Women are increasingly raising their profile and their visibility, and really making their presence felt. Today, even though men are still in the majority, female emancipation in jazz has definitely happened. There have, of course, always been very prominent female jazz singers, but female instrumentalists and composers such as Jutta Hipp, Carla Bley or Geri Allen are few and far between. Look at the history of jazz, and it is all…frankly…a bit male. A long tour across Europe lies in front of the ladies for the rest of 20. This is an exciting collaboration with female instrumentalists from the European jazz elite, each of which has established themselves as leading equilibrist on their instruments of choice. On January 25, 2019, Cæcilie Norby publishes the 11th album in her own name, titled „Sisters in Jazz“. Her first released album was with Lars Danielsson „Just the two of us“. In 2015 she started with the German ACT label. She has released 4 of her solo albums on the prestigious BLUE NOTE Records, received awards and selling thousands of albums in Europe, US, Japan and South Africa. In Europe, where she’s still one of the best selling jazz artists, she was one of the very first who contributed to bridge the gap between Jazz and the young traditionally rock oriented audiences. Innovative music is alive and kicking in millennial Brazil: although it never really left the building.Cæcilie Norby has been celebrated by fans, critics and many of the world’s greatest musicians. And it's no mistake that the collection is sandwiched between contributions from young Turks Fernando Moura & Ary Dias and (for this compiler, at least) probably the most complete mainstream jazz musician that Brazil has ever produced, Victor Assis Brasil. There had to be a hip hop track - so many Brazilian millennials got into jazz via hip hop - and new teenage sensation Tassia Reis was a no-brainer. Juçara Marçal and Karina Buhr's voicings explore similar territory to Carla Bley while Tulipa Ruiz's sparkling Roy Ayers-style jazz-funk contribution wouldn't be out of place on the 1980s London dancefloors of Dingwall's, the WAG or the Electric Ballroom. Thiago França's sharp-elbowed genius makes itself felt in his solo work as well as in the more modal Space Charanga and European fans may know Thiago from the touring combo Metá-Metá. Iconili, Nomade Orquestra, Höröya and Bixiga 70 are essentially gafieira (dancehall) orchestras - with all the discipline, skill and 'listening to each other' that it implies - playing from a different songbook: a repertoire inspired by Nigeria, Guinea, Ethiopia, the Caribbean and New York. But the sheer range, energy and boisterousness of the approach is thrilling. Many have played with each other and are familiar with each other's work - as were Rio's 1960s bossa nova community. The large majority of players on this compilation are under 30 years old, most from São Paulo and Rio De Janeiro. They also started listening more to European jazz: a fascinating 'full-circle' effect, because earl twentieth century choro jazz was strongly influenced by European music in template if not in tempo. Disillusioned with the vapidity of manufactured national pop - pagode, axé, lambada, brega and the rest - they started digging for rare soul, funk, reggae and hip hop records for inspiration, an entry-point to the Blue Note and soul-jazz classics of America's east coast, as well as richer meat - Sun Ra, Roland Kirk, Pharaoh Sanders and afrobeat. Brazil's millennial musicians, however, use a different palette from that which has gone before. There were also artists drawing inspiration from native Indian, regional folkloric and liturgical sources: Hermeto Pascoal and Egberto Gismonti made (and still make) thrilling and bizarre jazz that owed nothing to 'conventional' Brazilian jazz, or indeed 'conventional' jazz of any kind. Of course there were Brazilian jazz musicians in the 1960s whose work was highly original and owed little or nothing to bossa nova, obvious examples being Victor Assis Brasil and Dom Salvador, the only two 'old-school' players present in this compilation - their presence I hope demonstrating the continuity of Brazilian jazz explorations way beyond bossa-jazz. It's an image ineluctably stuck in the 1960s, when most aspiring Brazilian musicians looked to America's West Coast 'cool jazz' scene for inspiration, listening to artists such as the Modern Jazz Quartet, Chet Baker, Paul Winter, Jimmy Giuffre and Stan Getz. Mention Brazilian jazz to most music fans and the inevitable bossa nova images flood into view: the beach, the female whisper-vocal, the rimshot snare drumming, the chord-plucked acoustic guitar, possibly a little muted batucada percussion, breathy alto saxophone and cabaret-vamp piano.
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