Flora Purim

Flora Purim still has a beautiful voice at 80 years old. Unfortunately I had really forgotten about her until the other day I saw that she had just released a new album which is her first in seventeen years. I had to listen to it on Spotify but first I put on a couple of her albums that I loved in the early 1970's. 

I saw her live in 1974 in a small club in downtown Phily and then again later in the year with Chick Corea's Return To Forever band. I found out about this Brazilian singer through my friend John who convinced me to go with him to see her perform that first time. She was fantastic. John was living with us in our house on Seymour Street at the time and he had a couple of her solo albums which he played a lot. I soon found out she was singing on the early Return To Forever records Return to Forever and Light as a Feather. She also sang on two of my favorite Santana albums; Welcome, 1973 and Borboletta, 1974.

Her solo music sound was Brazilian Latin Jazz music blended with the new electric jazz. She was also married to the jazz percussionist Airto Moreira.

So today I listened to her 1973 album Butterfly Dreams and then her 1976 album Open Your Eyes You Can Fly. I really liked both of these records back in the day. Then I played her new album If You Will.

There have been some nice articles about her recently in the New York Times - The Brazilian Jazz Great Flora Purim Has Many Stories to Tell and from NPR - Her Voice is in the Air. 

Update: Of course today I had to listen to those two Santana albums from 1973 and 1974 with Flora Purim on them.