Finally, one might think, since it’s an open secret that the guys behind the label all have a soft spot for music from the leading coffee exporter in the world. So, when Brazilian DJ, record collector and digger extraordinaire Junior Santos brought this Celso Rubinstein 7-inch EP (called «Compacto» in Brazil) to the Berlin label’s attention he hadn’t to do a lot of persuading to have NOAJ reintroduce this beautiful piece of music to fans around the world some 36 years after its first appearance. Born in Brazil to a family of Holocaust survivors, Celso Rubinstein’s career as a singer allowed him to take residency in several countries including Spain, Portugal, Israel and Britain. He performed as an artist in numerous clubs and supported other artists as backing vocalist. In 1982 he booked studio time at Chico Batera’s studio in Rio De Janeiro to record two songs for an intentional debut album.

On «Enquanto Houver», written by Paulinho Mendonça and Gerson Conrad, Rubinstein tried to infuse some rap flavour: «I wanted to get away from that style of singing where you sing a bunch of notes without breathing. You can hear that all the words in the song are pronounced properly but the cadence is broken up, so the intention was to do a kind of rap without it seeming to be rap.» Marina Lima and Antonio Cicero contributed «È A Vida Que Diz», a song as marvelously written as much as performed sophisticatedly by Rubinstein with his star-studded studio crew. Amongst them: Oberdan Magalhães and Claudio Stevenson from Banda Black Rio, Rique Pantoja, keyboard player, arranger and conductor Reinaldo Arias, as well as American session musician Don Harris. Celso Rubinstein wanted to create a unique atmosphere for the recording sessions, inviting numerous people to the control room to amplify the spontaneous live feeling even more (the control room was filled with people like Ney Matogrosso, As Frenéticas, Claudia Telles, Fátima Guedes.) You definitely can hear this vitality on the record originally published in 1982 by Rubinstein himself.  Since there was a massive vinyl shortage at the time in Brazil, no label had any spare material to waste on newcomers. Only the label Tapecar, which had its own pressing plant, helped Rubinstein out and used the left over material from the manufacture of Gal Costa’s latest album («Minha Voz») to have his 7” privately pressed. Needless to say that it missed any recognition back then. But now, 36 years later, thanks to Junior Santos and Notes On A Journey a broad audience has the joy to finally embrace this beautiful music wholeheartedly.

Also Brazilian, Santos is a true expert in the Brazilian music genre who also journeyed to Europe to work as a musician only some 30 years later. Check out his compilation Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds (1978-1982) on Favorite Recordings. Aside from being a drummer, record collector, and DJ, he also introduced the Notes On A Journey crew to this Celso Rubinstein 7-inch EP, called “Compacto” in Brazil, which we are now so proud to reintroduce to fans around the world some 36 years after its first appearance. The interview was conducted in Portuguese and transcribed by Junior Santos. The English translation was done by Greg Caz who is well known for his two compilation projects “The Brazilian Boogie Connection” and “The Brasileiro Treasure Box Of Funk & Soul”, both released on the “Cultures Of Soul” label. Further more, he is Djing weekly at Nublu in Manhattan and monthly at Our Wicked Lady in Brooklyn. Thank both of you so much.

Skype INTERVIEW between the two artists and musicians CELSO RUBINSTEIN (CR) and JUNIOR SANTOS (JS) recorded during December 2017:

JS: We’re here with Celso Rubinstein, a great artist and a great figure in Brazilian music. A guy with a lot of stories to tell us. We’re going to be discussing Celso’s 1982 self released 7 Inch which only has two songs but has a fabulous history behind it. Celso, I’d like to start by asking you to talk a bit about the start of your career, how old were you when you started singing, and when did you turn professional, singing in clubs? You started young, didn’t you? In the 1960s, when you were living in Copacabana in Rio De Janeiro, right?

CR:I was 14 to 15 years old, when I started to sing in clubs. That was during the 1960s, when I was growing up in Copacabana, Rio De Janeiro. There were child labor laws being enforced at that time, and the weird thing was that I looked about 17-18 but was only 14-15. As time went on I started to become like Dorian Grey, looking younger and younger and getting older and older! I had papers signed by my parents allowing me to perform. My first gig was at the Bierklaus, a club in Copacabana. It was an incredible place where lots of artists like Djavan and Alcione performed early in their careers before they ever recorded. They performed at peak hour at the club, 10PM and later. I performed earlier, from around 5PM in the afternoon to about 7PM. I managed to get this gig through Booker Pittman (Eliana Pittman’s stepfather), who knew the Bierklaus’ owner. The man known as the “King Of The Rio Night,” Alberico Campana, was also a partner at the Bierklaus. Soon after this my parents moved to Tel Aviv as a sort of “experiment” to see what living there was like. Since I was still a minor I had to go with them. I lived there for three years and found a jazz club called Bar Barim (The Barbarians) where I met an Israeli jazz drummer who was crazy about and completely obsessed with Brazilian music. As soon as he met me he invited me to sing, saying, “Let’s go!” And I didn’t have to say or explain anything, just call out the names of the songs which were basically Bossa Nova. At the time what we now know as “MPB” was only starting to emerge and consolidate itself so the repertoire was largely still Bossa. I myself had a lot of jazz influence, I was doing a kind of fusion of Bossa-Jazz and was really influenced by Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66. All this was my laboratory while putting together a repertoire, especially being away from Brazil, which allowed me even more of a universal eclecticism.

JS: What was the format of the band backing you up, was it a trio, a quartet?

CR: Well, because I was freshly arrived in Israel without much knowledge of anything, that was my first gig, in that jazz club, with the drummer Arale Kaminsky. Soon after I met two more Brazilians, the flute player Paulo Naitim and the guitarist Jacques Purim, Flora’s brother. We ended up forming a trio and needed a drummer so we called Arale Kaminsky. When I heard that Radio Israel was putting together a music festival comprised of immigrant musicians singing in their own language, I sent two songs: Jorge Ben’s “País Tropical” and “Viola Enluarada” by Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle. We recorded those in sort of improvised fashion at the radio station’s own studio and there wasn’t much in terms of equipment because Israel was brand-new, barely 20 years old. So we recorded these songs in a very precarious way. The rules only allowed one song per artist but we got both songs in. It was a chance to show some versatility on my part, to sing a very somber song like “Viola Enluarada” and then a really upbeat one like “País Tropical.”

CR: From Israel I went to live in England, I didn’t go back to Brazil right away, we went there first. In 1973 the Yom Kippur War had started in Israel and because my status was that of a temporary resident I would either have to become a permanent resident and go fight in that war, or I would have to leave the country. My parents didn’t have much, shall we say, “affinity” for war because they were WWII survivors, so they sent me to England.

JS: They were Jewish, right?

CR: Yes. So, arriving in the UK I started going to pubs and venues like the Marquee which was a sort of rock temple at the time. It wasn’t really my style but I loved going there anyway. That was until I found places that played Bossa Nova and jazz, and I could get to sing a few Brazilian and jazz standards. I would sing the A part of the songs in English and the B part in Portuguese or vice versa. I was doing that fusion during the three years I lived in England, then I returned to Brazil.

JS: But you returned to Europe later, didn’t you?

CR: Yes, in the 80s.

JS: We were talking before the interview about Marcia Maria, who sang at the inauguration of that hotel if I’m not mistaken.

CR: I remember her really well, she’s an amazing singer. She’s from the Peixoto family, isn’t she?

JS: Yes, she’s Cauby Peixoto’s cousin, her full name is Marcia Maria Peixoto.

CR: There was also a trumpet player on São Paulo’s nighttime scene who was a fan of mine, and I loved him too: Araken Peixoto, Cauby’s brother.

JS: I played with Marcia for a long time. When I moved to Paris from Lisbon I lived at her house for a while. She gave me a lot of support and help during a difficult period in my life. She also has a story quite similar to yours, she sang in all those places you also sang in. She was close friends with the bassist Luizão Maia, they’d go back and forth to São Paulo every weekend and their friendship lasted until the end, when he was living in Japan. Myself, I believe that this school of nighttime dance bands were for my generation of the early 90s as were the “Conjuntos” for your generation. São Paulo and Rio had a tradition of clubs with live bands, and smaller towns had the “Baile” bands. All that was a great school to learn improvisation, learning songs by ear, playing as a band, learning different musical genres and grooves, etc.

JS: How do you view the acceptance of Brazilian music in those days? How was your struggle in those days which were much different than it is for a Brazilian musician just arriving in Europe today?

CR: I believe that was a more receptive time period. There was more communication, I think because of RAI, the Italian TV network. There were special programs with Elis Regina, Wilson Simonal, people like that, you know? Ornella Vanoni made that famous album with Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho. In France there was the Nouvelle Vague film movement, there was Pierre Barouh who had his own label called SARAVAH recording Bossa Nova songs in French, there was this whole exchange with Brazilian music.

CR: Junior, the big difference with you is yourself, because your musical and cultural baggage is something few European musicians of your age group have. That’s what sets us apart. Because, aside from my own career, I did backing vocals for a lot of artists on RCA like Eliana Pittman and Sidney Magal among others who I can’t even remember at this point, my memory’s failing me these days! (laughs)

JS: Celso, can you tell me about your experience here in Europe, what did you bring here, and what did you take away?

CR: There were phases, like when I came the last time, I had my work, a solo career, a video, my single, posters and whatnot so it was “easier” to work continuously. This is important because the “breaks” are harder to come by in Brazil. You can continue living your life when there are no gigs in Brazil. In Europe things are run more within a certain establishment so I always had work, usually in hotels if not jazz clubs. For example there was a night club called Café Berlin in Madrid, a jazz place, where the best musicians in Europe played. I was a house musician there for many years, they had a place in the basement dedicated solely to Brazilian music that was called Oba-Oba. I would sing jazz upstairs and then go downstairs to sing danceable Brazilian music, stuff like Tim Maia, Gilberto Gil, Jorge Ben, etc. It was a really good experience, I learned a lot from musicians from around the world. I loved flamenco, I met Paco De Lucia and all sorts of great flamenco dancers as well. I really believe those years in Europe were a great “school” for me.

JS: Let’s talk a little bit about your 7 inch. tell us about how the opportunity to record it came about. We know that there were more takes that were recorded but which got lost in the mists of time and that it was originally intended to be a full LP. Tell me a little bit about the making of it.

CR: It was a funny moment, it was kind of a laboratory. When Paulinho Mendonça and Gerson Conrad brought me “Enquanto Houver” I listened to it and wanted to give it my own interpretation. I wanted to give it a bit of a rap flavor but there wasn’t really rap in Brazil yet at the time, there was American funk which was a similar thing but not exactly what I wanted. I wanted to get away from that style of singing where you sing a bunch of notes without breathing. I wanted to show off my voice and also pronounce all the words properly. You can hear that all the words in the song are pronounced properly but the cadence is broken up, so the intention was to do a kind of rap without it seeming to be rap. Then when Marina Lima and Antonio Cícero brought me “A Vida É Que Diz” I loved it, it reminded me a bit of Billie Holiday because it had a lot of short notes, like in a lot of Billie’s work, because she had a short range but you still felt her power. She knew how to use what she had. My own vocal conception was to sing longer notes, which was more comfortable for me, and this thing with singing shorter notes was a little bit of a challenge for me but I enjoyed doing it.

JS: What was the behind-the-scenes story behind the record? You told me it was all done live with all the musicians playing together, and there was Don Harris on it as well.

CR: It was really cool to record that way because Chico Batera and I were like brothers even outside of music and I told him “Chico, I want to do something I don’t see happen much anymore, a live-in-studio recording. It’s kind of cold the way they make records now, impersonal, everyone tracks their part separately and sometimes they never even see each other. I want to get all these people together with me and you and invite people to the control room to watch us record!” (laughs) He looked at me with that look of his and that trademark laugh and said “OK, let’s do it!” So that was what triggered the possibility of that session happening the way it did. It was a party, just imagine all those people in the studio watching the recording and they were all characters which created an incredible vibe in there. The control room was filled with people like Ney Matogrosso, As Frenéticas, Claudia Telles, Fátima Guedes, hey, I get along with everybody (laughs)…