Jazz Està Morto: Marcos Valle

Marcos Valle
Marcos Valle straddled North and South America for over twenty years taking part in some of the most important recordings by artists including Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jobim, Sergio Mendes, Leon Ware, Chicago and Airto Moreira. In 1963 at the tender age of twenty Marcos managed to record over a dozen albums in Brazil debuting with ‘Samba Demais’. Overnight Marcos was a success. His biggest success in Brazil was to come with the album ‘Viola Enluarada’ which cemented his position as a major recording artist in Brazil and one of the most important innovators of the Bossa Nova genre.
After touring the States with Sergio Mendes band there was a growing interest in his songs from several American artists. He received many invitations to record in the States and to appear on national television. The boy from Ipanema was suddenly the star of the Andy Williams Show coast to coast across the States. Probably his biggest triumph was for entering the Guinness Book of Records as the only artist to have a track in the Billboard Top Forty with three different versions of the same song at the same time including a version by Frank Sinatra. The song Samba de Verao became a bossa nova standard.
Determined to keep in touch with his roots Marcos returned to Brazil in 1968 to work with Milton Nascimento on his own television show which helped to launch Milton’s career. He also continued to record the seminal series of albums on EMI
always adapting his songwriting and production style which twenty years on were rediscovered on dance floors of Europe. In the late 70s Marcos continued to work in the US and started long-standing partnerships with Leon Ware and Chicago and performed with major artists like Sarah Vaughan. The partnership with Leon Ware was very profitable and they worked closely together on Leon’s album ‘Rocking You Eternally’ and his self titled LP.” We have ben trying to bring Marcos to Los Angeles for over a decade now. The wait is up and the time is here!

To talk about Marcos Valle and the energy he brought to the Lodge Room, we would have to say it was a feeling of gratitude. Gratitude coming from not only the amazing amount of LA fans who showed out for both shows, but also from Marcos himself in being grateful for adding this once in a lifetime experience to his long rap sheet of shows he has been doing since his 20’s. This was the absolute best way to close out this series, even though we just did not want any of this to end.

The special part about this show had to be when Marcos shared the stories of his first times in LA and the incredible musicians he was fortunate to work with. For example, Leon Ware, who was responsible for a majority of production on Marvin Gaye’s catalog. And, we were lucky enough to have his widow attend the first performance, in which Marcos dedicated and performed the song “Rockin’ you Eternally” to her. Furthermore, it was lovely to witness the on stage connection with his wife Patricia Alvi, whom they have been singing together for 25 years.

Marcos has been the master of boogie since before it was a thing, so we had a night filled with so much energy and excitement. It was really sad to have all of this greatness come to an end, but we are filled with joy and honor to know that we were able to make history the entire month of June in Los Angeles with ArtDontSleep, Linear Labs, and Jazz Is Dead. Thank you all for the love and support, and we can’t wait to share what’s up next!