🎵 AotW Classics Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 LOOK AROUND SP-4137

What is your favorite track?

  • With A Little Help From My Friends

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • Roda

    Votes: 6 12.2%
  • Like A Lover

    Votes: 18 36.7%
  • The Frog

    Votes: 6 12.2%
  • Tristeza (Goodbye Sadness)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The Look Of Love

    Votes: 6 12.2%
  • Pra Dizer Adeus (To Say Goodbye)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Batucada (The Beat)

    Votes: 4 8.2%
  • So Many Stars

    Votes: 5 10.2%
  • Look Around

    Votes: 3 6.1%

  • Total voters
    49
Thanks lj, it's nice to have a first-hand report of the long-discussed sonic disaster.

I'm wondering why the orchestra didn't use the same arrangement as the LP had?
 
Wasn't the EXPO 70 album also a mess---and why A&M never released it domestically?
I don't recall myself--I don't like most live albums anyways, and found the album disappointing enough that I got a few tracks into it and bailed. (Knowing me, I probably headed right for the studio albums to get my B66 fix. 😁)
 
I don't recall myself--I don't like most live albums anyways, and found the album disappointing enough that I got a few tracks into it and bailed. (Knowing me, I probably headed right for the studio albums to get my B66 fix. 😁)

I have never heard it. I just remember reading (probably here) that it was a mess.
 
There is one pretentious AMG reviewer (won't mention his name) that I can't stand reading. Beyond that, I pretty much respect the other opinions even if I don't necessarily agree with them. I did find an error in one of the reviews, and reported it--they got in touch first saying they would look into it and then, a day or two later, let me know they made the edit. (It was a personnel listing for a band I work with.) That's a first, though--I've pointed out errors in the past and never had feedback.

With some of the errors, too, I figure that some of the regulars have probably reviewed hundreds if not thousands of albums, and they can't be expected to remember every little detail. And I can tell a difference between an error, and ignorance--someone who is clearly biased will not take care with details or pick apart an album unnecessarily. I do find AMG helpful, though, when discovering a new (to me) artist and need to find out which are considered the key albums in their catalog. That is where I usually start after hearing a few songs by the artist on one of my Pandora stations, and I'll use Qobuz to check out the albums to see if I like them enough to purchase.
I still avoid AMG LIKE the plague I found more errors and inaccurate information than crooked Politician's Rhetoric.
 
I have never heard it. I just remember reading (probably here) that it was a mess.
I saw Peter Gabriel's small venue tour for the Up album, and bought the recording of it. Other than a technical snafu (half the power onstage was out as they began "Solsbury Hill"), it was a great concert. Yet when listening at home to the recording (which is unedited), I could hear a few flubs that I never noticed when engrossed in the show. (And Gabriel's shows are more like multimedia events--there is as much going on visually as there is musically.) Even with the flubs, though, it's still a great memento of that concert, which was one of the best I'd seen.

Ironically, when Steely Dan played the same venue in 2000 (for the Two Against Nature tour), they had a similar power outage on stage. I'll never forget the look of panic from Roger Nichols when that happened, as he was running the stage monitor system. :laugh: Peter Gabriel handled his like a champ--he played and sang a solo piano version of "Here Comes The Flood" until the crew got the sound going again.
 
I forgot to add that my disappointment with Brasil 66 per their Academy Award show performance was short lived, as shortly thereafter I was hooked on their classic album version of the Look of Love and in awe of all the tracks from their Look Around album --music that will stand the test of time.

I never saw the performance at the Academy Awards. I was already a fan from hearing their records played on the radio. It is true that at the Oscars, a lot of songs have been butchered by the orchestra and artists chosen to sing them. Look at Aretha's version of "Nobody Does It Better.' It was horrid.
 
At least they use a more recent photo for Sergio. :laugh:

Just clicked on the track now playing and it was nice to see the lyrics displayed:

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If I could change my vote I would choose "Like a Lover" over "Look Around." I find I play tjhis album more than the other B66 in my collection. (Fool is a close second with Primal Roots not far behind)

--Mr Bill
 
Look on the lower part of the poll for the [change vote] button.
 
Thanks, Harry!

Interesting that my two very favorite B66 songs ("Pretty World" and "Like a Lover") had English lyrics by the Bergmans. I guess they really have a way with words -- especially as I get older and feel like more of a "romantic" (though Mrs. Bill would tell you otherwise)...

--Mr Bill
 
I saw this thread came up again so I was reading through it and saw that I stated 3 times that I still couldn't think of a favorite song on this album. Well, I still can't ... I love the whole thing, but the title song is one of the few tracks that I never skip over when it comes up on music shuffle, so I decided to give it my vote. Never let it be said I'm not a decision maker.... sometimes it just takes me a decade or so.
 
I just voted yesterday myself. It was a tough call here also, and I went with "Batucada" as I realized it's one of the songs I go to first on the record if I'm just randomly choosing a few from different albums. But there are so many I like here...
 
I too have re-read through this full thread. There was a long list of artists who've performed "Like A Lover" over the years, but one seemed to be missing - that of fellow A&M artist and pianist, Pete Jolly. Here is Mr. Jolly's version:

 
I voted way back at the beginning and just looked---it says I voted for "Look Around"---which is a nice song and all, but it's never been my favorite. So I've re-voted, too---"Like A Lover".
 
I might have heard Pete Jolly's "Like A Lover" back then on "Beautiful 102" WGER (102.5 FM) in Bay City, MI & Saginaw, Michigan around the 70's decade & I think that was the last time I heard it.
 
It was January 1963 and I was in 8th grade and and I heard on KFMB AM radio "Little Bird" by Pete Jolly. It was probably my first exposure to jazz and I couldn't hear enough of this song. A brilliant song by the brilliant pianist Pete Jolly. I was lucky enough to have heard the great Pete Jolly perform live at a local jazz club some 20 years ago.

 
It was January 1963 and I was in 8th grade and and I heard on KFMB AM radio "Little Bird" by Pete Jolly. It was probably my first exposure to jazz and I couldn't hear enough of this song. A brilliant song by the brilliant pianist Pete Jolly. I was lucky enough to have heard the great Pete Jolly perform live at a local jazz club some 20 years ago.



LJ: Thank you for re-awakening a memory. I'd forgotten about "Little Bird" and haven't heard it probably since the 60s (for me, it would have been Johnny Magnus on KMPC).
 
Apologies in advance, because this has nothing to do with Sergio or A&M---but it is piano , and a trio and along the lines of lj's remark about early exposure to jazz---

I'd been exposed to a lot of it, thanks to my parents listening to KMPC and Johnny Magnus playing a chunk of it on his program. Probably the earliest thing I can remember that stuck with me was Stan Kenton's "Intermission Riff", and there were a bunch after that.

But in 1966, when I was 10, this came out and I heard it----once---on Magnus' program. Never again. Fast forward five years, I'm a 15-year-old disc jockey at KIBS in Bishop, I'm rummaging through the record library, such as it was---and there it was! So I'd play it on the air---just the cut I heard Magnus play---"Secret Love" (the old Doris Day tune).

I left the station in 1974, left the record where I'd found it----and never ran across it again. Until about four years ago, when all of a sudden, it gets an official digital release. The album doesn't do too much for me----all the songs get kinda overplayed, which seems to be Roy Meriwether's style. The only one that works for me is this one---the one Johnny Magnus played:

 
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Wasn't the EXPO 70 album also a mess---and why A&M never released it domestically?
The reviewers on Amazon said that the "Live At Expo 70" was a mess and that Lani and Karen had gotten out of sync or sounded like they were on two different stages. I have never heard the CD and the price on Amazon is out of my price range.
 
The two ladies were indeed on separate microphones, and the sound mixer put them in extreme left and extreme right of the stereo soundstage, making for a kind of strange sounding recording. Hmm. I should try reducing it to mono, or narrowing the stereo to see if it sounds better...
 
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