Brazilian American composer and guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento’s Cavejaz is an exceptional album that uses laser-guided precision and meticulous recording techniques to create a strikingly inventive and enveloping sonic environment. A virtuoso rooted in afro-samba and choro, do Nascimento spent years as a session musician before launching a solo career marked by adventurous stylistic exploration. His close-mic’d recordings zoom in on his agility, yet his dizzying proficiency remains fluid and natural, proving that technical mastery can sound as effortless as breathing.
The key to Cavejaz is do Nascimento’s understanding of space. Unlike dense recordings, he leaves ample air around every note, ensuring that complex arpeggios and fretboard-spanning chord changes remain crisp and legible. The album’s production is cavernous: “Auguas Serenas” features massive, Panda Bear-esque bass hits, and “Berimba-Guitar” sees jittery fingerpicking overshadowed by looming synthesizer pads. The judicious application of reverb sharpens rather than blurs the sound, adding a slight sparkle that allows overtones to blossom at the stereo edge, forming wispy clouds of harmonics.
The album is a surprisingly cohesive collection, recorded across three distinct global sessions: with percussionist Paulo Santos (of Uakti fame) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil; during a live performance with tabla maestro U-zhaan in Tokyo; and in a solo session in Japan’s coastal Oiso. Despite the globetrotting origins, the minimal instrumentation and shared intuition of the collaborators create the feel of one long, inspired jam. Their greatest asset is restraint; rather than overplay, they augment and amplify one another, showing an exceptional understanding of when to pull back.
The compositions on Cavejaz are not linearly developed but circuitously explored, often starting in media res and employing repetition for hypnotic effect. In “Olhos Luz,” do Nascimento establishes a simple, looping theme, allowing U-zhaan to build a patient groove. Do Nascimento’s subsequent soloing is playful and curious, circling the refrain with syncopated accents, ultimately magnifying the repeated phrase until an abrupt, satisfying conclusion. This artful structure bends jazz toward kosmische, creating a flurry of movement while essentially staying still.
Though the gentle, dreamy tracks could threaten to blend into a haze, the musicians find unique textural capabilities to maintain vividness. On “Tranquilo,” do Nascimento uses a pitch-shifting delay to transform guitar runs into Alice Coltrane-like glissandos, while on “Trilobita,” Santos’ percussion sounds like Moog sine waves. The stunning solo cut “Novo Dia” is bathed in plate reverb, captured so intimately that the sound of fingertips lifting from the frets is audible. Cavejaz serves as a capstone, building on do Nascimento’s diverse catalog to become a quietly immersive work where restraint is masterfully used as a tool for musical expansion.
About the Author
