(Reprinted from the March 2023 issue of The New York City Jazz Record)
On Rosa Passos’ new live recording, Samba Sem Você (Storyville), the celebrated Brazilian singer/guitarist maneuvers the rhythmic currents and fast-paced melodies artfully, her longtime trio synchronized to her pace. By the time she recorded this album—the second set from a gig at Copenhagen Jazzhouse in the summer of 2001—the Bahian artist was two decades out from her debut, Recriação, the record that launched her reputation as one of the foremost interpreters of the Bossa Songbook.
The new disc—a counterpart to 2021’s Dunas (Storyville), which relays the first set from that same Jazzhouse date—marks Passos’ 50th release as a leader or guest. This extensive discography draws a roadmap of her global career, documenting not only her accomplishments as a noteworthy performer and composer in her own right, but her many collaborations with musicians as diverse as jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, cellist YoYo Ma, singer/songwriter Kenny Rankin and jazz bassist Ron Carter.
Passos’ exemplary musicianship is doubtless what drew all of these artists into her fold—the impeccable intonation, elegant sound, and intuitive phrasing. These qualities find exalted expression in Brazilian musical forms especially, beloved for their romantic imagery and seductive feels.
Passos comes by such musicality naturally, it seems. Born in Salvador, Bahia, she studied piano as child, but switched to guitar when she first heard João Gilberto and Tom Jobim as a teen. During those formative years, she also began composing, gaining national attention for her exceptional abilities as a singer, player, and songwriter. These early wins led to recording contracts in Brazil that in turn caught the attention of musicians—and audiences—abroad. Before long, she was traveling the globe as an emissary of Brazilian music.
In a translated email correspondence with The New York City Jazz Record, Passos explains why the world remains so enamored of the Brazilian bossa—a unique hybrid of samba and cool jazz—more than six decades after its heyday: “The bossa nova had artists of the highest quality, true geniuses of Brazilian music, such as João Gilberto, Nara Leão, and Tom Jobim”, she wrote. “Very qualified artists who made the bossa nova a Brazilian heritage that conquered everyone.”
The canon of songs that “conquered everyone” provides Passos with a wealth of material to perform. For Samba Sem Você, Passos chose several titles by Dorival Caymmi, one of the founding composers of the early bossa movement. Among them is “Milagre” (“Miracle”), a popular 1977 duet between Dorival and his wife, singer Nana Caymmi. The album’s version, crisp and clean, takes on added depth with pianist Fábio Torres’ modern reharmonization and Passos’ bright percussive vocals—it’s a quick, happy jaunt. But Caymmi also gives the album its most contemplative track—and one of Passos’ favorites on the album—“Nem Eu” (“Not Me”), from 1952. Passos opens the ballad with a gentle rubato section before digging into the rueful melody and circumspect lyrics: “Love happens when you aren’t paying attention…”
Whether or not one understands Portuguese, Passos’ native language, her emotional investment in the lyrics is striking. Listen to the mounting heartbreak on “Altos e Baixos” (by Sueli Costa/Aldir Blanc), for instance, or the dogged vehemence on “Bala com Bala” (by João Bosco/Aldir Blanc). This intensity, much as it characterizes Passos’ vocal performances, also informs her writing.
“What inspires me to compose is the content of the lyrics, what the poem is trying to say”, she wrote. “From there, I lovingly seek inspiration to serve as a conduit for music”.
Passos contributed two compositions to the album: the title track (with Fernando de Oliveira), a brisk up-tempo whose optimism coyly contradicts the longing in the lyrics, and “Gesto”, or “Gesture” (with Sérgio Natureza), a gently cadenced flirtation about the life-giving joyfulness of song. These originals are two of the record’s sunniest cuts.
That Passos can conjure moods so deftly speaks in large measure to the solidity of the musical bond with her trio: Torres, bassist Paulo Palelli, and drummer Celso de Almeida. On Ary Borroso’s “Aquarela Do Brasil” (“Brazilian Watercolor”), arguably one of the most well-known Brazilian tunes, Torres and Passos expound on the harmonies, while Palelli and Almeida build the unerring rhythmic foundation. This effortless cooperation leaves Passos the creative space to extemporize with vocal riffs and calls—it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying closing track.
“We are like a family, we have been together for many years”, Passos writes about her side players. “This facilitates our relationship and our musical rapport”.
When Passos plays JALC’s Appel Room on March 24-25, though, it won’t be with her regular trio. Instead, she’ll be resuming her creative partnership with pianist Kenny Barron, with whom she concertized six years ago, also at JALC. It was their first time playing together, and the Appel Room readily sold out. Adding to the significance of this month's reunion, bassist Ron Carter will join the pair, revisiting one of Passos’ initial forays into American jazz.
“I first met Ron Carter [in 2003]. That's when we recorded an album on which we sing together, called Between Friends [Entre Amigos, Chesky]”, Passos recalled. “It was a very important moment in my career to record with Ron Carter, a living jazz legend. And then I met Kenny [Barron], another living jazz legend, doing the show in 2016 (along with Paulo Paulelli). I am sure that a show with a theme like Tom Jobim, and the participation of these two legends, will be wonderful.”
And historic—these three important musicians have never performed all together before. Adding to the evenings’ uniqueness, Brazil-born/NYC-based Rafael Barata—a mainstay drummer for such distinct artists as Dianne Reeves, Eliane Elias, and Jobim arranger Jaques Morelenbaum—will round out the quartet.
The meeting of these musical minds on this particular stage is also rare: Passos doesn’t come through New York very often. And after these shows, she's planning other performances, for venues in Europe and South America, and a new album. There’s only so much time—and so much world to conquer.