Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa

In 2019, after I'd been writing for DownBeat Magazine for about a decade, I was asked to review a batch of new albums from Brazil, including one by a Rio de Janeiro-based singer named Delia Fischer who wrote her own songs. I gathered that, in addition, she was a jazz pianist, an arranger, and the musical director for several hit musicals in Rio. She had worked with Brazilian legends like Marcos Valle, Egberto Gismonti, and Milton Nascimento, who recorded one of her songs that became the theme for a TV Globo soap opera. This album, her fifth, was called Tempo Minimo.

I didn't speak Portuguese, so I had only a vague understanding of what the songs were about, and most of that thanks to Google Translate. Nevertheless, I wasn't prepared for how these songs affected me. They were moving, profound, and totally original. Delia's delivery of them was pure and without artifice. The melodies were fresh, charming, and memorable, the harmonies captivating, and the arrangements subtle. And the rhythms! They were intriguing and, occasionally, almost confounding to my North American ears. I gave it a 5-star rating. I thought she was taking Brazilian music far beyond Bossa Nova. The album went on to be nominated for a Latin Grammy.

Although I have been a lifelong Brazilian music fan, my appreciation of its history, variety, and depth grew as a result of two trips to Brazil to cover music festivals for DownBeat in 2014 and 2017. As I learned more about Brazilian popular music and its trajectory in the 20th century, I began to perceive that, in many ways, it was like a parallel universe to American jazz and popular music. We had our Gershwin; they had their Jobim. We had our Louis Armstrong, they had their Pixinguinha. We had our Chet Baker; they had their Joao Gilberto. We had our Beatles and James Taylor; they had their Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. The sophistication of the musicians and the composers on both shores was staggering, and they cross-pollinated.

But back to my story: Delia reached out to me on social media, thanking me for the review of Tempo Minimo. As I told her, there was one song in particular that couldn't get out of my head; it was "Meu Tempo," the opening track. I thought it was a song that everybody in the world should know. Had there ever been an English version of it, I wondered? "No, would you like to write one?" she replied.

Twelve songs and a few years later, we have this album, Delia's first that is mostly in English. All the qualities that were present on Tempo Minimo and on her subsequent album, H.O.J.E. (which earned her a second Latin Grammy nomination), are here on Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa. Even more so, in fact, thanks to the incredible contributions of our collaborators, a large group of gifted musicians on three continents. Foremost among them are Marcos Valle, a genius and pioneer of Bossa Nova and beyond; the marvelous jazz singers Luciana Souza and Gretchen Parlato; Brazilian jazz guitar master Chico Pinheiro; the extraordinary singing and vocal arranging of New York Voices; the sensational Italian R&B singer Mario Biondi; and the luminescent cello and string arranging of Eugene Friesen. Closer to home, there was Matias Correa (who, among his many contributions to this record, sang so beautifully on "Song of Self-Appreciation) and Márcio Nucci, who wrote the unforgettable music for "What Good is Summer?" and duets memorably with Delia on it.

Many other fine musicians lent their talents to these tracks. Whether it's the enchanted woodwinds and driving percussion of "My Time" and "Lemon Jugglers of Rio," the sinister synths and even more relentless percussion on "Marketplace," or the other-worldly strings and effects of "My Voice in Your Head," just to cite a few examples, the musicians' skill and the arrangers' artistry utterly transformed the material.

This is a very emotional album. Delia's poetic songs are about the vagaries of time, the persistence of memory, and the overwhelming emotions and experiences that come with being human. In my versions, I tried to honor the spirit of the Portuguese lyrics by Delia and the other original lyric writers, while writing engaging stories in a more American vernacular.

Yes, there is one traditional Bossa Nova ballad on the record—"What Good is Summer?" But the rest of the album, full of the joy and pathos and, most of all, the restless rhythms of Brazil in 2024, is an adventure beyond Bossa.