Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Flora Purim was born on March 6, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro to Jewish parents who were both classical musicians, her father a violinist and her mother a pianist. She discovered jazz when her mother played 78 vinyl rpms of Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner while her husband was out of the house.

Purim began her career in Brazil during the early 1960s. During this period, she made a recording of bossa nova standards by Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal titled Flora e M.P.M. Later in the decade she became lead singer for the Quarteto Novo, led by Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira.

Flora mixed jazz with radical protest songs to defy the repressive Brazilian government of that time and a 1964 military coup led to censorship of song lyrics. Shortly before leaving Brazil she married Airto and arriving in New York in 1967, they became immersed in the emerging Electric Jazz. They toured Europe with Stanley Clarke, Stan Getz and Gil Evans. In 1972, alongside Clarke and Joe Farrell, they were, for the first two albums, members of Return To Forever. That year the band released their debut self-titled album Return To Forever, followed the same year as Light as a Feather.

In 1973, Purim released her first solo album in the United States, titled Butterfly Dreams. She was chosen by the Down Beat reader’s poll as one of the top five jazz singers. She worked with Carlos Santana and Mickey Hart and throughout the 1970s, Flora released a string of albums for the Milestone label, became involved with the Uruguayan band Opa, (which means “hi” in Uruguay), Purim collaborated in vocals in the band’s second album Magic Time, and in return, Opa played in “Corre Niña” on Flora’s album Nothing Will Be as It Was…Tomorrow .

In the 1980s Purim toured with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra, culminating with Gillespie’s Grammy Award-winning album Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nation Orchestra – Live at the Royal Festival Hall, London. The Nineties saw her singing on the Grammy Award-winning album Planet Drum by Mickey Hart, the release of her own album and world tour, Speed of Light and a new band with contributions from Billy Cobham, George Duke, Alphonso Johnson, Giovanni Hidalgo and others.

Through the 1990s, Purim worked on a number of Latin projects, collaborated with P.M. Dawn on the album Red Hot + Rio. She has a huge catalogue of music that showcases her rare six-octave voice renders a vocal style influenced by Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, drifting from lyrics to wordlessness without ever losing touch with the melody and rhythm. She broadened her repertoire to include traditional mainstream jazz, bebop and doing numbers in 4/4 time instead of the traditional Brazilian 2/4 beat. She is a 4-time winner Down Beat’s Best Female Jazz Vocalist and 2-time Grammy nominee for Best Female Jazz Performance and has been named “Order of Rio Branco” by Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. She continues to perform, record and tour.

Take A Dose On The Road

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