Vince Guaraldi/Bola Sete & Friends

AMG Review of Vince Guaraldi/Bola Sete & Friends

Richard S. Ginell
All Music Guide

With the first bossa nova wave still raging in North America, Guaraldi returned to the Brazilian groove full-time, this time in tandem with the gentle, classical-influenced, yet subtly swinging, acoustic guitar of Bola Sete. Reportedly Guaraldi and the Rio-born Sete had played together only once before -- the day before the session at Vince's house -- but you would never know it the way these guys weld themselves together with the irresistibly ticking beat. Composer Guaraldi serves up the album's brightest gems -- the winsome "Star Song" and the slightly sardonic, blues-based groovathon "Casaba" -- and there is also a lovely bossa nova treatment of Horace Silver's "Moon Rays." In 2000 the album was combined with the 1966 album Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete: Live at El Matador on a single-disc Fantasy reissue.