LIVE '94

Very little information is available about this hard to find CD. It seems that som Nosso De Cada Dia´s most progressive line up reunited in 1994 for some gigs. Oddly enough, this is the given year that the band also returned with their original member, the multi instrumentalist Manito. According to some sources, the original trio was augmented by a new guitarist and a keyboards player and did some concerts in that year and were even invited to play in Japan. The band would put an end to future plans due to the tragic early demise of drummer/vocalist Pedrinho in 1995. Upon hearing this CD it is obvious that the line up here is the same as their A Procura Da Essência (live 1975-1976) (minus Tuca Camargo).

Live ´94 is like a condensed version of A Procura Da Essência (only 54 minutes of music instead of the two and a half hours of the latter). Although it is much better recorded, it is still far from perfect. I really expected something quite superior after all these years, and I was hoping they would play the complete ´Amazonia suite´, their album rejected by all recording companies in 1975 for being not commercial enough. But again it was not to be: several songs from that project are played, but they all had already appeared in A Procura Da Essência.

Still, I found it very good to hear at least an average to good recording of that stuff. The band lost none of their great musicianship . Pedrinho Batera (drums/vocals), Pedrão Baldanza (bass, vocals), Egídio Conde (guitars), Dino Vicente (keyboards) and Rangel (percussion) are all briliant musicians and the group had a very interesting mixture of symphonic prog and jazz-rock/fusion (with some strong brazilian rhythms and percussions added). Listening to those songs today I can only imagine the impact they could have had in the brazilian prog scene of that time. They were one of the best groups around and this line up was famous for their great live performances. Ok, the vocals are only average, but their tunes were mostly instrumental affairs anyway and in that field they really exceeded in brilliance and creativity.

Conclusion: an overall good live album of one of the most interesting and promising prog outfits from Brazil. It is not as poorly recorded as A Procura Da Essência, even if technical problems do plague this CD too. But the high quality of the songwriting and the outstanding performances make it a worthwhile addition to anyone interested in this kind of music. I really hope one day anyone who has the original tapes will release the complete Amazonia Suite (if such tapes still exist).

Rating: 3,5 stars.