Jazz Articles about Ithamara Koorax

Ithamara Koorax: All Around the World

by Chris M. Slawecki
November 20, 2015

All Around the World represents several milestones for firebrand Brazilian vocalist Ithamara Koorax: It marks her twentieth release as a leader, celebrates the 25th year of her career, and, just like her first official release (Ithamara Koorax Live in Rio [1993, JVC]), All Around the World comes digitally straight from the soundboard, with no overdubs or other studio corrections. Just as importantly, All Around the World truly embodies the global state of modern jazz. Koorax's band features many ...

Rodrigo Lima: Saga

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 17, 2015

“I fell in love with the jazz guitar--all kinds of jazz guitarists, from Jim Hall to Pat Metheny to Luis Bonfá, by listening to their records," explains Brazilian composer, arranger, bandleader and guitarist Rodrigo Lima. Saga luxuriously extends this jazz guitar love affair across the American and Brazilian continents--it was recorded in New York, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba--and across the two CDs of Lima's utterly magnificent recorded debut. Producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro elegantly ...

Ithamara Koorax: Opus Classico

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 11, 2014

Throughout her career, Ithamara Koorax has consistently exercised a singing voice that approaches the eternal; Ira Gitler once famously described Koorax's singing as “celestial elegance." On Opus Clássico, that amazing voice finds material to match: Vocal and vocalized melodies written by such master composers as Frederic Chopin, Claude Debussy, Sergie Rachmaninoff and Heitor Villa-Lobos, lovingly and gorgeously rendered by Koorax's astounding voice in tandem with pianist Filipe Bernardo and guitarist Rodrigo Lima (who worked with Koorax on Arirang [2010, EMI]). ...

Ithamara Koorax: Celestial Elegance

by Chris M. Slawecki
September 24, 2012

Singer thamara Koorax recorded her 15th solo CD, Got to Be Real (Irma, 2012), “live in the studio" in Rio de Janeiro, the place of her birth, with her touring band--bassist Jorge Pescara, drummer Haroldo Jobim (a cousin of Antonio Carlos Jobim) and keyboardist Jose Roberto Bertrami, founding member of Brazil's famous fusion export Azymuth, on Rhodes, Yamaha and Hammond organs, clavinet, and synthesizers. Small wonder that on Got to Be Real, Koorax sounds completely at home in different types ...

Ithamara Koorax: Bim Bom - The Complete Joao Gilberto Songbook

by Raul d'Gama Rose
January 5, 2010

Ithamara Koorax Bim Bom: The Complete João Gilberto Songbook Motema Records 2009 Jo&#227o Gilberto did not just epitomize bossa nova, “The New Thing" that he virtually invented, but he also brought his new, laconic vocal style to Brazilian music. So deeply passionate and idiosyncratic was his pronounciation and intonation that he could wail and groan with equal lyricism. Pitch did not seem to matter as mood and emotion often took precedence ...

Fabio Fonseca Trio: Opus Samba

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 20, 2008

Arnaldo DeSouteiro produced Opus Samba to feature Fonseca's funky Hammond B-3 organ in his trio with Pedro Leao (bass) and Mac William (drums). Though you won't hear any jazz standards on its set list or many harmonically adventurous jazz solos in its jams, the very musical way that Fonseca and friends blend together jazz, Brazilian, Latin and soft funk rhythms makes Opus Samba a nearly perfect jazz trio set.

“Samba de Nanh" crisply yet softly opens this Opus ...

Ithamara Koorax: Brazilian Butterfly

by Chris M. Slawecki
February 12, 2007

Except for two ballads--the cosmopolitan “Carinhoso with her Brazilian jazz fusion compatriots Azymuth, and Herbie Hancock's title track--Ithamara Koorax's ninth album is her most adventurous release. It seems constructed to honor legendary Brazilian vocalist Flora Purim and her husband/bandleader/percussionist Airto. This Brazilian Butterfly soars and flutters while multiple percussionists (often as many as four on the same song, most often led by the late and legendary Dom Um Romão, with Koorax frequently flailing away among them) knit together, pull apart, ...