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Flora Purim
Brazil’s foremost jazz singer has been gracing stages worldwide for four decades with her singular six-octave vocals. Flora Purim’s career took off in 1967 when she moved from her native Rio to New York with her pygmalion husband Airto Moreira. She has since shown that she can shine as brilliantly as a solo artist. Collaborations with some of the top names in jazz continue into the 21st century as Purim remains a durable and endearing voice in world and jazz circles. With a gifted pianist as a mother and a violinist father who hailed from Russia it is hardly surprising that Flora Purim decided to invest in a musical career. Early on, her unique vocal range drew purists from both traditional and avantgard circles. None more so than her partner on and off the stage, Airto Moreiro. Since moving to the Big Apple in 1967, Purim has collaborated with Moreiro in over 30 albums which often tested the limits of free jazz and improvisational exchanges.
The Carioca artist was influenced by some of the great names in American classic jazz such as Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. She married these distinctive voices with inspirational Brazilian singers imbued in this vast country’s traditions. Forced to leave her nation during the Sixties and the arrival of the military dictatorships, Purim quickly found her niche in the US, notably alongside Gil Evans. “This guy changed my life,” she is quoted as saying. He allowed her the freedom to explore the full range of her voice.
Purim became an integral part of the ‘New Jazz’ movement generated by the likes of Chick Corea and Stan Getz. Her first collaboration with the former was in the Return to Forever band in 1971. Purim was involved in classic albums such as “500 miles high” and “Light as a feather”. Two years later she released her first solo album “Butterfly dreams”, an album that bagged her first nomination by Down Beat as one of America’s top five jazz singers.
While her career has never glittered as much since, Purim continues to be recognised as one of the most innovative female vocalists in the world. She has been involved in two Grammy-winning albums, notably the “Best World Music Album” for “Planet drum” with Mickey Hart, the former Grateful Dead drummer. Following erratic and disappointing decades in the ‘80s and 90s, Purim has bounced back with innovative releases like “Perpetual emotion” and the crossover homage to one of Brazil’s greatest composers called “Flora sings Milton Nascimento”. In 2005, she hitched up again with her old-time friend Chick Corea as the two were reunited as part of the Return to Forever band.
Purim’s music philosophy was probably best summed up by the following quote. “Singing live is like a voyage. By the time I open my eyes at the end of a show, I’ve flown all over the planet and I’m back there and I see everybody sweating, crying, hugging and loving. That’s a great feeling.”
August 2005
Daniel Brown
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