josé roberto bertrami: os tatuís (1965) / josé roberto trio (1966)
Francisco Espregueira
José Roberto Bertrami is known as the keyboardist and bandleader of legendary Brazilian jazz trio Azymuth. In 1965, at the age of just nineteen, José Roberto recorded his first studio album with his group Os Tatuís, referring to the town of Tatuí where he was born - a small city in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. The following year he went on to record José Roberto Trio in 1966, delivering two largely slept-on albums of beautiful, expressive samba jazz and bossa nova in just two years. These records stand as a testament to the prodigious genius of one of the most important musicians in Brazil’s history, now reissued by the invaluable work of Far Out Recordings.
Born in 1946, José Roberto was the eldest child in a family of musicians. Having discovered Bill Evans and Miles Davis in his early teenage years, Bertrami began to channel his passion and exceptional musical talent into jazz rather than classical music. This coincided with the growing popularity of bossa nova and José Roberto became more and more drawn into São Paulo’s nightlife, alongside his brother Claudio and other musicians from Tatuí’s emerging scene. This experiences prompted him to record the first album under the group name Os Tatuís.
The self-titled LP featured José Roberto on piano, Claudio on double bass, a horn section and an organist. With compositions by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Durval Ferreira and Adilson Godoy, the album also featured Bertrami’s own composition “A Bossa do Zé Roberto” - a mesmerising piece of bossa jazz, which proved that Bertrami’s compositions could stand alongside those by the bossa greats.
A year later, in 1966, Bertrami went back into the studio, but this time stripping the format back to a trio set up. Again featuring Claudio Henrique Bertrami on double bass, and with Jovito Coluna on drums, the José Roberto Trio recorded their one and only album, featuring compositions by Baden Powell, Manfredo Fest, Marcos Valle and Bertrami himself. The José Roberto Trio typified an emerging movement within bossa nova in the mid-sixties, with a distinctively Brazilian reimagining of the piano jazz trio sound.
Both Os Tatuís and José Roberto Trio are now reissued by Far Out on vinyl. Across both of these historic albums, Bertrami’s stunningly performed compositions are rich with harmonic complexity and rhythmic ingenuity, providing a precursor to some of Bertrami’s futuristic fusion with Azymuth later in his career.