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We've always loved the music of Paula Morelenbaum, but this time around she's really got something special going on – thanks to keyboards and vocals from the legendary Joao Donato! Most of the tunes in the set are Donato numbers – themselves already a treat, but given a little ...

Some of the earliest work ever recorded by Gilberto Gil – served up here in a really great 2CD set! The first CD in the set a beautiful album of rough-hewn samba tracks, done in a really lively style! Gil's great vocals are very firmly in the lead of the album's arrangements – and ...

A beautiful new live album from Oscar Castro-Neves – done with all the warmth and soul of his classics from many years back! The group here is a cool small combo, with a nice emphasis on jazz – mixed in amidst the familiar bossa grooves we've come to expect from Oscar! Group members ...

Easily one of the greatest albums ever by Hermeto Pascoal – a masterpiece of free-thinking jazz that combines all of the best elements of his work! At one level, there's an experimental approach to instrumentation that really grabs the ears – but it's also wrapped around a key sense of ...

Ivan Lins is working here with a help from a host of international artists – no surprise, considering the influence he's had on music around the world over the past few decades! At its core, the set's got the spirit of all of Lins' best recent work, with that warmer, jazzier vibe he's picked ...

A performance of work by two of the more important instrumental composers in Brazil during the past few decades – Francis Hime and Nelson Ayres! Neither Ayres or Hime play on the record, but the set's based around a serious composition from each – played beautifully, and just in the ...

The group MPB4 pays tribute to some of the greatest Brazilian singers of the 20th Century, from Tom Jobim to Monsueto to Baden Powell to Nelson Cavaquinho. The LP features a number of different "pot pourri" sets dedicated to an individual singer. The group runs through tracks by the ...

One of the best of the Lumiar Songbook series – and a 2 CD set that features a host of Brazil's great artists, all interpreting the work of one of the country's greatest songwriters! Unlike the other volumes, the artist in question – Edu Lobo – does not perform on the discs, but ...

The fourth and final volume in Lumiar's tribute to the great singer/songwriter Dorival Caymmi. This volume's got a lot of nice moments, including "Dona Chica" by Ze Ramalho & Sivuca, "Adeus" by Nelso Goncalves & Marco Pereira, "A Vizinha Do Lado" by Chico ...

A later album by Joao – but a really lovely live performance that sparkles with the warmth and intimacy of his earlier studio albums! The album's got a total of 13 tracks, all recorded at the Montreux jazz festival in 1985 – with no backing for Joao's voice other than his light lively ...

An ambitious larger production from the team of Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque – the famous stage musical O Grande Circo Mistico, based on the poem by Jorge De Lima, and featuring a range of top-shelf performers that includes Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Milton Nascimento, Jane Duboc, Zizi Possi, ...

Jobim doesn't play on this series, but his absence is more than made up for by the masterful assortment of Brazilian musicians who play on the set. Included on this 15 track set of interpretations of Jobim tracks are such great numbers as Marcos Valle doing "Este Seu Olhar", Rosa Maria ...

A loving journey through the early work of Brazilian singer Gal Costa – one that starts with her late bossa masterpiece Domingo, from 1967 – and which ends up with material from her last Philips album, Baby Gal, recorded in 1983! The evolution of Gal's sound during the time is ...

Sweet later work from bossa jazz drummer Milton Banana – a set of tunes delivered as a tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim, but done very much in the spirit of Banana's best 70s work! The style here is a bit more expansive than Milton's harder-edged sets of the 60s – core trio work ...

A great live recording done for Brazilian TV – one that features Joao in a very stripped-down setting, like the best of his classic recordings! The material is pure bossa – with lots of lovely guitar work, and Joao's soulful vocals right up front in the mix. Rita Lee joins in on the ...

Milton's second volume of tracks cut with his legendary "corner club" – with a very similar approach to the landmark first volume! Loads of great artists make guest appearances on here, like Lo Borges, Wagner Tiso, Toninho Horta, and Chico Buarque – and the production has ...

Father and son of the Camargo Mariano family team up in a very personal set of vocal and piano numbers – spare, subtle, and filled with the richness of Cesar's years of accompaniment behind Elis Regina and other Brazilian singers. Cesar's piano is tremendous – lean and flowing, with a ...

2 groovy guys with a real love of Anglo rock – one they manage to express strongly on this mid 60s Brazilian album from the Jovem Guarda years! Like other work of that time, this one's influenced strongly by British and American pop modes – and played in ways that are a bit garagey at ...

Os Vips fuzz it up nicely for this 1967 release – taking things a bit farther than the simple pop of previous records, and showing some of the changes going on at the time in the American and British groups who influenced them! The album's still a few shades more rock than psyche, but you ...

Sweetly compressed rock from O Terco – one of the strongest mainstream Brazilian rock acts of the 70s, and a group who managed to fuse their progressive roots into a well-honed sound by the time of this mid 70s set! There's some nice Brazilian elements bubbling underneath the set's heavier ...

Very early work from Mart'nalia – but a set that more than lives up to all the soulful charm of her recent releases! The album's got a great mix of samba roots and contemporary soul – put together with a warm sound overall, blending mellow keyboards with some rootsier rhythms ...

A nice little set in the best spirit of the excellent Som Livre soundtracks of the early 70s – a rich blend of funky samba, groovy soundtrack tunes, and some strong vocal numbers – all jumping madly from track to track with a fresh and wounderful feel! As with others in the genre, ...

Really lovely work from Lisa Ono – tunes that have a bit more of a Cuban-styled Latin groove than some of her other mostly-bossa work! The sound is a really nice one, with piano lines stepping around the percussion at the bottom of the grooves – yet still the same lightness and ...

A landmark album that changed a generation of Brazilian musicians – a sublime instrumental collaboration between Airto, Hermeto Pascoal, and 2 other great musicians of their generation! The sound is quite unique – almost a modern recasting of older rootsy modes – taken into the ...

A wonderful step forward for the mighty Seu Jorge – a great departure from his previous albums, but a set that's every bit as great! The style here is a bit more complex at times – not as immediately rootsy as on Jorge's Cru album, with some fuller production and instrumentation – ...

The group MPB4 began as a simple vocal harmony quartet – in the spirit of Os Cariocas or Quarteto Em Cy – but as time went on, they developed a style that was much more far-reaching, and which was influenced by a lot of the changes in popular music going on around them. You'll hear a ...

Compelling work from Taiguara – a romantic singer, but one with a real edge! At first listen, the album seems to be sweet pop – but as it progresses, there's some great elements that really open up the sound and take it into the world of the baroque. One of these is the group Quarteto ...

A tremendous little live set from Brazilian keyboardist and composer Wagner Tiso – one that draws on his rich career in music over many years – including his work with Milton Nascimento and Som Imaginario, plus his more ambitious compositions as an artist on his own! The lineup here is ...

Killer early work from Eumir Deodato – all done in an organ-heavy groove that's quite similar to Walter Wanderley's best from the time! Deodato handled all the arrangements, and although his organ and piano are at the front of the mix, the group's nicely large too – with additional ...

A sweet little album by one of Brazil's greatest vocal groups! The lovely Quarteto Em Cy perform some of the greatest compositions of Vincius De Moraes – with backings arranged by Celia Vaz, and guest appearances by Chico Buarque, Toquinho, Tom Jobim, and Vinicius himself! The tracks have ...

A very unusual album from little-known Brazilian singer Vanusa – one that's got a sound that's as compelling as her slightly hippie-ish look on the cover! The style here is sometimes in a mellow and romantic mode – but the record has a fair bit of 70s singer-songwriter touches too ...

Maybe a bit less jamming than you might expect from the title – but a great session of bossa nova instrumentals, served up by the twin guitars of Eddy Poalermo and Roberto Menescal! Both players trade lines back and forth nicely here – mixing electric and acoustic elements with backing ...

An excellent new funky group from Brazil – one steeped in traditions of American Hammond grooves, mixed with Afro Cuban rhythms, and a cut and paste mix-up pastiche that recalls the glory days of the early 90s west coast acid jazz Cookin' scene! The record's a lot more compelling than we ...

A groundbreaking piano trio from the end of the 60s – headed up by Brazilian jazz legend Gilson Peranzetta! Gilson's work has graced countless recent bossa revival sessions, as well as important 70s MPB albums – but this set was recorded back in 1969, when Peranzetta was a pianist ...

Features some better cuts from Gil's late 70s years – including cuts from the funky Refazenda and Refavela albums! ...

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A fantastic Deodato album from 1973! Although this was recorded at the same time as his American releases on CTI, the album has much more of the flavor of his tighter, jazzier, earlier work – with loads of funky keyboards, and lots of shorter tracks that drive along nicely with interplay ...

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Funky, soulful samba from Paula Lima – an artist we haven't heard from in years, but who really bursts back on the scene in a magnificent way with this wonderful record! The set mixes up older 70s samba soul styles with some slight contemporary touches – never anything slick or ...

An incredible meeting by two legendary talents – Maria Bethania and Omara Portuondo – working here in an intimate setting that's totally great! The album's one of the most stripped-down that Bethania's recorded in recent years, and it's also got less of the Cuban elements you'd expect ...

A pretty darn sweet vocal session from the duo of Miucha and Antonio Carlos Jobim – recorded with lots of bossa overtones, very much the same spirit as the legendary Elis & Tom album of the mid 70s! Chico Buarque participates in the session, and Jobim even lends his vocal talents to a ...

A great little samba set – one that features vocals by Clementina De Jesus, Cyro Monteiro, and Nora Ney – with some great acoustic backings from the Conjunto Rosa De Ouro! The set's a live one – done in the best mode of some of the Odeon label classics at the time – ...

A very festive, spontaneous-feeling samba set from Conjunto De Ouro – working here with great help from Aracy Cortes and Clementina De Jesus! The record has a quality that's almost like a set of friends sitting around late at night – working through some samba standards on their own, ...

A legendary album! This previously unreleased album by Os Mutantes was supposed to be their breakthrough album to an English speaking market – but for years it's only been talked about in hushed whispers, and has only been heard by a lucky few! The record was recorded in Paris in 1970 ...

A sweet set from Luiz Gonzaga Jr – a bit more inside than some of his experimental early work, and a bit less rootsy than other late 70s sets – but still plenty great overall, with almost a more confident sense of songwriting than before! The sound here is sophisticated MPB – ...

Fantastic jazzy funk! This is the second record by Azymuth – and it's way way better than anything they ever cut in America! It's got a wonderful vibe that mixes Brazilian fusion influences with the tight grooves of a Maurice White-inspired generation – and the result still sounds ...

A really warm and wonderful little record – one that features the collaborative talents of these four bossa nova giants, all coming together in a really relaxed, intimate setting! Although most of these artists didn't work together in the 60s, they all share a very similar spirit, and come ...

An excellent album by one of the greatest Brazilian funk bands ever! Band Black Rio were the stuff of legends back in the 70s – an all-funky powerhouse, with inspiration from American groups like Kool & The Gang and Ohio Players, but a uniquely Brazilian approach that also threw in some ...

We first fell in love with the music of Lo Borges when he started working with Milton Nascimento back in the 70s – and since that time, he's never faltered a bit – turning out compellingly creative work like this for the past few decades! It's always a few years between Borges records, ...

The legendary meeting of the two biggest Brazilian keyboard talents of the 70s – Joao Donato and Eumir Deodato – coming together in beautifully funky formation! The sound is a great blend of the moody electric work of Donato's classic Quem E Quem album, and some of the fuller, funkier ...