George Duke - A Brazilian Love Affair

This album is one of my favourites. I know and love every note.

I think I was first introduced to it in the mid-eighties by my mate, who had the LP, which I taped. I reckon I must’ve played that tape a lot, until I picked up a copy on CD.

I got this superb Japanese pressing from friends for my birthday a few years ago, obi strip and fold-out sleeve notes n’all.

It’s basically Duke doing his thing in Rio with a load of Brazilian musicians (most of whom he was playing with regularly anyway). This album opened up a whole new world of music and musicians to me. It was my introduction to Airto, Flora Purim and Milton Nascimento, just for starters.

Whilst we’re on the subject of Milton Nascimento, I was once in a record shop run by a very knobby-know-it-all-cunt. He was playing Cravo E Canela (the Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy version, as it turned out). “Oh” says I, just making conversation like, “Cravo E Canela – I’ve got George Duke doing this.”
“Ohh no,” says K.K.I.A.C., “This is a Bonnie Prince Billy song, blah, blah, Tortoise, blah, blah.”
“Nah, mate - it’s a Milton Nascimento tune, I think you'll find.”
He wasn’t having a bar of it, even as I left the shop, confident that he would look it up when I'd gone.

Oh, and the I’d like to say the Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Bill version is shite, but it’s quite OK.

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