Eliane Elias at Blues Alley

Eliane Elias
Blues Alley
Washington, DC
November 9, 2025

"Was that fun?" queried jazz legend Eliane Elias midway through her fast-paced samba-infused set at Blues Alley. "Yeah" roared back the sold out crowd, happy to leave behind the angst pervading DC (and much of the country) and let the soothing, playful and moving stylings of a great pianist/vocalist and her top-notch combo roll over us like waves on the beach.

A regular alum (her first Blues Alley gig was way back in 1983), Elias and her crack sidemen—bassist (and hubby) Marc Johnson, drummer Rafael Barata and the exceptional Leandro Pellegrino on guitar—kicked off the evening with the happy syncopation of "Batida Diferente." Smiling all the way, Elias pushed along Pellegrino's rollicking guitar as Johnson slid effortlessly up and down the neck of his double bass.  Sharing the spotlight, Elias gave Barata plenty of room to solo and traded fours with Pellegrino to breezy brilliance.

Elias's haunting solo piano and calming vocal opened the next tune "Aquarela do Brasil" before tearing into the song with the band. In "Voce," she sang in both English and Portuguese, shaking her blond mane as her smooth-as-glass piano work seduced the ensemble and audience along. The tempo turned  Latin-ish with "Falo do Amor," which she wrote for her granddaughter, which featured all the members of the band and brought the house down.

Next up was a rendition of  "Esta Tarde Vi Llover," a piano solo from her Grammy winning album Mirror Mirror (Candid Records, 2021), segueing into a bouncy serenade with Johnson. "Voce e Eu "(You and I) harkened back to Elias's early years, when sticks on a sidewalk laid down a samba beat. Cruising along with the tune's head arrangement, she vamped back and forth across the keys, bringing the song to happy life (again "Was that fun?" got a rollicking "Yeah! In reply).

"Eu Sambo Mesmo" began with Pellegrino laying down a samba groove as Elias sang in Portuguese again. A medley celebrating Bahia and its Afro-inspired music found Barata working up close on a snare drum, with his stick work slipping along the sides and skins of the drum. The Antonio Carlos Jobim classic "A Felicidade" found Elias in a sweet, rolling samba mood, with all three sidemen taking solos on the classic, winding up with the ensemble clapping to a samba school Bahia-style drum solo.

Another Jobim classic,"Desafinado," brought the proceedings to a close, with Elias leading off with an engaging lilting piano solo. Some ominous notes in her left hand contrasted with the melodies in her right,  with big, showy arpeggios and a few Thelonious Monk-like starts and stops cascading into a jaunty drive, pushing hard into bebop-dom. A melancholy bowed solo with piano accompaniment —languid and haunting—returned Johnson to tempo with drums and guitar steamrolling along. A massive drum solo filled the room before Elias took it back and took us home.

Desafinado can be loosely translated to "slightly out of tune." The lyrics propose that there'll be no desafinado "when your heart belongs to me." On a Sunday night in November at Blues Alley, Elias showed us how much fun we could have when we followed that prescription and gave our hearts to her and this jubilant music.