Jazz Articles

Marcos Valle: Braziliance!

by Chris May
January 31, 2020

First released in 1966 on Warner Bros., Marcos Valle's third album was his debut US release. An instrumental set, it is packed (if a 29-minute album can be so described) of great tunes composed by Valle with his brother Paulo. Like Antonio Carlos Jobim's own-name US debut, The Composer Of Desafinado Plays (Verve, 1963), another instrumental set, Braziliance was likely conceived as a showcase for the brothers' songwriting, with a view to generating covers by US artists. Valle plays understated ...

Joyce: The Essential Joyce

by David Corrigan
May 1, 1998

Joyce began her recording career in Brazil in 1968, since then she has carved out a niche as one of the most admired and talented singer songwriters of her generation. She was, in those days, a rare thing, a woman who wrote and played her own songs--songs which contained a strong feminist slant and which made her somewhat of a controversial figure, and frowned upon by a male dominated music industry which reflected the Brasilian Zeitgeist.

Thankfully times ...