(Reprinted from the October 2024 issue of New York City Jazz Record. Photo: Courtesy of Karrin Allyson.)
As temperatures drop here in NYC, they’re rising in Rio. Coincidentally, this month a scad of new releases from here and abroad conjure all the excitement of Brazil’s rich vocal jazz tradition.
Karrin Allyson has long been a fan of singer-composer Rosa Passos (and vice versa), so when Passos was passing through New York in March 2023, Allyson took the opportunity to record with the Bahian legend. The two tracks they laid down then became the launching pad for A Kiss for Brazil (Origin Records), a 10-cut album that encapsulates Allyson’s decades-long appreciation for Brazilian music.
Of these 10 songs, Allyson and Pasos sing in duet on two: a Brazilian standard and one original. On the former, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ballad “O Grande Amor”, Pasos, singing in Portuguese, establishes the tune’s gentle mood, while Allyson, in English, delivers its rueful message. Of special note, however, is their co-written “Month of March in Salvador (Dunas)”, a joy-filled bossa full of bright imagery across the two languages. Beyond this gem, Allyson pulls out Brazilian standards like Jobim's "Antigua" and Djavan Caetano Viana’s "Flor de Lis", her textured voice and breezy scatting perfectly suited to this hopefully romantic material. Allyson celebrates the new album at Birdland (Oct. 29-Nov. 2).
Like Allyson, esperanza spalding has spent significant time immersed in the rich musical language of Brazil and recently partnered with another of its superstars—singer/instrumentalist Milton Nascimento. On Milton + esperanza (Concord), spalding documents her creative relationship with the fabled songwriter, interspersing audio snippets of their conversations with duo and solo performances of Nascimento classics (“Outubro” and “Morro Velho”), spalding originals (“Wings For The Thought Bird” and “Get It By Now”) and dramatic reimaginings (Lennon & McCartney’s “A Day In The Life” and Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”, the latter featuring Dianne Reeves). This album revisits their earlier meet-up on spalding’s 2010 album, Chamber Music Society (Concord). As on “Apple Blossom”, from that record, the two singers often sing in friendly unison, the differences in vocal timbre creating a soothing contrast in support of the ringing melodies. It’s a historic union.
São Paulo native, Luciana Souza recently unveiled her long-form composition, Twenty-Four Short Musical Episodes (Sunnyside), a cycle of discrete modern songs for voice, guitar and bass. Each episode draws its musical theme from the first line of an Emily Dickinson poem, expressed only through Souza’s nimble vocalese; the singer is in rare form on this record, as she wrings pathos and exuberance out of each interlude. She joins Brazilian guitarist Chico Pinheiro (who played the album) at Miller Theater At Columbia University (Oct. 5).
Avant garde tenorist Ivo Perelman, also São Paulo-born, has only ever collaborated with two singers, Brazilian treasure Flora Purim and Czech singer/violinist Iva Bittová. He adds another name to that list with Messa Di Voce (Mahakala), his new recording with vocalist Fay Victor. Across the album’s nine improvisations, the two soloists explore a shared appreciation for wild experimentation. Perelman visits NYC only irregularly, but Victor appears at Jazz Gallery with her Herbie Nichols SUNG Quintet (Oct. 30).
More Brazilian warmth: First, Rio-born singer-songwriter Delia Fischer, freshly signed with Origin Records, releases her first English-language album, Beyond Bossa, on the label this month, introducing a broader audience to the post-bossa fusion style called música popular brasileira, or MPB. (Notably, singer Gretchen Parlato guests.) Next, multi-award-winner Eliane Elias recorded Time and Again (Candid Records), her 32nd album, in her hometown of São Paulo and introduced it to NYC with a run at Birdland last month. The singer/pianist wrote each of the eight tunes, moving flawlessly in and out of an exhilarating romp of Latin feels. Then, percussionist/vocalist Annette A Aguilar leads her Latin jazz-Brazilian jazz band Stringbeans, fronted by lead singer Deborah Reso, on In the North (A Tribute to Northern Manhattan). And, lastly, the Paris Gadjo Club has dropped Café du Brésil III (Frémeaux & Assoc), its third collection recreating Brazilian sambas and manouche jazz selections from across the 20th century (with singers Hélène Argo, Christophe Davot and Jean-Yves Dubanton).
Some October cool: Meshell Ndegeocello takes the stage at NJPAC (Oct. 6); jazz child Sheila Jordan plays Smalls (Oct. 18), and the M3 Festival, co-founded by musicians Jen Shyu and Sara Serpa, presents an impressive list of singers and instrumentalist allies at Roulette (Oct. 25-26).