How often does a wine columnist sell out the Jazz Cafe two nights running? A singing bon viveur, expert in wine, cheese and rare vinyl? A balding, thirtysomething Brazilian, sporting luxuriant beard, voluminous trews and matching red tie and cardigan? Somehow it makes sense, because Ed Motta pushes all the right retro buttons: his songs and sounds evoke the early solo albums of Stevie Wonder, George Duke and Donny Hathaway. There are blasts of soul-jazz and blues-rock, Larry Carlton-like guitar solos and a library of funky dance grooves replayed in the spirit of the originals.
The band, with bassist Alberto Continentino, guitarist Paulinho Guitarra, Rafael Vernet on Rhodes piano and synthesiser/ vocoder and the mighty Renato "Massa" Calmon on drums, is deceptively virtuosic. Calmon has a way of decorating the lighter songs with a double-time ride cymbal, a delicious timbral variation that makes his transitions to rock-hard backbeats all the more effective.
Motta starts off at a little keyboard with some solo numbers, but soon he's on his feet to sing a mid-tempo torch song. The corners of his shirt collar stick out endearingly: he's the most unlikely Brazilian sex god you will ever see. And when the band get stuck into funky-chicken guitar and rasping synth-horns, his lead vocal remains sweet and true, in Marvin Gaye/Al Jarreau tradition.
There are more surprises: "I love soul, funk and jazz. But I simply love Broadway musicals, and I love the London cast versions. My ambition is to write a musical so that I can hear the English singers do my music..." Motta launches into a hilariously accurate imitation of a West End actor singing a Sondheim-type song: beautifully pitched, fruity warbling. The Friday-night crowd, here to drink and get down, is puzzled but indulgent.
Motta carries on, telling us how much he loves waltzes, delivering a couple of nu-chanson-type numbers (including Rainbow's End, from his latest album, Poptical) before digging deep into a breezy repertoire that winds the audience back into party mood, with a bit of vocal beatbox-and-bass thrown in. When he straps on a guitar for a full-on version of Sunshine of Your Love (he performs a different rock classic every night) the crowd erupts. An unlikely, but entirely likable pop star.
