Joao Donato, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad - Jazz Is Dead 7 (2021)

Joao Donato brings his flavour, now near synonymous with his
name, to a new album in the Jazz Is Dead series with Adrian
Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Joao Donato JID007.

On the first day of recording, João Donato was so flattered that
to learn Younge and Muhammad had crafted some tunes for him to
grace that on the second day, the maestro showed up to the
studio with a composition in honour of his new musical partners:
“Adrian, Ali and Gregory.” Gregory (aka Greg Paul) delivers an
effortlessly buoyant rhythm to support Donato’s whimsical and
wistful Fender Rhodes. Younge and Muhammad added the flute
melody after the sessions, a perfect tribute and compliment to
this master arranger, sweet and melancholic at the same time.
Building off a sinister interlocking drum and bass pattern,
Donato, Younge, Muhammad, Paul and vocalist Loren Oden,
assemble a swaying and swirling tune with a romantic mantra,
“Nao Negue Seu Coraçao,” which translates to “Don’t Deny Your
Heart.” Aspirational saxophones dance among cascading
monophonic synths, a churning Hammond B3 and cutting fuzz guitar
while Donato’s subtle and slinky Fender Rhodes leads the way
through the musical maelstrom. Delivered in Portuguese, Loren
Oden sings the song’s emotional energy into existence.

If Jon Lucien made a fusion album, it would have sounded
something like “Forever More.” Oden’s vocals capture the longing
and romanticism of the title, while the rhythm section harkens
back to the last album Donato recorded in Los Angeles in 1970,
a jazz fusion fore-runner full of pulsing polyrhythms and urgent
melodies. “You guys made me like L.A. again,” Donato told Younge
and Mohammad towards the end of his 2019 trip to record this
album and perform at the Jazz Esta Morto series.