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Wagner Tiso
Brazilian Scenes
Iris Musique/Kardum (www.mservices.com/iris)
Because Brazil's Wagner Tiso is a respected keyboardist, composer, arranger and conductor who has created an abundance of music for a quarter-century's worth of soundtracks and his own albums, I really wanted to like this release. But because of my low tolerance for fluff, it was not to be. The bulk of Brazilian Scenes falls somewhere between smooth jazz and flat-out elevator music, with overly grandiose keyboards and some very stiff drum programming mostly to blame. Tiso cites jazz, funk, folk and classical music as influences, and while those flavors are discernable, they're drenched in so much syrup as to be virtually without impact. Some attractive rhythmic atmospherics are managed on tracks such as "Ketan," "Totem" and the opening "Baobab" (featuring the saving grace of marvelous vocals by Salif Keita), but there's very little to get excited about here. It pains me to knock a guy who's obviously got an abundance of talent, but these Scenes need to have the curtain brought down on them as quickly as possible. - Tom Orr
Available at cdRoots
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