Manfredo Fest – Brazilian Dorian Dream – LP

Legally blind from birth, Brazilian keyboard player, composer and bandleader Manfredo Fest learnt to read music in braille and began studying classical music at a young age. By 17 he had fallen in love with jazz (particularly the music of fellow blind pianist George Shearing) before becoming swept up in Rio’s emergent bossa nova movement in the sixties. Moving to the States in 1967 where he would go on to work with fellow countryman Sergio Mendes, Fest recorded and self-released “Brazilian Dorian Dream” in 1976, enlisting Thomas Kini (bass), Alejo Poveda (drums, percussion) and Roberta Davis (vocals).

Like a turbo-powered, intergalactic elevator ride, “Brazilian Dorian Dream” builds on the principle of the modal diatonic scales of the Dorian mode, with influences of Brazilian rhythms, North American jazz and funk, and music of the European baroque and romantic era. The coming together of these intergenerational and intercontinental styles coupled with Fest’s visionary use of the Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, Arp and Moog synthesizers (plus a whole load of effects units), makes for an album light years ahead of its time.

Manfredo passed away in Florida in 1999, and his music never quite reached the audiences it deserved. Due to the independent nature and limited run of the original release, “Brazilian Dorian Dream” has to this day remained almost impossible to find on vinyl. Far Out Recordings is proud to make this masterpiece available to new audiences with a remastered vinyl, CD and digital reissue in 2020.

Far Out Recordings

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