Flora Purim CDs & Links

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Flora's Song

The Brazilian Jazz Vocalist And
Groundbreaking Jazz Fusion Diva

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Flora Purim Albums (A - Z)

500 Miles High
(Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival)
Flora Purim with Airto Moreira
(1974)

Flora Purim, with the aid of husband Airto, and players like the late Ron Carter on Bass, produced an album that had one foot in the world of Jazz, and the other in Brazil. At times contimplative as in the opening, "O Cantador", Ms. Purim quickly switches gears, she moans and scats Flora style into a set that includes Her most famous collaboration with Chick Corea, "500 Miles High", as well as other mood songs like "Bahia(The Wind)", a meditation that contains such beautiful lyrics that you almost forget yourself and you are transformed to some breezy evening in Brazil. As an earlier reviewer noted, I had the album when I was 17, growing up in New York, and cannot name a more ingaging,intimate yet wild, exotic fruit of an album to get aquainted with what Flora Purim is really about. --an Amazon.com reviewer

Butterfly Dreams
Flora Purim with Airto Moreira, Stanley
Clarke, George Duke & Joe Henderson
(1973)

Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim brought a unique approach to her art that profoundly altered the nature of vocalization. She expands the basic techniques of vocalise--where every syllable is phrased like a note played on a reed or brass instrument--to include world music. On the title track her voice shifts, like a chameleon, from an exotic bird camouflaged by the jungle of husband Airto Moreira's percussion effects to a soothing delivery more reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto. By the time she sings "Dindi" in Portugese, her style so encompasses the content that the shift of language sounds perfectly natural. On "Dr. Jive" she dives into a dense fusion of Latin jazz powered by Stanley Clarke's inspired bass and some of the best keyboarding in George Duke's career. Joe Henderson delivers a stellar performance on tenor sax and flute, to boot. --John Swenson (Amazon.com)

Dafos

Dafos
Mickey Hart, Airto, & Flora Purim
(1989)

In the autumn of 1982 and spring of 1983, Mickey Hart teamed up with percussion heavyweight Airto Moreira and his acclaimed vocalist wife, Flora Purim, for largely improvisational performances at the Japan Center Theatre in San Francisco. Using a large and varied multicultural assortment of percussion instruments as well as woodwinds and bass, and backed up by Jose Lorenzo's Brazilian percussion group, Batucaje, they performed live, without overdub. The thematic core of the performances was to conjure the musical ethnography of an imaginary country, traversing an inner soundscape; the resulting tracks range from infectious Brazilian rhythm celebrations to sinuous sparse vocals to Indonesian gamelan. Each piece reflects a different piece of the musical "topography" of Dafos, from desert to polar ice floes to subterranean caves. The original release, on Reference Recordings in 1983, was immediately deemed by audiophiles as one of the finest recordings ever produced. --Rykodisc

Encounter
Flora Purim with Airto Moreira,
McCoy Tyner, Hermeto Pascoal,
George Duke and Ron Carter
(1976)

In the Jewish Holiday of Purim, their is a commandment for the people to get so drunk that they can't tell the difference between good and evil. For Flora Purim's music, however, it is perhaps best to maintain at least a moderate level of sobriety. How else are we to be aware enough to appreciate her flowing abstract vocalizations and gentle artistic manner? She appears on this CD with the crazed percussion of her husband Airto Moreira, in addition to the company of Jazz great's such as: McCoy Tyner, George Duke, Ron Carter and Urszula Dudziak. This 1976-1977 era recording serves as a form of worthy musical encounter, for sensitive souls, the world wide. --an Amazon.com reviewer

Flora Purim Sings Milton Nascimento
Flora Purim with Airto
(2002)

Flora Purim's album from 2001, Perpetual Emotion, was her best since her '70s heyday. But who knew she was just warming up? If that record is reminiscent of her early '70s jazz output on Fantasy Records, this one has echoes of her more expansive Warner Bros. releases of later in that decade, specifically the '77 classic, Nothing Will Be as It Was. That disc featured three songs by the great Brazilian singer-songwriter Milton Nascimento, the title track of which is reprised here with its Portuguese title, "Nada Sara Como Antes," although it is the only one of the 10 songs sung in English. Purim expands her musical vocabulary with two tracks obviously tilted towards the dance and electronica crowd. She hit the mark so well on the sultry "Nuvem Cigana" that there are probably remixes already floating on the streets of Rio and Paris. Nascimento fans will appreciate her original interpretation of songs he's known for, such as "Encontros e Despedidas" and "Cravo e Canela." Instrumentally, Widor Santiago's saxophone soars on two lush ballads, and Purim's old '70s partner, George Duke, takes a stirring nostalgic Moog synthesizer solo on "Nos Dois." --Mark Ruffin (Amazon.com)

Flora's Song
(2005)

This album as a whole has a feel of a sunny summer Sunday in the park of a big city, with people dancing, relaxing, communing, celebrating. Special notes to three of the tunes. The title track, "Flora's Song", has an almost Oriental-feel to its third-worldness. In many ways, it is the most interesting track on the album. "Silvia", even with its searing guitar of Jose Neto, has that feeling of longing for which Brazilians are famous. And the final cut, after all of the relatively loud celebration of life that has gone on, is a quiet duet between Ms. Purim and her long-time husband and musical collaborator, Airto Moreira, "Anjo do Amor," with Dori Caymmi on acoustic guitar. --an Amazon reviewer.

Nothing Will Be As It Was Tomorrow
Flora Purim with Airto
(1977)

I purchased this on vinly back in 1977 when I was just 14 years of age. I purchased it because I loved the tune "Angels" which was getting a lot of airplay here in the Philly area. I wasn't expecting very much simply because this was my first time hearing of Flora Purim. Boy was I surprised!! I fell in love with the entire album! I discovered that "Angels" only scratched the surface. I fell in love with the title tune, along with "Fairy Tale Friend" and "You Love Me Only" just to mention a few. I highly recommend this CD for anyone who wants to find out about the true beauty and diversity that is Flora Purim. I believe you will find the music to be timeless..absolutely timeless!! --an Amazon.com reviewer

Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly
Flora Purim with Airto
(1976)

For decades, Flora Purim has been the Queen of Brazilian Soul. Open Your Eyes You Can Fly stands as her masterpiece. She recorded it in 1976, following her 18 month prison term for alledged drug possession. And, boy, does she ever feel free. This album has only recently become available on CD. It was worth the wait; the CD mastering is superb. A dream band backs Flora, including her husband, Airto; George Duke on keyboards; Flora's mentor, the peerless Hermento Pascoal on flute and keyboards; the great Ron Carter sits in on bass for "San Francisco River", one of the many highlights (there are so many highlights it's hard to choose). But the young, underrated Alphonso Johnson, on acoustic and electric bass, is the album's secret weapon. Not only is this one of the great jazz albums of the Seventies (a wildly underrated and misunderstood decade for jazz), this is one of the great albums - period - of th Seventies. This album certainly sits in the Pantheon of my favorite albums of this period. While, over a quarter-century later, Open Your Eyes You Can Fly has well stood the test of time, I think you will also find it delightfully, immediately accessible; it's one of those rare music masterpieces of which both can be stated. Enjoy! --an Amazon.com reviewer

Perpetual Emotion
Flora Purim with Airto
(2001)

Though her voice cracks occasionally and sounds ever slightly lower in pitch than when she reigned in the 1970s, Flora Purim is still one of the finest jazz vocalists around. Why she has not recorded since 1994 is a bit of a mystery, but Perpetual Emotion shows that the Queen of Brazilian Soul is still on top of her game. Expressive, engrossing, swinging, and rich in tonality and nuance, Purim's instrument remains sensuous and soaring as she interprets the work of Chick Corea, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and McCoy Tyner with consummate instincts and style. More of a straight-ahead album than the Brazilian jazz fusion of her classics, Butterfly Dreams and Stories To Tell, Perpetual Emotion also features the songs and percussion of Purim's husband, Airto Moreira. His drumming and evocative percussion were the springboard for some of her best work, and the magic is still there (even if his drumming lacks its '70s fire). Their "San Francisco River" opens the album in a breezy mood, followed by a sweet reading of Kurt Weill's overexposed "My Ship." Perpetual Emotion really starts to groove with Flora's return to bossa nova on "Saudade." The subtle, sinewy rhythm is perfect, as is Flora's fragile, wonder-laden delivery. On Corea's "Crystal Silence," Flora's treatment is beautiful, drawing you in note by note, as the song moves from rubato intro to yearning verses with bubbly instrumental flourishes. Jobim's "Fotographia" is another high point. With guitar and arrangement by Oscar Castro-Neves, the song swings lightly around a glowing vocal choir and Flora and Neves's sparse vocal. Almost five minutes into the tune, Airto's samba groove lifts off and the magic comes down--Flora's interaction with the choir and Airto's drumming make for an exquisite moment. "Airto's Jazz Dance" briefly revisits "Spain," featuring some high-flying improv with Flora scatting, growling, and vocalizing like in her work of yesteryear. Perpetual Emotion closes with the intimate "Carinhoso," a lovely duet between Flora and guitarist Castro Neves that shows the singer in all her gleaming, slightly shy glory. --Ken Micallef

Speak No Evil
Flora Purim with Airto
(2003)

Stories To Tell
Flora Purim with Airto
(1974)

I wish I could give this CD collection TEN stars. "Stories To Tell" is my favorite Flora Purim album, by far. Floera was at the top of her career when this album was made and her work is simply outstanding....OUTSTANDING!! The cast of musicians on this CD will startle you. Absolutely the best Latin jazz musicians in the world played with her. I will leave you guessing as to who they are. (OK, just one hint, Carlos Santana does some of his best work ever on "Silver Sword".)--an Amazon.com reviewer

Three-Way Mirror
Airto Moreira & Flora Purim, Joe Farrell
(1985)

Wings Of Imagination
Flora Purim & Airto two-CD box set compilation
(2001)