins yacht rock, smooth soul, and disco. Governed by a bumping funk bassline, Motta and the backing vocal chorus soar above celebratory horns. The pulsing, carnivalesque "Of Good Strain" finds him accompanied only by Limma's organ, piano, and Rhodes under a noirish lyric. "Shot in the Park" is a slippery, midtempo jazz ballad layered with three lead guitars (Motta is in the right channel), horns, and Ingram and McWilliams. Swinging out of the gate, it features a lovely flute solo from Marcelo Martins and is gently kissed by the influences of Ben Sidran and Michael Franks, though Motta adapts them to more cinematic ends. His own funky clavinet introduces "Deluxe Refuge," an uptempo, elegant samba-jazz groover. Motta and his singers offer syncopated, staggered phrasing in verses and refrains above the cascading trombone section. Furthermore, Limma's killer post-bop Rhodes solo adds heft and dimension.

Due to ambitious composition and complex yet audibly uncluttered charts, Behind the Tea Chronicles moves farther afield than any recording in Motta's catalog -- including Poptical, AOR, and Perpetual Gateways. Here he dissects his musical roots, repurposes them, and makes what he needs to create a jazz-pop masterpiece.