If You Will

While it's true that Flora Purim's voice and disciplined improvisational style embody the very essence of jazz, classifying her as a "jazz singer" is woefully inadequate. Since the middle of the 1960s, she has innovated on the form by melding samba, psychedelic MPB, jazz, and Latin fusion to an inimitable brand of creative improvising. Long regarded as Brazil's queen of jazz, Purim's talent has been employed by musicians as diverse as Duke Pearson, Return to Forever, Dizzy Gillespie, Santana, and George Duke among others. At 80, If You Will is her first album since 2005's glorious Flora's Song. Produced with Italian DJ Roberta Cutolo, this music crisscrosses her long career. There are re-envisioned tunes from her discography alongside new material. The album captures the arc of Purim's career as new versions reflect the breadth and depth of her contribution. Her musicians include husband Airto Moreira, daughter Diana Purim, guitarist José Neto, percussionist Celso Alberti, and human beatboxer son-in-law Krishna Booker (he is Diana's husband and Eyedentity bandmate). The title-track opener is a redo of a tune Purim cut with Duke on 2000's Cool. Featuring Diana on lead vocals, this version draws directly on samba; it's faster, more anthemic, with killer scatting vocals, bumping percussion, and Mika Mutti's funky piano framing Fábio Hess' basslines. Diana and Krishna also wrote the driving "This Is Me." Mother and daughter share lead vocals while older daughter Niura appears in the backing chorus. Its layers of percussion cut across knotty piano and electric guitar lines, wedding fiery samba to pop and jazz-funk. "500 Miles High" is included here as a tribute and elegy to Chick Corea, with whom Purim and Moreira played (along with saxist/flutist Joe Farrell) in the original incarnation of Return to Forever. Rearranged by Davi Sartori, its triple-timed snare frames a more insistent Rhodes piano, bumping fusion bassline, and the Purim women's supple, passionate vocals. Guitarist Neto provided Flora and Airto his "Newspaper Girl" with already completed backing tracks. Their rich, resonant voices make this a delirious swirl of Latin and Brazilian polyrhythms, psychedelic pop, and lush harmony. "Zahuroo" is an acoustically rendered samba penned by singer, poet, and composer Claudia Villela. She appears alongside Flora and Airto in rich three-part harmony atop rippling layers of hand percussion and nylon-string guitars. "Lucidez" is a breezy, modern meld of samba and jazz; penned by Booker and Diana, it didn't make the final cut on Flora's Speed of Light in 1995. Here she fronts a septet with dreamy acoustic guitars, shimmering layers of percussion, and a sweeping flügelhorn, putting the tune to rest as if it were her own. If You Will is a revelatory exercise. Purim -- whose voice remains unsullied by time -- is easily one of the most groundbreaking singers jazz has ever produced, but more, she's an architect and translator of vastly intricate, gorgeously articulated sound worlds. Flora Purim is a genre unto herself. ~ Thom Jurek