REVIEWS

Rumba
JARI
NIKKOLA
* * * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE
Telepatia
Poko

Eduardo and his Brazilian Aeroplane is a group from Turku which has been familiar in the local clubs since the 90's. The band has integrated local and international musicians in the city so fully that it is usually impossible to calculate their nationalities with the fingers of one hand.

On the CD Telepatia, this band continues along its established line. The entire album is made of versions of J. Karjalainen's previously recorded songs. Outstanding among this lineup are, for example, the Åbo Akademi English literature professor and British jazz-enthusiast Anthony Johnson, as well as the Brazilian bossa-chef Sérgio Machado (who lives in Turku nowadays).

Some time ago Eduardo (from Brazil, and singing in Portuguese), had already guested on the Nylon 66'ers debut album, and now the rhythms linked to bossa, bolero and samba are spiced by a percussion group of local "gringos" like the veteran of Turku Samba School’s Esko Talonen and Sakke Koivula (who is known in Turku’s metal groups as well as the Latin ones).

Telepatia's musical high-points are at the both ends of the album. In the opening song “Botão com Ancora”, Eduardo's bright tenor singing communicates in such an irresistible way that “Ankkurinappi's” melody and expressive nostalgia would have been able to touch the listeners of Helsinki in1982 as well as those of Ipanema in 1956. And even in the year 2003, the song is able to move people in its new internationally cool dress.

Karjalainen himself visits the end of the album as the vocalist in “Oceano Finlandés”. “Oceano” was originally a song by a Brazilian called Djavan, and Karjalainen has translated the lyrics into Finnish with his usual style. The result is once again great, and the celebrated Finnish singer-songwriter approaches the material with his own brand of naivistic phrasing. The arranger of the album, Anthony Johnson, has added a Finnish kantele that also sounds remarkable without creating any disjunctions in the sound picture.

More than a piece of local history at Turku, Telepatia is a fine diagnosis of the internationalised, multicultural Finland of the 90's and the 21st century. Musically, the target group of the CD is wide: Eduardo's and Brazilian Aeroplane's sound can be enjoyed by the chillout freaks who love batucada vibes; people digging the Bo Kaspers Orkester; the mega-users of Radio Nova who worship J. Karjalainen; the Buena Vista Social Club fans who look at the locals from the global perspective; and all the other people who are friends of music and culture without prejudice. Telepatia is a clever and well-focused CD with an intelligent grip which never lets you get bored.

(*BA text corrections: Anthony is English and Eduardo is from Brazil)

Rytmi
MIKKO
SAARELA
* * * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE:
Telepatia
(Poko)

Showing off with Karjalainen tunes

Eduardo Domingues de Jesus and his Finnish-multinational Brazilian Aeroplane has been delighting Finnish people with their competent Brazilian music for some years. In particular, many remember the great Brazilian arrangements of J. Karjalainen songs conceived by this man and many, surely, have waited for a long time for these songs to appear on an album. It has been worth the wait, because Telepatia is well finished and polished. From a nice idea a fully balanced album of good Brazilian music has developed.

Telepatia is entirely made up of J. Karjalainen songs that have been translated into Portuguese by Eduardo and rearranged into a genuine Brazilian guise by his musical right hand, Anthony "Toninho" Johnson. Only the last song “Oceano finlandês” differs from the formula. This was the Brazilian song “Oceano”, originally written by Djavan, and J. Karjalainen, in turn, sings it in Finnish, in his own translation.

For the most part, Karjalainen's songs blend easily into the bossa nova, samba and choro surroundings provided by Eduardo and his Brazilian Aeroplane, as if they had been composed for it. It is true that there's already something Brazilian in those original Karjalainen tunes – with their casual swing and oddly hanging melodies – you just need to be able to dig it out! Only “Kolme Cowboyta” (“Tres cangaceiros”) sounds a bit strange in this context, although that, too, remains entertaining. It's not so easy to recognise all of these songs as Karjalainen tunes after Eduardo's “Brazilianisation” process, unless you know beforehand what is the record all about.

When you hear it by accident on the radio (and I hope that you will!!) you may find yourself thinking “hmm, this samba has a familiar melody: didn’t someone sing it in Finnish some time ago?"

This band, which is in large part Finnish, helps us to respect the musicians in our country, especially for their open-minded attitude towards anything that is new and different. When it comes to knowing music, Finland is not really a monoculture! Of course in Eduardo's group it is also important that there are immigrants like the maestro himself as well as Anthony Johnson and, for example, the excellent Puerto Rico born American guitarist, Neff Irizzary II, who is known by many people for his many projects within Latin jazz.

HIFI-lehti
ERKKI
LEHTOLA
* * * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE
Telepatia, J. Karjalainen Music In Brazil
(Jukan Production Oy/Poko Rekords Oy)

Eduardo Domingues de Jesus, a Brazilian singer, has already lived in Turku for over ten years. It does look, however, as if he’s also been longing for home country, because he has cooked up the idea of making an album of nostalgic Finnish pop songs in Portuguese. It all began with the tune "Jos et sä soita" (by another Finnish musician) and now he will make J. Karjalainen songs known in his home country. This singer – with his soft, sweet, and tender interpretations – has gathered into his band musicians who love bossa nova, such as the British professor Anthony Johnson – a violinist and guitarist who played folk music in his youth – and who has now arranged these songs in a meritorious Latin spirit.

Nyt-liite
(Helsingin
Sanomat)
TERO
VALKONEN
* * * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE
Telepatia
(Poko)

The songwriter Hector mentioned in Säveltäjät ja sanoittajat ry's magazine a while ago that Finnish pop musicians have created a lot of music that could also succeed abroad. International hit songs have been translated into Finnish but the world stars haven't made any versions of our favorites.

Brazilian born Eduardo Domingues de Jesus has been performing his Portuguese translations of J. Karjalainen songs for a quite long time already and his fresh album shows that Hector was right. Karjalainen's most attractive compositions bear their new interpretations well and, if well marketed, could work wherever.

The arrangements are influenced by Africa (as is normal for the music of Brazil). Yet even though, for example, some polyrhythms have been added to “Väinö”, the catching touch of its melody does not suffer. Surprisingly, though, Eduardo's aeroplane does not always swing to the same extent as J. Karjalainen's electric sauna. Nor can you catch quite so much of the distinctively Finnish quality of the original songs. This is partly because Karjalainen's musical lines are mainly based on the American tradition, and Eduardo's softly phrased Portuguese tends to conceal even the last clues as to their point of origin.

This delightfully many-sided song collection includes the obvious hits like “Ankkurinappi”, “Villejä lupiineja” and “Telepatia”, but also offers some surprising choices like “Numerotiedustelublues” and “Kaikki pallot ilmassa".

Turun
sanomat
TUOMO
KARHU
* * * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE
Telepatia
(Poko)

Eduardo and his Brazilian Aeroplane's Telepatia is another album this month that has a cover made by Kaj Stenvall. This time the target is J. Karjalainen.

Telepatia includes 12 of Karjalainen's hit songs translated into Portuguese. It also includes a bonus track, “Oceano” (written by the popular Brazilian composer Djavan), which has been interpreted by Karjalainen himself: a guest on the album who sings a fitting translation in his own tongue.

You won't go very far, of course, on translation alone, and Telepatia displays more musical effort than is usually shown by such tributes. As well as the fact that the band plays excellently the Latin arrangements also reveal a personal approach. The orchestra's most intimate Radio-Suomi-like emotional feelings are to be found at the beginning of the album: with the early bull's eyes “Ankkurinappi” and “Kolme cowboyta” as well as the more recent, but always touching, “Minä käännyn hiljaa pois”. Towards to the end of the hour-long CD, the jamming becomes a little more soporific.

Soundi
JUSSI
NIEMI
* * *

EDUARDO AND HIS BRAZILIAN AEROPLANE
Telepatia
Poko

Brazilian music has always been quick to absorb influence on different directions, even surprising ones.

In that way it is no wonder that Eduardo Domingues de Jesus, who lives in Finland, gets some enthusiasm from Finnish pop, more specifically from J. Karjalainen. Something supra-nationally attractive can be found in J's songs: they have formed the basis for an arrangement by the American country singer Dallas Wayne too.

Comfortably singing his own translations and versions in Portuguese, Domingues also has another immigrant as his right hand. Pleasant, freely living arrangements have been created by the Englishman Anthony Johnson, who is also brilliant on guitars, violin, cavaquinho and kantele.

Outstanding among the band’s accomplished players is the saxophonist (Rasmus Korsström, n.o.e), although one could also listen more to Erkki Huovinen's harmonica. Mitja Tuurala's airy production, with is relaxing creation of emotional resonance is done as if for the coming summer. There's no lack of light swing but in more folk song like tunes, like the title song and in “Villejä lupiineja”, some of the original nostalgic depth is lost. This is compensated by “Oceano” – a pearl of a love song by the Brazilian superstar Djavan – which has been interpreted by Karjalainen in Finnish; and by the great parrot-cover painted by Kaj Stenvall.