Jose Roberto Betrami and Ivan "Mamão" Conti met  in a club in the late sixties and decided to explore a fusion, which was quite innovative for the time. They searched Rio’s nightlife for a bassist and found Alex Malheiros playing in a band at a bowling alley and knew that this was “their guy”.

The group started out in the early 70s as Grupo Seleção, a cover band. In 1973, they switched the name to Azymuth, inspired by a Marcos & Paulo Sérgio Valle song.  Azymuth have been keeping toes tapping for over thirty years with their ‘crazy samba fusion, or as they call it "Samba Doido". A contract with Milestone in 1979 resulted in a long string of eclectic albums.

Click to listen"may i have this dance"

"If one of us leaves, it's over. It's like a marriage." Marriage, yes, but rich in affairs, of course. The use of traditional and conventional instruments blend together in a unique harmony which makes their sound typically Brazilian but with jazz overtones. They should pump this stuff into prisons and watch the crime rates drop off. 

Click to listen "countryroad"

The choice of material is impeccable as always and the right mixture of upbeat tunes and soft ballad. Besides that, recording engineer Toninho Barbosa, mixing engineer Danny "Nene" Kopelson and mastering engineer George Horn and others have done great job with a wonderful mix quality and outstanding studio techniques. 

Click to listen"un amigo"

It’s unusual that a band who has recorded more than sixteen albums as a unit and as soloists are still relatively unknown outside their home country, but this may be true of Azymuth.  I have a feeling that once you listen to this sampler, you will be searching your local record stores for more of the same.

Visit Azymuth on the original site here . Visit their myspace site here.

A brazilian resource can be found here.