Surface aud Symbol
The Emerald’s weekly arts and entertainment supplement
Thursday, June 2, 1977
Formerly the Willamette Christian Center this hall is now the Lane County Civic Center. See Kevin Harden's story on 6B for more details.
Flora Purim opens ‘new’ Civic Center
By BOB WEBB
Of the Emerald
It’s happened before. Back in the early
60s Americans enjoyed a brief flirtation
with the seductive sounds of Brazil. Ameri
can jazz artists like Stan Getz and Herbie
Mann fueled the fascination by bringing to
light performers and composers like Astrud
Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
It’s happening again. The catalyst this
time is Brazilian songstress Flora Purim.
She will appear in concert Friday night
at 7:30 and 10 p.m. The concerts will take
place in Eugene's newest performance
facility, the Lane County Civic Center (see
below and the article on concert halls else
where in this issue for more information on
the Center).
Purim (now managed by Ken Fritz and
Dennis Turner, who handle George Ben
son) and her circle of musical compatriots
— her husband Airto Moreira, friends Mil
ton Nascimento and Hermeto Pascoal —
are playing an increasingly large role in
determining the direction of American jazz
in the 70s. With Purim’s first Warner Bros,
release, Nothing Will Be As It
Was.. .Tomorrow, many have begun to
call her one of the more innovative voc
alists of the decade. Record World
magazine named her Top Female Jazz ar
tist in 1975 and 1976.
Flora Purim grew up in Rio de Janeiro.
Her Brazilian mother and Romanian-born
father were amateur classical musicians
who also harbored a fondness for jazz. The
music of Erroll Garner, Miles Davis, Billie
Holliday and Dinah Washington joined the
African-styled rhythms of Brazilian street
music as influences in Purim’s formative
years. She took up with the then avant
garde sounds of bossa-nova and became
an established singer in her native country.
Arriving in the U.S. in 1968 she first
studied drama in Los Angeles, where she
learned about voice projection. She later
moved to New York, getting important as
signments there with Duke Pearson, Stan
Getz and Gil Evans. A key moment for
Purim came when she was invited by
keyboardist Chick Corea to join his original
Return to Forever group. Husband Airto,
whose reputation had spread as a result of
his work with Miles Davis, also joined up
with Corea.
Purim changed her whole concept of
singing in Corea's band. She began to
reevaluate traditional forms of pop singing,
shifting her voice from a concentration on
words to an emphasis on singing whatever
sounds it took to communicate more freely
with her audience. By the time her two
years with Corea ended, she was on her
way toward perfecting a vocal style that
falls somewhere between scatting and
vocalese.
It's a difficult technique to describe.
Her six octave range can run breakneck
from laughter to tears in a span of a few
bars. The emotional level of her commit
ment is always at fever pitch. Cashbox
magazine has this to say: “Flora
Purim’s vocal style will be as influential in
the Seventies as Billie Holliday’s was in the
Forties .and early Fifties.”
The critical raves started pouring in
with her first record for Milestone, Butterfly
Dreams, arranged by Return to Forever
bassist Stanley Clarke. She placed first in
the Downbeat poll, only to repeat the feat
the next year with Stories to Tell. Riding the
crest of a major breakthrough, Purim’s
timetable was interrupted in 1974 by an 18
month spell in California’s Terminal Island
prison following a cocaine bust.
Despite that setback, Purim came
back with Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly in
1975. A combination of thundering rhythms
and Purim’s intense vocal imagination, the
album boosted her reknown to new sectors
of the music audience.
While her compositional orientation
may rest clearly in the jazz sphere, her
treatment of almost any song gives it ap
peal beyond the jazz world. Such was the
case with Nothing Will Be As It
Was.. .Tomorrow, a disarming work high
lighting Purim at her most exuberant. Pro
duced by percussionist Leon “Ndugu"
Chancier, the album features the music of
George Duke. Ndugu, Patrice Rushen, Al
McKay and Ernie Watts. See Mark Rowe’s
review of this album elsewhere in this
issue.
Opening each show is Upepo, a
Northwestern latin jazz group.
The place where these folks will be
performing is a converted church, which
was designed not only for clarity of visual
line, but also for clarity in acoustics. The
proof, of course, will be Friday night, but
on the basis of a quick tour (including a tape
played over the house system) the place
sounded very good. All sight lines are
good, the top row of the balcony is only a
rough 100 feet from the stage. All of the 750
seats, give or take a folding chair or two,
are padded and comfortable with decent
leg room between the aisles. Because it is
a nice house, and the new owners want to
keep it that way, there will be no smoking or
drinking on the premises.
Tickets for the show are $5.50 in ad
vance and $6.50 at the door. Outlets are
Everybody’s Records, House of Records,
Chrystalship and the Sun Shop.