Millennium Jazz Orchestra: Bleeding Amazonia

Bleeding Amazonia, the latest album by The Netherlands' superb Millennium Jazz Orchestra, offers clear proof that "music with a message" need not be barren nor bland. Amazonia is a vibrant and colorful eight-part suite by composer / arranger Joan Reinders, whose disheartening theme is the loss of the Amazon rainforest. Four of its movements have lyrics based on verses by the Brazilian poet and environmentalist Thiago de Mello, while a fifth has lyrics by Brazilian-born vocalist Lilian Vieira who has lived in The Netherlands for almost thirty-five years and is featured throughout. Completing the suite are a trio of well-drawn instrumental interludes whose focus is on "Indigenous Peoples," "Forest Fires" and "Pollution," respectively.

Mello's poems are the basis for the opening "Prologue," "Flora and Fauna," "Deforestation" and the reassuring finale, "Hope." Vieira, whose clear, mellifluous contralto is an essential ingredient, wrote the lyric to "Climate Change." As a Brazilian, she knows well the dire consequences of deforestation and global warming and sings about them with passion and commitment. The Millennium Orchestra, for its part, is no less ardent, lending Reinders' tone poems all the vitality and earnestness they deserve. As a unit, the ensemble is resourceful and razor-sharp, while the various soloists are no less so.

Above all, Reinders' charts are colorful and engaging, deftly applying the elements of traditional jazz—harmony, rhythm, improvisation —to deliver a timely and important message about the hazardous repercussions of the loss of precious forest lands, in the Amazon and everywhere else on the planet. Even though Vieira sings in Portuguese, one can sense the raw emotion in her voice as she (and de Mello) grieve for the loss of the earth's valuable resources and bemoan humanity's probable fate should a course reversal prove unlikely. If music alone were the answer, then all would be well. But heartfelt as Reinders' intentions—and those of de Mello, Vieira and the Millennium Jazz Orchestra—are that they can do no more than sound an alarm. That they have done, and in marvelous fashion. As for the aftermath, only time can tell.