Flora Purim

Hailing from Brazil, vocalist and composer Flora Purim ranks among the elite figures in jazz, gifted with a rare six-octave vocal span. Her approach fuses supple phrasing, fluid jazz harmonies, and rhythmic displacement with Brazilian grooves alongside folk and pop structures. Critics have named her Downbeat’s top female jazz singer on four occasions. Following her arrival in the United States in 1966, she launched her professional engagements alongside Stan Getz and Duke Pearson. Together with percussionist Airto Moreira, her husband, she entered the first version of Chick Corea’s Return to Forever. The group’s second release, Light as a Feather from 1972, whose title selection carries lyrics written by Purim, endures as a landmark of the fusion period. Butterfly Dreams, her 1973 Milestone debut, marked the initial entry in a run of eight straight solo albums that appeared on the charts. Although she frequently partnered with Airto, Purim also spent time recording with George Duke and Carlos Santana. Throughout the 1980s she contributed to Grammy-winning projects by Mickey Hart and Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra while performing live with both ensembles. Midnight Sun, issued in 1988, received widespread praise. In the following decade Purim and Moreira established the world-jazz collective Fourth World, which produced five albums, among them the highly regarded Encounters in the Fourth World. Entering the new century, she delivered four solo sets for Narada, beginning with Perpetual Emotion in 2000. At age 80 and after a fifteen-year recording hiatus, she returned with If You Will on the Strut label.

Born in Rio de Janeiro to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Ukraine and Russia, both trained classical musicians, Purim grew up in a household shaped by her father Naum Purim’s violin playing and her mother Rachel Vaisberg’s piano work, which extended to jazz performance and listening. Her sister Yana has earned international recognition as a vocalist and composer. Early acquaintance with jazz arrived through her mother’s collection featuring Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra among the vocalists, together with pianists Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, and Erroll Garner. Purim formed deep attachments to the styles of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

During her teenage years she studied guitar and piano while taking voice lessons. Professional work began in the early 1960s in the clubs of Rio and Sao Paulo. Her first album, Flora e M.P.M., appeared on the Victor label in 1964 and presented bossa nova standards composed by Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal. She became associated with Quarteto Novo, a circle of younger, adventurous players that included Hermeto Pascoal and her future husband Moreira. Shortly after the album’s release, a military coup imposed censorship at home. Purim and Moreira married in 1966 and departed Brazil for the United States. She attended UCLA’s drama program briefly and, while in Los Angeles, encountered Brazilian composer and arranger Moacir Santos, who instructed her in reading and writing ensemble scores. In 1967 the couple relocated to New York and joined musicians exploring electric jazz. By 1968 they were touring with Stan Getz, Duke Pearson, and Gil Evans. Purim has credited Evans with imparting sophisticated ideas of jazz harmony and improvisation.

The pair appeared on Walter Wanderley’s 1969 A&M album Moonbeams and on Duke Pearson’s How Insensitive for Blue Note. Pearson invited them into his performing band. Airto began working with Miles Davis and later helped Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter launch Weather Report. The following year the couple performed on Hermeto Pascoal’s Cobblestone debut. In 1971 Purim joined Airto on his initial solo efforts, Natural Feelings from 1970 and Seeds on the Ground from 1971. She gave birth to daughter Diana, who also became a professional singer, and subsequently faced arrest for cocaine possession, resulting in imprisonment.

While touring with Getz the couple met pianist Chick Corea. They accepted his invitation late in 1971 to create a band blending electric jazz, advanced improvisation, and Brazilian and Latin rhythms. The original Return to Forever lineup further included bassist Stanley Clarke and saxophonist-flutist Joe Farrell. Two albums appeared in 1972: a self-titled ECM release that drew favorable reviews and the now-classic Light as a Feather on Polydor. Purim composed the lyrics for the celebrated title track in a car outside Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit before a performance. The same album introduced “500 Miles High,” which became her signature piece. That year she was arrested for cocaine possession and contributed to Santana’s Caravanserai, Cannonball Adderley’s The Happy People, and Airto’s Free.

Early in 1973 Purim signed a multi-album contract with Milestone. Butterfly Dreams emerged later that year to broad critical acclaim. Produced by Orrin Keepnews, the sessions featured keyboardist George Duke and saxophonist Joe Henderson, establishing Purim as a leading solo artist. The same year she appeared on Santana’s Welcome alongside pianist Alice Coltrane. Between May and July 1974 she recorded Stories to Tell. Airto assembled the band, which incorporated Duke, guitarists Carlos Santana, Oscar Castro-Neves, and Earl Klugh, a distinguished horn section, and bassists Ron Carter and Miroslav Vitous. She also supplied vocals for Duke’s Feel and I Love the Blues, She Heard My Cry (released 1975), Pearson’s It Could Only Happen with You, Santana’s Borboletta, and Airto’s Virgin Land and Identity.

In August Purim received an eighteen-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island in Los Angeles, California, stemming from the 1971 narcotics charge. The release of her second Milestone album, Stories to Tell, was delayed until February 1975. The arrest and incarceration ultimately enhanced her standing among jazz listeners. The record entered the lower reaches of the Top 200 and reached the Top 20 on the jazz albums chart. On 3 March 1976, shortly before her release, Purim arranged an all-star jazz concert inside the facility, securing permission to feature Adderley, Duke, Vitous, Raul de Souza, Leon Ndugu Chancler, and Airto.

Following her release in May 1976, Purim immersed herself in session and touring activity. She recorded with Adderley and bassist Alphonso Johnson. In September she issued the newly recorded studio album Open Your Eyes You Can Fly, which reached number 59 on the Top 200—an impressive achievement for a jazz vocal release—while the live set 500 Miles High, drawn from a 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival performance, appeared in October and likewise charted in the Top 200. She and Airto also joined the Uruguayan band Opa for their Magic Time album.

After extensive tours across America, Europe, and Brazil, Purim returned to the studio. Two charting Milestone albums followed in 1977: Nothing Will Be as It Was...Tomorrow in April and Encounter in September. The former, co-produced by Chancler, Purim, and Airto, featured horn and string arrangements by Jerry Peters and an all-star roster of American and Brazilian players including Hugo Fattoruso, Reggie Lucas, Fred Jackson, and Patrice Rushen. Encounter, whose sessions had begun the previous year, presented a broader array of participants such as McCoy Tyner, Pascoal, Joe Henderson, and vocalist Urszula Dudziak. It marked her final Milestone release.

Purim moved to Warner Bros. and released the Duke-produced That’s What She Said. She followed with Everyday Everynight in 1978. Co-produced by Airto and Bob Monaco, the album contained several originals and enlisted the Brecker Brothers, David Sanborn, Herbie Hancock, and Jaco Pastorius. Carry On appeared in 1979. Co-produced by Duke and Stanley Clarke, the ten-track collection leaned toward jazz-funk and Brazilian disco. Despite favorable reviews the album failed to chart. That year Purim also guested on Michael Franks’ hit album Tiger in the Rain.

Between 1980 and 1983 Purim concentrated on touring and session work, singing on “L.A. Samba” from Corea’s Tap Step, Gil Evans’ When Flamingos Fly, Duke’s A Brazilian Love Affair, and Joe Sample’s Voices in the Rain. In 1983 she and Airto collaborated with Grateful Dead drummer-percussionist Mickey Hart on the jointly billed Däfos. She produced Airto’s Latino/Aqui Se Puede in 1984 and contributed vocals to Azymuth’s Flame the same year.

In 1985 the couple recorded Humble People for Concord and Three-Way Mirror with saxophonist and former Return to Forever colleague Joe Farrell for Reference Recordings. Purim and Airto reunited for The Magicians on Crossover in 1986. The Colours of Life appeared on In + Out and The Sun Is Out on Crossover the following year. She signed with Virgin’s Venture imprint for the 1988 release Midnight Sun. Produced by Duke, the album gathered new originals, a fresh reading of “Light as a Feather,” and compositions by Milton Nascimento, Lionel Hampton, and Egberto Gismonti. Despite strong production, thoughtful song selection, and abundant musical resources, it did not chart.

She participated in Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra for the widely praised, Grammy-nominated Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1989 and joined the CTI Allstars for Rhythmstick. In 1991 she appeared on Hart’s Grammy-winning Planet Drum. Purim released the little-known Queen of the Night on Sound Wave Records in 1992. That year she and Airto formed the world-jazz fusion group Fourth World and issued Live at Ronnie Scott’s. The acclaimed Encounters of the Fourth World followed in 1993. Subsequent releases included The Flight in 1994 and Speed of Light in 1995, both on B&W Music. She also performed on the unofficially issued Strangers in Paradise by Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nation Orchestra.

In 1999 Purim signed a multi-album agreement with EMI’s Narada label. Her 2000 debut for the imprint, Flora Purim Sings Milton Nascimento, reached the Top 20 on the world-music charts. Perpetual Emotion, produced by Dom Camardella, arrived in 2001 and stands among her strongest recordings, encompassing works by Antonio Carlos Jobim, George Gershwin, Kurt Weill, and a re-recording of Corea’s “Crystal Silence.” Speak No Evil appeared in 2003. Named after the Wayne Shorter composition it featured, the album also included pieces by Don Grusin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and others, peaking at number 15 on the jazz-album chart. Flora’s Song concluded her Narada tenure in 2005. Co-produced by Purim, Airto, and Camardella, the sessions involved Duke, daughter Diana Booker, son-in-law composer-arranger-percussionist Krishna Booker (son of bassist Walter Booker), Dori Caymmi, Mark Egan, and additional musicians. The track list mixed originals with compositions by Ivan Lins, Pastorius, Toninho Horta, and others.

Although Airto and Purim issued archival live recordings such as 2012’s Live in Berkeley from a 1990 concert, she continued to appear sporadically on her husband’s projects and on selected sessions including Dubble D’s Switch 12-inch and Lawson Rollins’ Infinita. More than fifteen years passed without a new album under her own name.

In April 2022, six weeks after her eightieth birthday, Purim released If You Will on the U.K.’s internationally distributed independent Strut label. Presented as her final recording, the album was tracked in Curitiba and Sao Paulo, where she and Airto had returned to live in 2012. Work began in 2019 after Italian DJ-producer Roberta Cutolo of Lucky Cloud Sound System encountered the couple performing at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Festival in France. Although Purim had considered her recording career concluded, Cutolo’s persistence eventually persuaded her to complete one more project. Sessions occurred remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purim and Cutolo assembled a close group of musicians drawn from her extensive circle, among them Airto, Fourth World guitarist Jose Neto, Diana and Krishna, percussionist Celso Alberti, and others. The repertoire revisited material from across her career, offering newly arranged versions of signature works including the Duke-penned title track and Corea’s “500 Miles High.”

In September 2023 her Complete Warner Recordings were remastered and reissued as a double-disc set containing the three albums she recorded for the label—Everyday Everynight, Nothing Will Be As It Was...Tomorrow, and Carry On. The package holds historical value because earlier CD editions had been edited and tracks omitted to accommodate time constraints; this edition restores the original full-length versions of every song along with two rare bonus tracks, “Tango Blues” and “Sad Song.”