Going to a gig in Momo's basement is like seeing old friends in your eccentric aunt's parlour. The interior is soft and dark, with furniture everywhere - sofas, pouffes and low tables. Fortunately there's a bit of floor space left for Brazilian musician Vinicius Cantuaria to install his band: Nanny Assis on percussion, drummer Paulo Braga, bassist Paul Socolow, the leader on guitar and vocals and Jenny Scheinman on violin, deputising for absent trumpeter Michael Leonhart.
The music is supple global pop - catchy songs, old and new, by Cantuaria, classic material by Gilberto Gil and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Cubanos Postizos (Prosthetic Cubans) is wayward and feelgood; Gil's Procissao is both tense and joyful. As Cantuaria moulds his A-list repertoire into new shapes, the band members follow every twist and turn with beautiful percussive timbres, rhythms and dancing bass figures. Socolow, Assis and Braga have the kind of telepathic relationship you get in improvising groups like those of Wayne Shorter or Tomasz Stanko. Except that what they're playing isn't jazz, and there are few solos. Scheinman's pizzicato strumming sounds oddly, authentically Brazilian, while her country swing and swirl leads the band into brave new pastures: the sublime O Nome Dela seems to take a rocky road trip to Nashville via downtown New York.
Cantuaria is a fine guitarist, but never overplays; he has a distinctive way of letting the chords just hang, creating a mood of delicious suspense. Seated throughout, he's a compelling performer: intense, likeably shy, but with a wild streak. When he forgets David Byrne's English lyrics to Rio, he just sings "blah, blah, blah". At the beginning of Jobim's Ela e Carioca he plays so quietly that a chorus of "shush" sweeps the room. As the bar chatter dies down, the two percussionists introduce a subtle cross-rhythm, just as quiet and Socolow adds a little shaker to the mix. The number smoulders to a climax without even reaching mezzopiano.
Vinicius Cantuaria is a class act, with a great band, knockout songs and a freewheeling spirit that's almost (though I'm reluctant to use the term) rock'n'roll.
