Maria Fumaça cover

Maria Fumaça

Released

As the long arc of MPB took Brazilian popular music from early ’60s samba to late ’60s psychedelia to early ’70s folk and soul, it would inevitably lead to at least one late ’70s reckoning with jazz-funk that would rival anything recorded above the Equator. Banda Black Rio’s Maria Fumaça is just that album, the stunning debut of a seven-member ensemble who were purpose-built to accomplish that very task. And the slinky / slippery / sleek instrumentals on this record so seamlessly embody a simultaneous tradition of Afro-Brazilian and Black American traditions — especially in their blazing horn charts and hipsway-engineered basslines — that it’s hard to tell where the Jorge ends and the Herbie begins. Call it Terra, Vento e Fogo.

Nate Patrin

Suggestions
Getz/Gilberto cover

Getz/Gilberto

Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Stan Getz
Nitty Gritty cover

Nitty Gritty

Gladys Knight & the Pips
Panamá 77 cover

Panamá 77

Daniel Villarreal
City Life cover

City Life

The Blackbyrds