Airto - Free (1973 Japanese CTI Vinyl LP Gatefold)

Airto - Free | Vinyl LP Gatefold - 1973 Japanese CTI Records (SR-3335, King Record Co. Ltd)

Airto had arrived in the US from Brazil in 1967 and by 1972 was one of the most in-demand percussionists in jazz, having played on Miles Davis's Bitches Brew and been a founding member of Weather Report and Return To Forever. Free is his showcase, and Creed Taylor gave him the full CTI treatment: Rudy Van Gelder engineering, Pete Turner cover photography, Don Sebesky brass arrangements, and a cast of musicians that reads like a who's who of early-1970s jazz. Airto himself plays percussion, drums, wood flutes and sings, blowing beautiful wood flute lines over the array of ceremonial woodblocks and natural Brazilian noisemakers that were his signature. The opening "Return to Forever" runs past ten minutes and brings together the original Return To Forever quartet (Chick Corea on Fender Rhodes, Stanley Clarke on electric bass, Joe Farrell on soprano saxophone, Flora Purim on vocals) with Airto, expanded with a brass section. The ECM Return To Forever album had just been recorded, making this a document of that group at an important moment. "Flora's Song," written by Purim (Airto's wife), features her vocals over Keith Jarrett's piano and Hubert Laws's flute. "Free," Airto's title track, stretches past eleven minutes and is the most percussion-driven piece, closest to his Brazilian roots.

"Lucky Southern," Keith Jarrett's composition, is a brief, peppy piece featuring Jarrett on piano. Jarrett appears here courtesy of Columbia Records, one of his rare guest appearances as a sideman during this period. "Creek (Arroio)" closes the album with George Benson on guitar. The arrangements throughout are relatively spare and subtle despite the star-studded cast, keeping an organic quality closer to Airto's Buddah/Cobblestone recordings than to the more heavily produced CTI sound of the era, but with a CTI polish. Ron Carter and Stanley Clarke split the bass chair (Carter acoustic, Clarke electric). Jay Berliner adds a second guitar. The brass section includes Burt Collins, Mel Davis and Alan Rubin on trumpets and Garnett Brown, Wayne Andre and Joe Wallace on trombones.

This is the 1973 Japanese pressing on CTI SR-3335, manufactured by King Record Co. Ltd, in a gatefold sleeve with a double-sided insert.