Flora Purim (born March 6, 1942) is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Return to Forever with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. She has recorded and performed with numerous artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Opa, Stan Getz, George Duke, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jaco Pastorius, and her husband Airto Moreira.
In 2002, Purim was the recipient of one of Brazil’s highest awards, the 2002 Ordem do Rio Branco for Lifetime Achievement. She has been called “The Queen of Brazilian Jazz”. (wikipedia)
For those who thought that despite recording, Flora Purim’s musical career went out the window with her prison term in the early ’90s, or, worse, at the end of 1970s jazz-world 
fusion boom, think again. Perpetual Emotion is the strongest recording Ms. Purim’s monumental talent has given us since 1975’s 500 Miles High. Accompanied by life partner and collaborator percussionist Airto Moreira, saxophonist Gary Meek, pianist Christian Jacob, bassist Trey Henry, and acoustic guitarist Oscar Castro Neves, and producer Dom Comardella, Purim has selected material that showcases the ease and flow of a voice that contains within it the passion of Brazil and the airiness of a spring day. Some of those selections, such as Cesar Mariano’s “Saudade,” offer the deep melancholy of looking back to places you can never again visit and reveal within them the sweeter memories they hold. Chris Jacob’s piano leads the way trough the tune and strips it of any false “exotic” artifice. It’s a jazz ballad with a Brazilian melody and rhythm, eased through the gates by Moreira’s easy touch and a flowing bassline by Henry. On “Fotographia” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Purim takes the tune, which has been recorded literally hundreds of times, to its folksy essence and makes of it a song that is neither jazz nor samba, but a tome of memory and longing. The highlight of the album is the revisiting of Chick Corea’s and Neville Potter’s “Crystal Silence.
While the song had been in Purim’s early repertoire as an improvisation, a wordless melody, because she had not known — even though she had been part of Corea’s Return to Forever — that the tune had words all along. Her feeling for the original is fierce and moving; it flows from her like a river of feeling and motion, it offers the notion of seeing with new eyes that which has been present all along. Her interpretive voice has never sounded stronger, and her band is understated enough to let it come freely through the mix while providing her with musical challenges to rise to. Perpetual Emotion is the album Purim’s been promising to deliver her entire career. Let us hope that this is the first of many like it to come. (by Thom Jurek)
Personnel:
Trey Henry (bass)
Christian Jacob (piano)
Gary Meek (saxophone, bass, clarinet, flute)
Airto Moreira (drums, percussion)
Oscar Castro-Neves (guitar)
Flora Purim (vocals)
Tracklist:
01. San Francisco River (Moreira/Purim) 4.58
02. My Ship (Gershwin/Weill) 4.13
03. Escape (Purim) 4.12
04. Saudade (Purim) 3.02
05. Crystal Silence (Corea/Potter) 6.18
06. Flora And Airto (Purim) 5.00
07. Fotografia (Gilbert/Jobim) 6.55
08. Journey To Eden (Purim) 5.19
09. Search For Peace (Purim/Tyner) 6.07
10. Airto’s Jazz Dance (Purim) 4.07
11. Carinhoso (Pixinguinha/Purim) 3.50
Speak no evil is a 2003 album by the Brazilian singer Flora Purim. The name of the album is a tribute to a 1965 album and song by Wayne Shorter.
Influenced by both traditional Brazilian singers and the improvisations of American jazz divas like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Flora Purim was one of the most adventurous singers of the 1970s. After meeting and marrying her husband, percussionist Airto Moreira, in their native Brazil, Purim moved with him to the U.S. in the late ’60s. Though she worked with Stan Getz and pianist Duke Pearson before the decade ended, it wasn’t until joining Chick Corea, Joe Farrell, Stanley Clarke, and Moreira in the original Return to Forever in 1972 that she became well known in the States. Purim showed considerable promise on Forever classics like “500 Miles High” and “Light As a Feather” and lived up to it when she went solo with 1973’s Butterfly Dreams. Ranging from superb to passably decent, Purim’s Milestone dates of the mid- to late ’70s kept her quite visible in the jazz world. Purim’s work grew erratic and uneven in the 1980s, and she wasn’t recording as often (though she did provide one album for Virgin and three with Moreira for Concord’s Crossover label). Purim didn’t record very often in the early to mid-’90s either, but she continued to be highly regarded in Brazilian jazz circles. (by Alex Henderson)
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