Skip to main content

Rão Kyao - Fado Bailado (1983)


When I was on mu trip to Lisbon, walking at the evening with family and friends through Alfama district, from one of the small restaurants I heard for the first time Fado, unique folk music straight from this beautiful country. Then it hit me, I should go and search for some fado musicians and write about it. On my way back I made my choice: Rão Kyao and his Fado Bailando became my next album to listen.
There is not so much (at least not in English) information about this artist. What I could find about about him this he travelled far and tried to connect Portuguese folk music with eastern sound of Asia (like India). He also had a lot of influences from Jazz music. Usually I’m going through most songs individually, this record I will treat differently. It has this unchained soul this swiftly goes from one track to another. And in this way I should treat this piece from Rão Kyao, as a seamless flowing music. What caught me at the start is a saxophone. Rão quickly mastered this instrument and showing his incredible skills from the first second of Fado Bailando. You could be surprise how smoothly this instrument goes with delicate and charming classic guitars that creates a beautiful background for the songs. You can hear all the jazz influences I mentioned earlier, but enormous talent of today’s post hero let saxophone become a one with the rest. I never thought mix of these two styles: fado and jazz can go so well together. But it just shows how many surprises I have on my way. Saxophone is a beautiful voice of this album. After a couple of times you understand that no voice on earth would give so many emotions and notes as done this instrument on this album. It speaks to me undoubtedly, gives me all the thrills and let me interpret meaning of every tune on my own terms. It leads me but doesn’t keep me in steel frames. Tempo of whole album is slow but I feel it is perfect for the emotions this Rão wants to show. Fado is often melancholic, lets the audience drift in they thoughts and dreams and Fado Bailando goes with this rule. It works fantastic in moments when you want to relax and just swim into the evening with a smile and Sangria in your glass. There is no rhythmic section but you can understand why. All the spectrum is filled with guitars, (occasionally) keys and saxophone, there is no need for another instrument. All these beautiful songs are told without pulsing rhythm, this kind of music is just great on it’s own small group of sounds.
Conclusion: Short (35 minutes) but memorable Fado Bailado gave me a great introduction to Fado music. If you have never heard it, it’s time to discover national music of Portugal. Rão Kyao on top of this gives you unique point of view on this music style and also introduce you to a whole new world of genre fusion. Time to get away from that all to well known popular music and discover some unique tunes as Fado Bailando is a great representation of it!

Labels:
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sadao Watanabe – Morning Island (1979)

Hi guys! Usually when I do a research for my blog I decide to rely on blind luck. This time with some help of a friend from work I turned to Japan to discover some jazz music. Then album Morning Island by Sadao Watanabe emerged. After quick check on the Internet I realised that I’m about to hear a legendary musician that was playing on saxophone before even my parents were born! So I quickly dived into this album and learnt that there is a lot of beautiful music ahead of me. Sadao Watanbe is a Japanese multi instrumentalist who divided his time between his homeland and USA (he was a student in Boston Barkley's collage). Morning Island is a 42th (!) release by this great musician (he has more than 70 compilations and albums done!). So at the start I had a title song. And it couldn't be more beautiful! Sound is soothing, mellow with a flute that provides a lovely melody, if you are not in the mood after you woke up, try this song! I bet it will ease your nerves and help y...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vangelis - Spiral (1977)

Hi folks! After a wee break I’m coming back with a new post. Today I want to present you someone who is very famous and there is no way you’ve never heard his work (like, really, no chance for that at all). But isn’t it something that shouldn’t be in Positive Reviews? Well, actually I think it should. Maybe Vangelis is a well-known figure in music world but his earlier stuff, is not. So I would like to talk to you about one of his first albums, and to be exact, third one: Spiral . Vangelis is a Greek composer who gave a wonderful music of Blade Runner (1994) and Chariots of Fire (1981) just to name two. But his discography is a massive collection and I was amazed when I dug deeper and saw in how many projects he contributed, how many albums and films scores he wrote. So when I started listening to Spiral I was very intrigued. This record contains only 5 tracks but they are very long pieces that take 39 minutes of music all together. I felt like I need to prepare my senses fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Howard Hewett – I commit to Love (1986)

Hello ladies and gents! Another Sunday and another portion of Positive Reviews coming! In today’s chapter I’ve decided to go in more R&B/Soul/Urban style. Once again I turned to blind luck and picked an album that was telling me absolutely nothing. I commit to Love is a first solo album of Howard Hewett. His career started in late 70's, when he joined a Grammy winners Shalamar. It was a take to rise for Howard as he established his voice well in earlier mentioned genres. When in 1985 this cult band split, young vocalist started his solo career. Only one year later his first album saw the daylight and very quickly won hearts of millions. Many of the song that appeared on the album went very high on different charts, a whole album went Platinum. This information gave me the idea that once again I chose right. I was very curious of what gem hides in these files I was about to stream from one of the music services. First song on the record - “Stay” - started with a dr...
Post a Comment
Read more