Flora Purim

The singer Flora Purim, dubbed the “Brazilian Queen of Jazz”, is renowned for her membership of Chick Corea’s fusion project Return To Forever and for collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Gil Evans, Santana, Grateful Dead drummer Micky Hart and Jaco Pastorius, as well as longstanding pairings with her husband, Airto Moreira. Born in Rio to a pair of classical musicians in 1942, Purim discovered the work of Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner through her mothers’ clandestine airing of jazz 78s. Purim launched her professional career during the early 1960s and soon signed to RCA Victor, her debut album, Flora É M.P.M., surfacing just as Brazil faced the military coup that would bring censorship to her subsequently work. The debut sees Purim tackling bossa nova compositions by Edu Lobo and the team of Vinicius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra, among others; the unexpected hard-bop reading of Hava Nagila references both the singer’s Jewish heritage and the stunning fusion projects to come.