Joao Donato - A Bad Donato - SHM SACD

2026. Single layer SACD. Only plays on SACD players.

Inspired by the sounds of the era – from psychedelic rock and post bop to James Brown funk, he recorded “A Bad Donato” for Bob Krasnow’s Blue Thumb imprint at A&M Studio in Los Angeles 1970. 

Sandwiched between albums by Love and Gabor Szabo, it would be Donato’s most progressive work yet, with Krasnow giving him free rein to make the record he wanted. “At the time, music was very raw, noisier,” Donato recalled in the liner notes to the 2004 re-issue. “The Beatles were happening, shouting out their lyrics, and Jimi Hendrix … who shouted with his guitar. And I made the noisiest record I can ever remember making.”

“A Bad Donato” was firmly in time with the era, inspired by Donato’s experimentation with psychedelics and producer Emil Richards’ interest in astrology. The vibraphonist and percussionist’s resume included sessions with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Charles Mingus. He had also been a member of psych rock band The Zodiac whose 1967 album “Cosmic Sounds” for Elektra, complete with spoken word passages about star signs, has become something of a cult classic. By the time of “A Bad Donato”, Richards immersion in astrology saw him insisting on tracks on the album being recorded around certain moon phases, much like Arthur Russell many years later.

The Eumir Deodato arranged album featured Donato on Fender Rhodes alongside a heavyweight line up of Brazilian players including guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves and drummer Dom Um Romão alongside US players such as Bud Shank and reeds man Ernie Watts. Best known for the jazz funk dancers “The Frog” (first recorded by Sérgio Mendes in 1967 and given lyrics by Caetano Veloso in “A rã” from the Gal Costa 1974 album “Canta”) and “Almas Irmãs’” “A Bad Donato” has been a constant source of inspiration for DJs like Gilles Peterson and Colin Curtis.