Shopping List: The New and the Recommended
Nilson Matta/Zé Luis/Paulo Braga, "Green Heart" (Orbita)
Three highly regarded Brazilian instrumtalists—bassist Nilson Matta, flutist-saxophonist Zé Luis, and drummer Paulo Braga—are featured on a few different tracks each on this environmentally themed album of sophisticated Brazilian jazz. Guitarist Romero Lubambo joins Matta for a pair of rumbling sambas, while Luis concentrates on material by bossa nova godfather Antonio Carlos Jobim with his trio, tRio Zona Sul. Braga, however, steals the show by jazzing up traditional rhythms with a small, craftily arranged ensemble. (Watch him perform "Balakundê," one of his four tracks, here.)
Ravi Shankar, "The Concert for World Peace" (A&E)
The closest you'll ever get to being onstage with Pandit Ravi Shankar, this unusually intimate and highly recommended DVD focuses on the fingers and faces of the sitar legend and his accompanists during a 1993 Royal Albert Hall benefit performance. Smiles abound as Shankar, 73 at the time, leads young pups Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Partho Sarathy (sarod) through the labyrinthine passages of ragas Kirvani and Misra Khammaj.
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—The Motion Picture Soundtrack" (Nonesuch)
A far cry from John Doyle's 2006 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's dark tour de force, wherein Patty LuPone and ensemble sang, acted, danced, and provided their own musical accompaniment, Tim Burton's film adaptation casts non-singing movie stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the lead roles of the bloodthirsty barber and his pie-baking accomplice, Mrs. Lovett. Burton's risk seems to have paid off. Not only is the film getting great reviews, but Depp and Carter hardly embarrass themselves by tilting the score toward its dramatic extremes.