Toco from Good Songs by Busman's Holiday

Addison's Notes:

This track too had a journey to it. It was at first recorded simply, then had some instruments added to it, and then many more instruments were added to it. At that point it was pretty buried and we had to chip away at the truth of the song. We went back and forth, Lewis taking a couple layers out and then seeing what I thought. There was a lot of fine tuning.

Finally, after the right balance was discovered, we invited Matt Nowlin over to play trumpet on it for the finishing touch. After a clean take, we all decided that his trumpet needed a mute on it, and a Harmon mute ideally. That couldn't be tracked down in a timely manner (i.e. that very moment) so he instead plugged his trumpet's bell with an empty aluminum can. Worked like a charm, and he played beautifully.

Bruno Capinan is friends with Mark Lawson and did us a solid by lending his wonderful voice to the beginning and end of the track. What he crafted as that counter melody at the end is sublime. Lew and I both have a love of Brazilian and South American music. Lewis tried his best to write the first lyrics in Portuguese, knowing no Spanish, not to mention Portuguese. We needed someone with authority to sign off on the words and ideally sing it. Since Bruno is originally from Brazil and seemed to leave the words as is, we took that as a sign that the phrase wasn't too offensively rendered. Good work, Lew.


Lew's Notes:

Always wanted to write a Samba. The tune came after watching Black Orpheus (1959) and getting obsessive about the ending; the little boy dancing with his guitar and playing "Samba de Orfeu" to make the sun come up. Learned a lot of dance moves from that movie too. A treasure. Patrice was blissed out playing the bass on this tune and thought the track was too short. He's was probably right.......He's always right. Peace and Love Patrice!