Duas Vozes, Portuguese for "two voices", is the second duo album that Egberto Gismonti and Naná Vasconcelos made for ECM, recorded in Oslo in June 1984. Gismonti plays guitars, piano and flutes, Vasconcelos percussion, berimbau and voice, and the music moves freely between Brazilian song, an Amazon Indian melody and loosely structured improvisation. In ECM's words, the partnership "brought new colours to improvised music" on the label.
The two had first recorded as a duo on Dança das Cabeças, made in Oslo in November 1976. Released in 1977, it won the German Record Critics' Prize as album of the year. Duas Vozes was recorded at Rainbow Studio, produced by Manfred Eicher with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer. Besides his usual instruments, Gismonti plays the dilruba, a bowed Indian string instrument. Most of the pieces are his. The programme also includes Ary Barroso's Aquarela do Brasil, arranged by the duo, the traditional Tomarapeba arranged by Vasconcelos, and Vasconcelos's own closing piece O Dia, à Noite.
The opening Aquarela do Brasil takes Barroso's standard into open territory, with Vasconcelos's vocal whoops running over Gismonti's guitar. Fogueira, which opened the original second side, balances restraint and full-out effusiveness, with Vasconcelos adding colour throughout. Don Quixote was written by Gismonti with Geraldo Carneiro. Here Vasconcelos's fluttering tongue sounds suggest insects in a forest, while Gismonti moves to the piano for a final, droning stretch.
The album divides opinion. ECM itself hears the sounds of the rainforest in Vasconcelos's percussion and an "earthy directness" in Gismonti's guitar. On ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo found the first half too loose, a "misshapen improvisation session" in which the colours do not quite blend. From Fogueira on, however, he heard something undeniably special, and judged the record worth hearing for its second half alone. Both musicians had already appeared together on Vasconcelos's ECM album Saudades, recorded in 1979, between the two duo records.
This CD is the 2008 edition in ECM's Touchstones series, which brings key albums from the catalogue back into print. Duas Vozes was first released in March 1985 as ECM 1279.
