Eliane Elias – Bossa Nova Stories (2009)
Artist : Eliane Elias
Album : Bossa Nova Stories
Released Date : January 13, 2009
Label : Blue Note Records
As a celebration of 50 years of Bossa Nova, a passionately beautiful album released this early 2009 by Eliane Elias, one of the best Brazilian talents we have in the music world today. Bossa Nova Stories is Eliane’s 21st album recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios, tributing legendary bossa songs, bossa legends, and above all, the bossa itself. What makes Eliane stand out among many other artists is her capability to interpret bossa in the most honest way, a “tell it like it is” style, and blends it with her beautiful touch on piano. It always feels different when we hear Eliane Elias, because we always get something more than we expected. Her soft and tender soul-touching vocal vocal is perfectly suited to bossa, and that goes together with the lovely piano melodies she plays. These two combinations distinguish her as the top class jazz artist. Through her songs she always take us to float high, way high above the beautiful melodies. It’s like following the smooth Brazilian wave.
Bossa Nova Stories consists of 14 timeless songs. The song choice for this album is really interesting. She selected 8 classic bossa songs, and balanced them with 6 standards from the American songbook, served chilled in bossa. Just when you start playing the CD, you’ll get the Antonio Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes‘ all time classic The Girl From Ipanema. This song delivered beautifully, with the help of a string orchestra, that also added the classic elements in half of album. From Jobim’s songbook you’ll get Chega de Saudade, another Jobim-Moraes masterpiece, and the famous Desafinado. It was an excellent choice to include Minha Saudade, considered the first bossa song recorded from 1958 by João Donato and João Gilberto. all of these songs are simply lovely through Eliane’s interpretation. In I’m Not Alone (Who Loves You), Eliane did a romantic duet with Ivan Lins, the original writer for the song. The legendary jazz artist and harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans contributed with his harmonica in two songs, Estate and Superwoman. It feels nice to have Toots Thielemans‘ passionate and playful harmonica caressing these two songs. If you want to hear the playful side of Eliane, listen to João Donato’s Rã (The Frog) and Falsa Baiana.
Other than the classic bossa songbook, you’ll have some bossa spin of the great American songbook. George and Ira Gershwin’s They Can’t Take That Away From Me, Johnny Mercer’s Day In Day Out and Too Marvelous For Words, or Stevie Wonder’s Superwoman, are some of the standard American songbook listed in the album. It’s really interesting, because if you haven’t heard these songs before, you’d robably think that they were original bossa songs. Eliane has done a great job presenting these well known American standards in a beautiful bossa way.
Eliane Elias is surely no stranger to bossa. She knows each and every elements that shaped bossa up from its birth. She captured them perfectly and placed them respectfully in all the songs. Eliane knows how to combine her soft and tender voice with her magical piano play. They support each other harmoniously in every single songs in this album. A string orchestra arranged and conducted by Rob Mathes, a brilliant aranger, composer and producer who has been working with almost all kinds of genre, the special guest stars Toots Thielemans and Ivan Lins added a very special contribution to celebrate 50 years of Bossa Nova. You can hear some tiny bits of mainstream jazz piano playing in some songs enriching the marvelous compositions. Eliane tells all the story just like it is, honestly, passionately, and deliver them right from her heart. Bossa Nova Stories really is beautiful and simply irresistable.
Tracklistings:
1. The Girl From Ipanema
2. Chega de Saudade
3. The More I See You
4. They Can’t Take That Away from Me
5. Desafinado
6. Estate (Summer)
7. Day In Day Out
8. I’m Not Alone (Who Loves You?)
9. Too Marvelous For Words
10. Superwoman
11. Falsa Baiana
12. Minha Saudade
13. A Ra (The Frog)
14. Day By Day
Watch Eliane’s performance:
Listen to streaming tracks:
Reviewed by: Riandy Kurniawan
Popularity: 28% [?]
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