"KISS OF LOVE"
JAZZ + MAGAZINE REVIEW

What could be considered very complex for some, Maria Farinha makes it seem easy. As most people know, it is not so simple to mix jazz with the three fundamental elements of the Brazilian musical core – samba, bossa nova and MPB – without losing touch or sinking into traps that lead us to paths exhaustively exploited by so many musicians for over 40 years.  Equipped with a dense and captivating tone of voice and by an uncommon good sense, the Brazilian singer, composer, arranger has found the perfect way to keep originality on her side. Having leaned over a jar with more than 120 thousand keys, she found the only one capable of opening her box of surprises.  Farinha has recorded a record that will make many interpreters cry out: “why didn’t I do this before?!”

In her new album, “Kiss of Love,” Maria Farinha reinvigorated the same recipe used in Endless Samba, her previous record released in 2002. Farinha  creates new spaces for her own compositions and for classics of Brazilian and North American jazz. Perhaps it is her extreme curiosity and non-acquiescence that led  Farinha to exploit all the paths at hand. She performs beautifully sambas such as “Amanhã Ninguém  Sabe"  by Chico Buarque, and  “Eu Vim da Bahia”  by Gilberto Gil.  Farinha captures with superb depth both  modern bossa nova such as “Fuji Samba, by Roberto Menescal, as well as the poetical “Candeias” by Edu Lobo. Farinha’s eclecticism is so great that she even risks a bolero composed by herself, “Nuestra Cancion”, featuring singer Gilson Neri and a well punctuated flugelhorn played by Daniel D’Alcântara.

In the album’s leading track,  her own “É Samba, Meu” (It’s Samba, Dude), Farinha brings a ravishing introduction to some of the powerful instrumentalists that have joined her in this project.  Playing the bass, Thiago do Espírito Santo, son of the multi-instruments player Arismar; in the percussion, Luis Rabello; on the drums, Alex Buck, one of the most accomplished of his generation. In the horns, three masters: once again Daniel D’Alcântara, now playing the Trumpet, Vitor Alcântara with Sax Tenor, and the impressing Nailor Azevedo, playing sax alto, who is also the leader of the band  Mantiqueira. However, it is the piano, subtly played by Silvia Góes, that created the perfect bond of this samba-jazz composed and arranged by Farinha.

In “Dançarina do Ocidente”, another of Farinha’s compositions, the secret lies within the synchrony between the grooves of keyboard player João Cristal and the percussion  divided by “Da Lua”, Cláudio Baeta and Luis Rabello. “Beijo de Amor” (Kiss of Love), her fourth composition, brings once again to the surface the piano so well played by Silvia Góes.  The piano complements with perfection the dynamics of the melody performed by Farinha. The connection between the two is so beautiful and intense that it leads us to the magical harmony of the classical duets, such as the remarkable presentations between the pianist André Previn and the singer Doris Day, and that of the bandleader Stan Kenton with the interpreter June Christie. Similar connection is conspicuous in “Little Tears – Razões de Viver”, by Eumir Deodato and Paulo Valle.

“You and the Night and Music”, written by Howard Diet and Arthur Schwartz, a Broadway hit in the 1930’s through the voice of Libby Holman, defines Farinha’s high class. She does not lose her composure when exploring the North-American song-book. If the American media considered Endless Samba a new “masterpiece” of Brazilian jazz  four years ago, there will not be words impressive enough to describe Kiss of Love.

Vinicius Mesquita-  Editor of JAZZ +  Magazine.