Dance of time

"[Elias has] revisited her musical heritage over and over again, wedding modern jazz to post-1960 Brazilian jazz and MPB. In the process, she's developed an instantly identifiable sound as a pianist ... The program [here] contains readings of killer sambas such as "O Pato," Joao Donato's eternal "Sambou Sambou," the wonderful "Samba de Orly" (co-composed by Toquinho, who also sings on it, Vinicius De Moraes and Chico Buarque), and Ary Barroso's "Na Batacuda da Vida" ... The best tunes here, however, are her own ... "An Up Dawn" is a vehicle for her intricate, syncopated chord voicings on her instrument's middle and lower registers, which create an interlocking dance of samba, tango, and bluesy ragtime. "Not to Cry (Pra Nao Chorar)" is a co-write with Toquinho - who lends his guitar and weathered yet effective vocal in a duet ... Dance of Time is inspired, deftly musical, and truly accessible to a wide range of listeners from jazz to pop to Brazilian music. It'svirtuallyflawless".

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"As a vocalist, the Brazilian Eliane Elias radiates as much starry smooth-jazzy hipness as Diana Krall, but as an improvising pianist she's in a different league: a wellspring of polished bebop lines and skittish flourishes. Jazz hardliners might shy away from the purr of her sultry vocal sound, but the smart thing about this reappraisal of her long career is that her piano spontaneity coaxes and illuminates the music at every turn ... Elias is scintillating on the João Gilberto vehicle O Pato, and turns Kurt Weill's Speak Low into a Latin glide with [Randy] Brecker's flugelhorn curling through it. Her duet with veteran Brazilian singer-songwriter Toquinho on Not to Cry (Pra Não Chorar) makes a resonant finale, not least because Toquinho half-wrote it for her when she was 18, and it took this memorable session for them to complete it".

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