Cinnamon Flower by Charlie Rouse Band
'Cinnamon Flower' by Charlie Rouse Band
In 1977, tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse was dismayed when he heard Cinnamon Flower. Working with Brazilian ex-pat pianist Dom Salvador, the former Thelonious Monk sideman recorded a fairly straightforward album of Brazilian jazz. Producer Alan Douglas, worried about sales and perhaps pressured by bosses at the disco-driven Casablanca Records, overdubbed horns, strings, backbeat drums, even adding Todd Rundgren’s keyboardist, Roger Powell, on synthesizer. Douglas was the same producer notorious for releasing posthumous Jimi Hendrix LPs with overdubs, so perhaps Rouse shouldn’t have been surprised.
Cinnamon Flower’s new release on Resonance, a premiere label for lost jazz, includes Douglas’ version and the previously unreleased original, unaltered session. What’s remarkable after the passage of so many years is how classic the Douglas tracks sound. The producer endowed them with a synthetic richness without spoiling the music, bringing Rouse closer to Flora Purim and other ‘70s Brazilians working toward an organic update of their nation’s musical heritage.
The original session was solid. Rouse’s gorgeous and unfailingly adept soloing was in sync with the rhythmic collaboration of a large Brazilian contingent augmented occasionally by American jazzmen such as bassist Ron Carter. Salvador wrote many of the selections, but one by Milton Nascimento found its way into a set that effortlessly blended New York with Rio.
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