No culpes a Matt

Maxi-Single de 1987 que preveía el futuro a corto plazo en las discotecas de Europa.

Toda la discografía de Matt Bianco (1984-2010)

• 1984 - Whose Side Are You On?


• 1986 - Matt Bianco


• 1988 - Indigo


• 1991 - Samba in Your Casa


• 1994 - Another Time Another Place


• 1995 - Gran Via


• 1997 - World Go Round


• 2000 - Rico


• 2002 - Echoes


• 2004 - Matt's Mood


• 2009 - Hifi Bossanova

MATT BIANCO

Si antes 26 años eran una eternidad, ahora no son nada en el mundo de la música popular. Pareciera que, al menos desde nuestras trincheras, la música se hubiera estancado en un trance interminable de mediocridad: lo único que nos excita es la envoltura, el paquete que lleva el sonido. Las canciones ya no son el motivo principal de admiración de un artista, sino cómo se viste (Lady Gaga), en qué club se presenta (David Guetta), cuántos años tiene (Justin Bieber) o con quién se está acostando (Selena Gómez).

Foto de libreto del CD Best of Matt Bianco, 1990.

Single de 1986. Brillante.

Danny White, Basia Trzetrzelewska y Mark Reilly, 1984.

Uno puede darse cuenta que la música el 2012 está bien jodida cuando Madonna acaba de "cantar" en el Superbowl, un año después de que los Black Eyed Peas hicieran el ridículo en el mismo escenario; que la mejor cantante del momento, Adele, está en tratamiento de recuperación por una cirugía a las cuerdas vocales y que se retira de la música en cualquier momento, y que las mejores voces de los últimos 30 años, Etta James, Whitney Houston y Amy Winehouse, se hayan ido de pronto y dentro de un periodo breve, dejando un forado inmenso. Tiempos tristes estos.

Felizmente, para levantar la moral, está Matt Bianco si uno quiere arriesgarse. En 1988, el grupo (porque Matt Bianco es un grupo, no un solista; abordaré este detalle más adelante) tuvo un éxito relativamente grande en Estados Unidos con "Don't Blame It On That Girl", un número bailable que mezclaba el pulsante ritmo de Miami con una sutil vocalización británica. Pero Matt Bianco resultó ser un tesoro escondido en un océano de Top 100. Su música llega a donde Miami Sound Machine, por el lado latin pop, nunca pudo llegar, y a donde el smooth jazz jamás se atrevió a incursionar. De ahí a que sus álbumes sean, cada uno, una verdadera sorpresa.

El concepto de Matt Bianco nació cuando Mark Reilly, Danny White y Kito Poncioni se reunieron para crear música jazz-pop "globalizada". Quizás imaginaron que Matt Bianco era un "nombre clave de algún agente secreto británico que se queda de expatriado en el Caribe para hacer música y pasarla bien luego de alguna misión tortuosa en las congeladas planicies de la Siberia soviética", o quizás el nombre salió de la imaginación de Reilly, como si fuera un alter ego potencial. Llamaron a Basia Trzetrzelewska para que sea la vocalista y con ella grabaron el primer disco, mezclado por el exitoso productor Phil Harding, llamado Whose Side Are You On, el cual aquí ya hemos catalogado como una obra maestra. "More Than I Can Bear", una magistral balada, es regrabada con la voz de Basia adornándola por todos lados y se puede encontrar en algunas versiones posteriores del álbum.

Basia y Danny se enamoraron y dejaron Matt Bianco (es decir, dejaron solo a Mark Reilly) para trabajar en la carrera solista de la primera. Fue una buena decisión porque, tres años después, apareció de forma sutil y contundente Time And Tide bajo el sello Epic. Reilly decide continuar con Matt Bianco llamando a Mark Fisher, tecladista y genio de estudio. Junto a una pléyade de invitados, Reilly y Fisher lanzan una serie de discos apuntando al sonido latino pop de Miami Beach y el Caribe manteniendo un pie en el jazz y el pop suave apetecible al gusto inglés. Acertaron con Jenny Evans en la voz para el disco Matt Bianco del 86, el cual incluyó "Yeh-Yeh", un formidable y fresco cover de Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames.

Pero lo mejor llegaría en 1988 con Indigo, un disco totalmente latinizado que tiende a convertirse en álbum de cabecera y uno de los pocos casos en los que Emilio Estefan acerta produciendo un tema: "Don't Blame It On That Girl" se convierte en el  mayor éxito de Matt Bianco y sus claros sonidos de metales y piano montuno inundan muchas radios y discotecas. "Good Times" también atrae a los radioescuchas, pero es "Say It's Not Too Late", continuación natural de "More Than I Can Bear", la verdadera estrella del disco. Indigo en CD suena muy, muy bien. En vinilo, mejor todavía.

Matt Bianco exactamente no es un grupo sino una idea, un producto musical. Funciona en la imaginación del oyente: uno puede decirle a alguien quien nunca ha oído hablar de "Matt Bianco" que se trata de un cantante británico radicado en Miami o en Barbados que tiene una orquesta sensacional. También se puede decir que es un grupo sólido, o un dúo, o la banda de soporte de Basia en sus primeros años de carrera. Las posibilidades son ilimitadas y son nuestras, las de los oyentes.

Los discos siguieron apareciendo y sus producciones impecables sorprendían a mercados en Asia y Oceanía, mas no en los Estados Unidos ni Europa. Matt Bianco es muy querido en Japón e Indonesia, donde recientemente se presentaron en el festival de Jazz de Jakarta. Se trata de música entretenida, y no hay más vueltas que darle ni tres pies de gato que buscar. Son capaces de hacernos levantar las cejas al oír un cover como el de "What A Fool Believes", o hacernos oír más de una vez temas como "Anna Marie".

En el año 2004, Basia y Danny White se volvieron a encontrar con Mark Reilly y grabaron una secuela a aquel magistral debut, el Matt's Mood, que los encontró con veinte años encima, a los tres, y les dio una oportunidad más para tocar juntos. Basia, con una carrera muy respetada aunque irregular, quizás necesitaba un empujoncito de la nostalgia. Funcionó.















En general, Matt Bianco responde muy bien en fiestas europeas o euro-asiáticas donde falte un toque caribeño, o donde la audiencia no esté lista para sonidos completamente afro-latino-caribeño-americanos. Intenten con "Don't Blame It On That Girl", verán que la fiesta se arma. Los fanáticos de Matt Bianco, pocos pero distribuidos en todo el mundo, saben de lo que escribo.

A New Day For You

Time And Tide (Epic, 1987)
BASIA

Alright then, before I go telling you, as usual, how good this album is, you need to hear this woman, at least via YouTube:

We mentioned before that Basia has an angel's voice. That voice is as good today as it was in 1987, when Time And Tide came out. Two years earlier, Basia left the Matt Bianco group along with her bandmate -and then boyfriend- Danny White and went to pursue a solo career. That was a very bold move for the splendid female singer after just one album with the band -which continued as a good act led by the sole survivor founder, Mark Reilly- to jump into a pool that might have been empty. But she was so good and innovative her success was assured. Also, her fan base was growing dramatically, waiting to hear something fresh from her.

Basia Trzetrzelewska, a Polish immigrant to the U.K., had her story told in an enhanced and suggestive way in the masterpiece Whose Side Are You On (WEA, 1984) by Matt Bianco. She jumped the Iron Fence for better pastures in the British Shire and sunny beaches in the United States. A few years after this adventure, she's settled in the land of the free to keep singing, and her voice is warmer, smoother and comforting. She has a record deal with Epic (now Sony/BMG) and her first solo album, Time And Tide presents Basia on the spotlight, and having her way completely, although there's almost no difference in style between this album and Matt Bianco's; just a smoother, calmer theme in the lyrics, no spy and sneaky stories and no instrumentals.

It's an excellent pop album about love.

Some music purists criticize Basia for her crossover-ness, mixing pop, jazz and bossanova rhythms in a reckless way that might affect her final score in Billboard... "it sounds too Pop" some might say, or "that isn't real Brazilian." Categorizations here are useless. Just play her melancholic tribute to Mrs. Gilberto, "Astrud" to a Brazilian national and he or she will love the contrast between her contralto voice and the baritone saxophone's seductive triads. "From Now On's" acoustic guitar will make that Brazilian listener shed a tear and then a miracle will occur: East Europe's vocal tradition will blend along with South America's poly-rhythms in a honest musical polinization. It was an East-West crossover, successfully made the same way 25 years earlier when Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz recorded Jazz Samba and introduced the Bossa Nova to American listeners who wanted to hear something different than the Beatles. Both Basia and White are big fans of "The Sound" Getz.

It's useless to resist pop music of this level when the production balances instruments so well it never becomes dull or boring. There are a lot of synthesizers but not on a single moment they overcrowd the speakers, and there are saxophones and trumpets but you won't feel like you're listening a lame Smooth Jazz station. "Moderation, Basia" said her mother and seems like she learned the lesson in the swinging "Miles Away" (whose finger-snaps and tempo suggest a tribute to Miles Davis) and the funked-up "Prime Time TV." Her high pitched voice dominates over the instruments in the final mix and she's directly loud and clear. Her intense vocal chords, without that annoying vibrato, are the primal musical instrument, and the saxes, bouncing synth basses and horns are her faithful sidekicks. Pretty much like Snow White and her dwarfs.

Most of the time we remember her voice double-tracked on the choruses, but when she blasts those fragile longings as in "Promises" and "Time And Tide," we realize she represents the everyday honest woman who wants something more in life other than health, money and love.

Consider me a Basia fan. No matter what they say.

Whose Side Are They On?

Whose Side Are You On? (WEA, 1984)

MATT BIANCO

Blessed are they who escaped a life of misery and went far, far away from where repression and hatred lies. Brave and lucky whoever had the courage to go west, beyond the Iron Courtain and managed to reach freedom. It was risky, like being rocketed to the moon. And it took tasks that are described in this record.

For some reason I believe Whose Side Are You On? is about escaping the cold of communism for the warmth of the Western freedom. It is an encounter of an eastern girl with two U.K. guys who created a unique concept for its time. Unfortunately the first line-up didn't last too long.

Matt Bianco is not a person and definetly not a band, being this line-up disbanded completely after a one and only tour, but their story is pretty unique and I'm sure after you hear this album, you'll be impressed. But hey, you have to have open ears and let your emotions flow.

What we have here is one of those records that hook you and won't let go. This if you have a thing for the eighties' synth-pop sound and you once thought they were just a one hit wonder, fun to dance to but with additional flavors needed. Matt Bianco brings that spicyness and makes this one of the best debut albums ever.

It was formed after a jazz project named Blue Rondo A La Turk, and the idea of naming a band with a guy's name wasn't exactly creative (Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd were names already taken.) At the beginning there was Kito Poncioni on bass (who left after 10-15 minutes, probably), Mark Reilly on vocals and Danny White on keyboards. A polish girl named Basia Trzetrzelewska (omit the last name and you have a household name of High-End pop) gets called to work with them, they get a pre-WWII fashion look (very elegant for Basia, hey... she never looked so gorgeous) and the band was more than ready.

However, Bianco seemed to be doomed from the beginning. England wasn't ready yet for caribbean-latin pop sounds yet and they didn't make it at all in the U.S. But this didn't avoid them reaching a cult status and becoming a guilty pleasure for whoever ran into this record and the subsequent ones.

They were misunderstood, as most of the innovative things coming out of the eighties. They even got insulted on public TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEkB25V_ow8

Bastards! This is one of the greatest album of the eighties! Before the inevitable disbanding, they produced amazing pieces of work that somehow reach our emotional strings: "Whose Side Are You On?" is a funky synth pop tune with a walking bass setting up a spy movie in the twilight of the Cold War. Somebody is delivering important information to be delivered to western european intelligence but gets poisoned in an Italian Cafe. The East payed more money to the counter-spy. This incident seems isolated but thanks to Basia's distinctive background vocal work, haunts the entire record with paranoia, romance and longing for freedom.

"More Than I Can Bear" may be about a man longing for the departed lover, but in the album's context it's about a man with no past, maybe a spy, who fell in love with the wrong woman at the wrong time. The CD version of this tune features Mark Reilly by himself wailing about lost love; but in the LP version Basia helps him coping with the pain, creating literally one of the best pop performances of the eighties. You have to hear it to believe it.

After "Bear", the beginning of the Cha-cha in "No No Never" will make you think the rest of the album will suck big time and the first two tracks were just lucky strikes. But no, the song starts growing on you and all of a sudden we get the sensation of having a Caribbean story told by Europeans in a very elegant way. Crossover big time.

"Half A Minute" features Basia's high pitched perfect lead vocals in an amazing, fast paced samba that would make Astrud Gilberto tremble. Samba becomes pop in "It's Getting Late" when Basia plays an innocent girl trying to leave a bachelor's pad while he insists she can spend the night in it. She might be looking for protection but she is still scared to ask for it; therefore, the only way is out. "Get Out Your Lazy Bed," another tune about rushing into freedom by embracing capitalism, was maybe the biggest dance tune of the album, and it's there when we fall in love with Trzetrzelewska's angelical voice, being an emotional counterpart to Mark Reilly's baritone-a-la-Elvis sound.

Whose Side Are You On? is about ex-patriates trying to make it in the West and songwriters Reilly and Fisher play with the idea well: Matt Bianco is supposed to be the name of a spy a-la-James Bond who might be dealing with cold war issues of the time, including romantic affairs with complicated women who don't know what they want. If it's not an album about trespassing, then what is "Sneaking Out the Back Door" about? Matt Bianco releases himself of all responsabilities of a relationship and just... walks away singing a catchy dancing tune with a steady synth-bass riff all over a rocking jazz-chord progression. "Riding With The Wind" is the low point of the record but it's a necessary one, as it embeds the entire idea of moving from point A to point B; an idea present during the entire record, even in the two cohesive, cinematic instrumental tracks that close each side of the LP: "Matt's Mood" and "Matt's Mood II."

Shazam! A concept album of high caliber: Whose Side Are You On? is a collection of songs about freedom and how to reach it, for sure. It's more related to the iron curtain than anything else.

It's a shame that the CD doesn't feature the Basia/Reilly version of "More Than I Can Bear," we get the Mark Reilly-only version. We asked Danny White about this and he told us this:

"Originally on the album, 'More Than I can Bear' had no Basia vocals. The record company [WEA] wanted to release it as a single and suggested Basia should sing on it. This we did and we liked it and on the vinyl version of the record we updated it to include this new version. However the CD version remained with the original version on it (CDs in those days were not the dominant format)."

Also, the original CD doesn't include the bonus tracks featured in the cassette: "Big Rosie" and "The Other Side."

Danny also commented with us why they left the band:

"Basia was not happy just singing backing vocals (with the exception of 'Half a Minute') and felt she had more to offer as a writer as well as a singer. Basia and I were in a relationship at the time, so it seemed natural for me to leave with her".

Basia and Danny White moved on to CBS and three years later released Time And Tide. Was it good? Hell yeah!

The disbandment made Reilly look for partners to reboot the Bianco server and he found it in former Wham! keyboard player Mark Fisher. They released a series of albums throught the nineties (each one full of nice surprises) and circa 2000, Fisher took a leave of absence. Reilly then called back Trzetrzelewska and White who'd been working together since the break-up and recorded a reunion album, Matt's Mood, which is a pleasure to listen to, but way less innocent and intense than Whose Side Are You On?. They went on tour in Europe and the audiences went nuts. Currently, Basia and White are working on a Basia solo project but no news of Reilly's involvment.

Whose Side Are You On? is a masterpiece, period, and the kick-off of one of the most underrated acts in pop history. Too bad Matt Bianco is just widely known for their 1988 hit "Don't Blame It On That Girl" (from the album Indigo, which is a very good record and we can talk about this later.) After finishing listening to it, we realize there's so much to discover out there...