When Flora Purim and Airto Moreira moved to the United States from Brazil in the late 1960s, they brought something new to the samba-based music that North Americans had eagerly welcomed. Listeners discovered in Airto’s percussion a harder edge to the bossa nova, and beneath the lovely surface of Purim’s singing an urgency and a suggestion of modern urban pace that was absent from the languid sounds heard from the Gilbertos, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz, and Charlie Byrd, who had introduced bossa nova here early in the decade. In other words, Brazilian popular music was developing beyond “The Girl from Ipanema,” and Flora and Airto were on top of developments. This 1974 album is a beautiful progress report.

with George Duke, Earl Klugh, Airto, King Errisson, Carlos Santana, Miroslav Vitous, Ron Carter, Raul De Souza, and others