Caymmi Keeps on the Run With His Brazilian Sound

Dori Caymmi is well-known to followers of Brazilian music. Since moving to Los Angeles from Rio de Janeiro last year, it seems his name is everywhere. This year alone, his guitar, vocals or songs turned up on new recordings by Kevyn Lettau, Don Grusin and David Benoit. Caymmi (pronounced Ki-ee-me) also arranged the music for the movie “Havana,” released last year, starring Robert Redford.

And in June, Caymmi, 48, released a recording of his own, “Brasilian Serenate.” Described by Caymmi as a tribute to the natural wonders of his native Brazil, the album is a lush, inviting collection of 10 Caymmi originals and two songs by his father, Dorival Caymmi.

But, as Caymmi, who plays the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach (above Diego’s restaurant) this Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights notes, “My music came to the United States long before I did, in the 1960s.”

With his father, Caymmi played with most of the Brazilian stars responsible for the American bossa nova craze of the early 1960s: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Gil Costa, Gilberto Gil.

“I was happy with Brazilian music until 10 years ago,” Caymmi said. “Then, they started to change it to something so commercial, so difficult to listen to on radio and television--they banished all kinds of good singers and players from the media.

“I felt that I needed someplace else, and the place that I knew more people, more musicians, was California. And I came because I have a great chance here to keep going musically, to learn something from the way they do things now, from people like Benoit and (John) Patitucci.”

With commercially successful artists like Benoit and Grusin embracing Brazilian music, it is more prevalent than ever. Caymmi believes his country’s music makes a natural marriage with American jazz.

“First, both have the European influence. Second, both have the black influence. Third, the bossa nova movement was very based in American jazz. I remember Miles Davis falling in love with Joao Gilberto in the 1960s.”

Caymmi, who cites influences ranging from Gil Evans to Bill Evans, from Thad Jones to Quincy Jones, and from the Hi Los to Take Six, will play shows at 9 and 11 Friday and Saturday nights, and at 7 and 9 Sunday night.

At Crawford High School during the mid-1970s, Doug Robinson hung with a precocious group of young musical Turks including Hollis Gentry, Nathan East and Carl Evans. Saxman Gentry is about to tour with David Benoit. Bassist East is Eric Clapton’s main man on the bottom end. And Evans supplies keyboards and vocals in Fattburger, San Diego’s best-known light jazz band.

As for Robinson, he took a more circuitous route through life. After graduating from Crawford, he decided to join Synanon, a cooperative group known for its success with rehabilitating drug addicts. Robinson didn’t have a drug problem, but he wanted to experience the communal lifestyle. He spent several years living that way in a variety of cities.

In Synanon, Robinson, who plays keyboards, bass, guitar, drums and percussion, hooked up with saxophonist Bruce Gilbert, and the two became musical and professional associates. For the past 10 years, they have lived communally with several other ex-Synanon members on 360 acres in the Sierra foothills east of Fresno, where they operate a successful advertising business. Mainly, they produce “bizarre, Monty Pythonesque training tapes” for corporations such as Xerox and Chevron, Robinson said.

Last month, Robinson and Gilbert released a self-produced CD titled “Talking to Dogs” which they hope will land them a recording contract.

Robinson grew up idolizing Frank Zappa and Weather Report. In Synanon, he rubbed elbows with recovering jazz greats including veteran trombonist Frank Rehak, whom he cites as an important influence.

As you might expect, his music merges the polished, complex composing skills and electronic experimentation of Wayne Shorter (a Weather Report founder) or Zappa with the straight-ahead improvising of Rehak’s generation. Occasionally, the complex, careful compositions become so self-conscious that they cancel any traces raw spontaneity, but most often, they succeed.

The new CD isn’t available in San Diego County stores, but you can mail-order one by sending $15 to Doug Robinson, the Adcap Group, 50300 Highway 245, Miramonte CA 93641.

RIFFS: This Saturday night from 8 to 12 at Jazz by the Way in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego saxophonist Hollis Gentry makes his last local appearance before going on tour with David Benoit. . . .

Fresh off their national tour together, blues guitarist-singer Larry (Arkansas) Davis, and his new band--including San Diegans Bill Thompson, Paul Kimbarow and Kevin Hennessey of the Mighty Penguins--play Elario’s this Thursday through Sunday nights. . . .

San Diegans Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham and their Sweet Baby Blues Band depart Saturday from Miami aboard the SS Norway. They are among the featured entertainers on a seven-day jazz cruise of the Caribbean. The Cheathams will take the opportunity to polish material for their new album, to be recorded in Los Angeles Nov. 6, 7 and 8. . . .

Reel to Real, which just signed a new promotional and distribution deal with San Diego’s own Time Is Records, plays the KSDS-FM “Jazz Nite” at the Catamaran this Wednesday night.Time Is will mail Reel to Real’s CD to some 50 radio stations across the country this week. . . .

A special, hour-long collection of out-takes from KPBS-TV’s “Club Date” jazz program airs this Friday night at 11. Included are performances by Red Rodney, Art Farmer with Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon, Harry (Sweets) Edison, Joe Pass and others.