Microsoft word - 2001- flora & airto.doc

FLORA & AIRTO
05-15-01
The Significant Other and I took in renowned jazz vocalist Flora Purim with Airto Moriera and others at Yoshis. The pair brought down the house after opening with a scorching latin-inflected version of Brubeck's "Take Five". Far from the cool school detachment of academic jazz, this pair had the house rocking on their feet to the back of the room with their special brand of latin scat and jazz samba, returning jazz to its roots as a dance vehical. Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known mainly for her work in jazz fusion. She received her fame on Chick Corea's 1972 album, Return to Forever FLORA & AIRTO
05-15-01
and recorded with many artists through the decades of her career, including Stanley Clarke, Dizzy Gil espie, Jaco Pastorius, and her husband, Airto. Among Purim's musical qualities, such as her Portuguese native language and other Brazilian influences, is her fairly rare six octave voice. Her style of vocalizations are influenced by Sarah Vaughan and El a Fitzgerald which drifts from fol owing lyrics to wordlessness without ever losing touch with the melody and always in rhythm, and expanded her vocal repertoire during early tours with Gil Evans. While singing for three years with Gil espie's “United Nations Orchestra” in the 1980's and touring the world, she learned of various styles of American jazz and evolved her musical style from just fusion jazz to adopt traditional mainstream jazz and bebop and 4/4 beat vs traditional Brazilian 2/4 Airto has also played with many of the greatest names in Jazz including Cannonbal Adderley, Miles Davis, Chic Corea, Paul Desmond, Wayne Shorter, Dave Hol and, Keith Jarrett, Zakir Hussain, George Duke and Mickey Hart. He also has played with symphonic orchestras and as a solo percussionist, and during live performances often includes a samba solo, where he emulates the sound of an entire band using just a single pandeiro (tunable Brazilian The remarkable percussionist Airto performed an astonishing narrative piece with only a tamborine, whistle and pre-linguistic vocals. The ensemble did two works written by guitarist Sandro Albert -- armed with a Gibson semi-hol ow FLORA & AIRTO
05-15-01
Gary Meek performed wel on sax and clarinet. Bil Cantos provided keyboards and vocals, while Gary Brown did very wel with six-string electric bass. Jimmy Brandy fil ed in for a couple numbers on drums. A good time was had by al , and the quality of the musicianship gave the reason that more and more visitors are coming over from the other side of the Bay to hear quality It was Airto’s show, playing everything from grooves to complex polyrhythms with impeccable time, and playing the MC role with wit and humor. Instrumental in the creation of a unique fusion of world music and jazz, Flora's beautiful y expressive voice enables her to cover a wide range of styles. She can handle a bal ad as wel wordlessly evoking the sound of birds. Airto Moreira is among the most famous percussionist around today. He helped make percussion an essential part of many modern jazz groups; his tambourine solos

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