TRIO DA PAZ & JOE LOCKE — Live at JazzBaltica (MAXJAZZ)

Musical relations between Brazil and the United States have seldom, if ever, been more harmonious, hipper and happier than at this lively, 2007 summit meeting in Salzau, Germany between Trio Da Paz, the trio with brio from Rio, and the splendid American vibraphonist Joe Locke.

Mixing Brazilian music and American jazz, Trio Da Paz and Locke speak together fluently and beautifully, whether lolling in sinfully sensuous samba sounds or soaring on supersonic tempos crackling with bright, lithe, witty interplay.

An original called "Copacabana" embodies the summit’s mellow side as guitarist Romero Lubambo’s crisp, clean strings create a tangy contrast with Locke’s velvet vibes. Add Nilson Matta’s fat bass tones and Duduka Da Fonseca’s shimmering cymbals and ringing drums and you’ve got one of the most pleasant North/South pacts since the Getz/Gilberto entente.

With everyone contributing equally, this quadruple alliance plays shapeshifting music, romantic on one track, sizzling hot on another. It weaves a kind of dream language on "Sword of Whispers", then surges ferociously through "All the Things You Are."

Lubambo’s zesty mix of Brazilian, jazz and classical elements evoke the high-flying, eclectic spirit of Charlie Byrd, an American popularizer and apostle of bossa nova. Far from being a Byrd clone, however, Lubambo charts his own adventurous flights, unfurling his own harmonic and melodic plumage.

Locke is right at home transforming Trio Da Paz into the Quartet Da Paz that refreshes.

Owen McNally

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