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Jazzinho is a London based outfit featuring lead vocalist/ composer
Guida De Palma. Although it’s hard to believe, Guida is
not Brazilian but Portuguese, a singer with an amazing vocal range
and the improvisatory soul of a jazz singer of the first rank.
Even so, this eponymously titled release is not a jazz record
but a beguiling fusion of bossa, jazz, samba and contemporary
beats for dancing.
Guida who composed all but one of the songs here cites such influences
as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Joyce, Chico Buarque, Marcos Valle,
Gilberto Gil, Elis Regina, Azymuth and Ed Motta. The naysayer
might be tempted to think that this is just another cool bossa
record and leave it at that. That would be a mistake because this
is definitively one of the best releases of its kind I’ve
heard in the last couple of years. Guida is not only a singer
who can really take it out there without leaving the dancers behind
but also her own compositions are distinctive melodic gems without
exception.
They stick in your head even as she does funky juggling acts with
them, approaching a breezy majesty on the beautiful swinging Velejou
and getting funked in outer space on the aptly titled Moody Maria,
while the follow-up Astral keeps it astral with exciting pumped
up jazzy bossa beats. The one non-original, the Brazilian classic
Telefone is a piece of entertaining fun. The production, while
lush and with the contemporary in-your-face attitude enhances
really swinging in time performances.
In the context of the dance there are genuinely exciting energetic
performances from a rich array of soloists be it keyboard, flute
or trumpet. Guida flows between English and Portuguese with dumbfounding
ease, bantering joyfully with the soulful female chorus. I know
that some may say this release might just a bit too hedonistic
to last beyond its own exquisite temporal sphere. Whether they
are right or wrong, all I can say is …long live hedonism.
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