Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1922 and classically trained, Luiz Bonfá built a style that held precision and lyricism in the same grip. His international standing was secured in the late 1950s by his contributions to Marcel Camus's Orfeu Negro, the film that took both the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and by the bossa nova wave that followed. But the records he made for RCA at the start of the 1970s tell a different story. After The New Face of Bonfá and Sanctuary met modest reception, he approached what he assumed would be his last album for the label with little to lose, and used the freedom to strip everything back to the guitar alone.

Recorded across RCA's Studios A, B and C in New York with producer Pete Spargo and engineer Ray Hall, Introspection gathers eight Bonfá originals played almost entirely solo. Enchanted Mirror, Reflections and Rain move with the unhurried clarity of someone thinking aloud; Concerto for Guitar leans on his classical schooling, while Adventure in Space drifts toward something more abstract, the guitar treated and coloured in ways that sit oddly and beautifully against the rest. It is an intimate, closely miked listen, more concerned with touch and phrasing than with display, and it has gathered a quiet following in the decades since as one of his most personal statements away from the bossa canon.

This Jazzybelle edition is the first official reissue of the album on vinyl since 1972, licensed through Sony and remastered at Colorsound Studio in Paris. For anyone drawn to solo guitar at its most reflective, it is not to be missed.