Tania Maria

Tania Maria, the Brazilian jazz vocalist and pianist, launched a professional path that extended beyond thirty years by fronting a group of seasoned players at age thirteen. Her father, a metalworker with notable skill as an amateur musician, had arranged the ensemble and pressed her to take up piano lessons so she could support his weekend jam sessions. Those modest appearances soon proved too narrow for her growing abilities. Though her four sisters likewise possessed musical gifts, all the siblings eventually moved beyond their impoverished origins into professional careers, a trajectory Maria herself pursued after completing two years of law school, marrying, and raising children. The lure of performance proved stronger, leading her to issue her debut Brazilian album, Olha Quem Chega, in 1971. By the late seventies she had settled in Paris, from which base she began touring internationally. One Australian appearance drew the notice of guitarist Charlie Byrd, who introduced her to Carl Jefferson, founder of Concord Records. The label delivered her first substantial international breakthrough with the 1984 album Come With Me and went on to document and release her subsequent work for global audiences. Resident in New York since the eighties, she has continued performing the pop- and blues-inflected material that established her reputation, issuing several albums during the nineties. Concord Records also released Viva Brazil, her first recording of the new millennium.