Flora Purim

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Flora Purim (2007)

Flora Purim (born March 6, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil ) is a Brazilian jazz singer.

life and work

Purim comes from a musical family, her mother was a Brazilian pianist who gave her a love of jazz music. The Romanian- born Jewish father was a violinist and took care of an upbringing in classical music. She began to learn classical piano when she was four and acoustic guitar when she was twelve . Gifted with a six octave voice (after later training) , she also performed as a singer. In Rio she was a member of the Quartetto Novo alongside Airto Moreira and Hermeto Pascoal and even had her own TV program. She is married to Moreira, with whom she took percussion lessons, and went to New York City in 1967 in the United States . She played with Stan Getz (1969) and later toured with the Gil Evans Orchestra, where she experimented with drum sounds. She also played with Cannonball Adderley (The Happy People 1970, Lovers 1975).

In the 1970s she worked with Moreira in Chick Corea's band Return to Forever , which made her internationally known. In 1973 they left Corea, who was too much into electronic music for them. In addition, Corea mainly used her voice instrumentally, in a manner determined by precise rehearsals. In the same year her first solo album Butterfly Dreams was released, on which Stanley Clarke and Joe Henderson played alongside her husband . In 1974 she founded her own group with her husband Airto Moreira, in which Kei Akagi played among others .

In 1974/75 she was imprisoned for 18 months on drug charges. In 1971, cocaine was found in a raid on the home of a Brazilian friend she was staying with. The indictment and conviction followed three years later (she was barely able to finish the album Stories to Tell ). However, she admitted in an interview that she was addicted to drugs from 1969 to 1974, but not on “hard drugs” (Jazz Podium 2005). As a result of the conviction, she was suspended for twelve years and was only able to enter and leave the United States unhindered again in 1985. She used her time in prison in Terminal Island , California to write music. On March 9, 1975 she gave a concert there with, among others, Cannonball Adderley , which was broadcast by several radio stations. Her husband took care of the two children while she was in detention.

Flora Purim (1981)

After her release, she released the album Open Your Eyes You Can Fly in 1976 with Moreira, Pascoal, Egberto Gismonti , Ron Carter and George Duke . In the 1980s she went on excursions in different styles of music. Two albums she appeared on received Grammies : Live at the Royal Festival Hall by Dizzy Gillespie and the United Nation Orchestra and Planet Drum by Mickey Hart . In the 1990s she played in the Latin jazz band Fourth World with Moreira, José Neto and Gary Meek . She has also worked with musicians from the English remix scene on many occasions.

Through her collaboration and friendship with Dizzy Gillespie, she learned of the Baha'i faith, which she later adopted.

She has many connections in the jazz scene (among other things, she said in an interview that Horace Silver composed his song for my Father in her apartment in Rio ) and is particularly revered in her native Brazil.

Her daughter Diana Moreira-Booker is also a jazz musician. Purim dedicated the title to Diana on Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer . Even as a toddler, she was part of her mother's jazz recordings.

In 2002 she received the Brazilian Order of Merit Rio Branco (Ordem de Rio Branco).

Others

She sings on the soundtrack of Boorman's Exorcist II (1977) and Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979).

Discography (excerpt)

  • Flora é MPM, 1964
  • Gil Evans: Where Flamingos Fly , Artists House 1971
  • Chick Corea: Return to Forever , ECM 1972
  • Chick Corea & Return to Forever: Light as a Feather, Polydor 1973
  • Santana: Welcome - vocals on Yours Is the Light, Columbia 1973
  • Live in Montreux
  • Butterfly Dreams, Milestone 1973
  • Stories to Tell, Milestone 1974
  • Fingers, together with Airto Moreira
  • 500 Miles High, Milestone 1976
  • Open Your Eyes You Can Fly, Milestone 1976
  • That's What She Said, Milestone 1978
  • Everyday Everynight, Warner Bros 1978
  • Nothing Will Be As It Was ... Tomorrow, Bellaphon 1977
  • Encounter, Milestone 1977
  • Love Reborn, Milestone 1980 (compilation)
  • Flora Purim & Airto: Humble People, Bellaphon 1985
  • The Magicians, Concord
  • The Colors of Life, In + Out Records 1988
  • The Midnight Sun, Virgin 1988
  • Speed ​​of Light, BuW Music 1995 (from their World Tour)
  • Flora sings Milton Nascimento, Narada 2000
  • Perpetual Emotion, Narada 2001

literature

  • Flora Purim, Edward Bunker Freedom song- the story of Flora Purim , Berkeley Books 1982
  • Airto Moreira, Dan Thress Rhythms and colors , Manhattan Music Publications
  • Joachim-Ernst Berendt A Window from Jazz , Fischer Verlag 1980, p. 89 ff
  • Jazz Podium 2005, No. 3
  • Giancarlo Mei Spiriti Liberi. L'Avventura Brasiliana Di Flora Purim & Airto Moreira (official biography) , Arcana Jazz 2017

Web links

Commons : Flora Purim  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
personal data
SURNAME Purim, flora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian jazz singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Rio de Janeiro , Brazil