At the Monterey Jazz Festival (1966)

Official Jazz Heritage Society reissue in jewel box edition licensed by Verve; 6 tracks Nine months before a certain other guitarist made a huge splash at a Monterey music festival, Brazilian acoustic guitarist Bola Sete left his own mark on an American jazz audience still feeding its voracious appetite for all things Brazilian. To be sure, Bola Sete didn't sneak up on the American public quite like Jimi Hendrix did--after all, Sete had made waves as part of Vince Guaraldi's ensemble in the years leading up to this historic 1966 performance. The classically trained Sete wowed fans with a unique style that seemed to fall somewhere between Andrés Segovia's elegance and Django Reinhardt's exuberance, a space not as wide as you might think. By the summer of '66, Sete had graduated to his own trio with bassist Sebastião Neto and percussion master Paulinho Da Costa. The centerpiece of this performance is the three-song "Black Orpheus Medley," but Sete adds a pair of noteworthy originals. "Soul Samba" has subtle blues inflections that remind you that Barney Kessel was the first jazz guitarist to catch his ear. "Flamenco" is a simply stunning solo performance that blends challenging chording with incredibly speedy single-note runs, and offers the most overt example of his comfort with the folk traditions of his homeland. At some points, he amazingly plays his own bass accompaniment to his upper-register notes. This long-overdue 2000 CD reissue fleshes out the original LP release by adding 4 minutes to the medley as well as 2 unreleased cuts (with poorer sound quality) from the show, including a bossa nova arrangement of Ellington's "Satin Doll." --Marc Greilsamer