BRASS TACKS

Imagine a gaggle of trumpets, trombones, euphoniums (what the heck are they?), a tuba, bass, drums and piano in your face with rousing, stomping jazz rhythms, samba, African beats, Middle Eastern melodies, avant-garde funk, a touch of salsa, and....well, you get the idea. You have just discovered BRASS TACKS (as in getting down to)!

Amy Duncan is the creator of this madness...an American pianist, percussionist, writer and arranger who hails from Manhattan (where she first put BRASS TACKS together), but now lives in Rio de Janeiro with a whole new version of the band.

The other nine members are all Brazilian guys, born and bred, thus their penchant for playing killer sambas...but they swing hard on the straightahead jazz numbers, too. Call it 'Birth of the Cool' meets World Beat, if you will, BRASS TACKS dishes up a happy smorgasbord of international flavors.

Oh, and yeah, there really are two euphoniums in the band. In case you didnt know, theyre the things that look like baby tubas that you usually see in Salvation Army bands. But you wont find any hymns in the BRASS TACKS repertoire. Amys feisty compositions weave a tapestry whose warp is jazz, but whose woof extends all the way from Brazil to Ghana and back, via the U.S. and Cuba. One of the bands most requested numbers, 'Roach Motel,' tells the tale of how the little buggers take off on vacation but encounter an unpleasant surprise, and features a rap by the guys in the band, yep you guessed it: They check in, but they dont check out!

BRASS TACKS was born in New York in 1984. Amy played many shows and clubs with the band there, among them the Knitting Factory and The Blue Note (where trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Lew Tabackin played with the band on two occasions). Later on BRASS TACKS toured with political comedian Mort Sahl, as house band for his cable TV show. Many excellent musicians have passed through the band, among them the trombonists Delfeayo Marsalis and Robin Eubanks, trumpeters Brian Lynch and Valery Ponamarev, percussionist Richie Flores and drummer Chester Thompson (drummer for Phil Collins).

In 1990 Amy became seriously interested in Brazilian music, especially samba. She learned to play percussion, and ended up going out in the percussion sections of several samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. That was when she began to include samba rhythms in her compositions and arrangements for BRASS TACKS.

Falling in love with Brazil, and especially with Rio de Janeiro, Amy made a permanent move to Rio in 1999, where she is currently living in Copacabana. She put BRASS TACKS together with a group of Brazilian musicians in 2000.

The new BRASS TACKS debuted at the club Giraldia Up Jazz in Rio in June, 2000 and afterwards played several times at Mikas Bar in Ipanema. In January, 2002, the band's first CD, "My Joy," was recorded and is now available worldwide through CD Baby - Click on the link "How to buy the Brass Tacks CD."

ABOUT AMY DUNCAN AND BRASS TACKS...

"The Brass Tacks recording, with ten compositions and arrangements by its leader, is one of the pleasantest surprises to appear here in Brazil, in terms of jazz, in recent years."

--Luiz Orlando Carneiro, Jornal do Brasil


"The band is daring in its repertoire, playing all original tunes written and arranged by Ms. Duncan. It's so difficult to hold an audience's attention with the program made up totally of unfamiliar tunes that most leaders don't take the risk. Duncan does -- and succeeds."

-- Leslie Gourse (The Christian Science Monitor)


"Duncan is primarily a pianist and composer who has concentrated on writing for brass players and finding
good ones to play her glimmering, robust music."

-- Gary Giddens (The Village Voice)


"It's quite a refreshing sound, not only because of the brass, but also the hip compositions and strong soloists. My only complaint is that I didn't hear it sooner."

-- Cornelius Bumpus (The Doobie Brothers)


"'Out of the Blues' .... took its cue from a lively commissioned score by Amy Duncan that was smashingly performed onstage by Miss Duncan and the band she directs, Brass Tacks."

-- Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times, in a review of Jazzdance at the Joyce Theater)


"Duncan, a small woman whose hands can barely stretch an octave ... is a cooking, inventive pianist."
-- Leonard Feather (Jazz Times)

COMMENTS FROM FANS:

"That first track had me believing that I was in Rio....during Carnival (or is it Carnaval?)....and practicing my samba with the throngs that mob the streets during that festival. On second thought, there probably isn't much demand for sedentary, bald, albino-like Norwegians so its perhaps best that I confine my fantasies to the living room."

"I LOVE your CD and am so impressed you could run off to South America and put together a re-creation of your New York band. I bet if you moved to Alaska you could get a bunch of Eskimos and polar bears together and do the same thing, or Hawaii and get dolphins and sea turtles to do it there."

LINKS:

...uma novidade na música instrumental!!!

Nosso primeiro CD! (sound clips)

Como comprar o CD da Brass Tacks - How to buy the Brass Tacks CD