I love many of Johnny Mandel's tunes. I think this one was written for the film The Sandpiper. The theme is so well known that all you have to do is state it once and then feel free to take liberties with the rest of the melody. Try to get as full and rich a sound as you can. Even though the tune has been over recorded, and probably falls into the pop music category, it can still be a satisfying vehicle for jazz players.

The band actually changed its name to Brasilia, but there were some videos posted here a while back of a live concert (Double Rainbow, Triste, etc) when the band was called Samba Jazz Syndicate. The recording features some beautiful Brazilian tunes like Cafe com Pao and Na IIha De Lia, No Barco De Rosa (On Lia's Island, In Rosa's Boat)…and great guitarist Bruno Mangueria. Also, a tune of mine (Fresh Biscuits) which is not Brazilian.

If interested below are links to iTunes and also my sound cloud that has some samples of the cd.
Best, Rusty

He's the representant (creator ?) of the ethio jazz, that is the Ethiopian Jazz.

Check out David's new great duo!

Lesson with ideas for working on Major7#5 chords. A good place to start if, like me, you feel like you don't always have much to play over them.

Practicing solo vibraphone today on Body & Soul. A few things that I was thinking about during this practice session included: enhancing the harmony via added tensions, Upper Structure Triads and a variety of voicings, varying the harmony with chord substitutions, staccato articulation via deadstrokes, incorporating dampening as a means of adding to the variety of articulation as well as helping to make the counterpoint sound clean, varying the four mallet techniques.