A Babá by Tom Zé & Joey Altruda
Los Angeles musician Joey Altruda has recently produced a new single by Brazilian icon Tom Zé. This single is a reworking of Zé’s 1972 song A Babá, done in the style of traditional Jamaican Ska and includes an alternate version in the Dub Reggae style. This comes as no surprise to those who have followed Altruda’s 40 year career in music. He is noted for his musical diversity dating back to the 1980s, working with iconic artists in Blues, Rockabilly, Jamaican, Afro Cuban, Punk, Funk etc. For this particular release Joey assembled a “dream team” of musicians to back Tom Zé from such bands as Jorge Ben, Novos Baianos, Tito Puente, Ben Harper, The Aggrolites etc. In the spirit of Tropicalia and combining different musical elements/ideas, Joey clearly saw the logic in collaborating with Tom Zé to create something fresh and unique. As stated earlier, this will come as no surprise to his fans who are well familiar with his reputation for making music with icons of the old guard. Altruda personally feels the importance of this particular union, honored to be in the company Tom Zé who is now in his 84th year and still going strong.
Avocaudio is the brainchild and digital label of internationally acclaimed DJ/Producer Roommate (Justin McCauley). The concept behind the label is to create a release platform for talented artists and friends to put forth what they feel is a direct musical representation of themselves. Avocaudio encompasses many different styles of music and continues to evolve with each release.