Flora Purim

From Rio to Return to Forever

Flora Purim was born on March 6, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro. Her first record, Flora e M.P.M., came out around 1964, singing bossa nova standards, and she worked the Rio and Sao Paulo nightclubs and the bossa-jazz scene around the Beco das Garrafas in Copacabana, where she met the percussionist Airto Moreira. In the later 1960s she was the lead singer of Quarteto Novo with Hermeto Pascoal and Airto, who is credited with helping her develop her voice, and she names Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald among her influences. Her voice has been described as six-octave and she often sings wordlessly, as an instrumental member of the band, in the words of World of Jazz. In 1966 she went to Los Angeles and in 1967 to New York, touring Europe with Stan Getz and Gil Evans and singing with Duke Pearson; Moacir Santos taught her to read and write music.

In 1970 Airto joined Miles Davis's band and she followed six months later. In 1971 or 1972 Chick Corea invited her to sing; she recommended Airto as percussionist and both joined Return to Forever, whose original line-up was Corea on Fender Rhodes, Purim on vocals and percussion, Airto on drums and percussion, Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute and Stanley Clarke on bass. They made Return to Forever (ECM, 1972), at first Europe only, and Light as a Feather, recorded at IBC Studios in London on October 8 and 15, 1972. After Light as a Feather, Purim, Airto and Farrell left to start their own bands; she told Bandcamp Daily that on the second record she broke from Chick and started her own thing. Her solo debut Butterfly Dreams (Milestone, 1973) was produced by Orrin Keepnews, with George Duke, Stanley Clarke and Joe Henderson, and was followed by Stories to Tell and the live 500 Miles High (1974) and Open Your Eyes You Can Fly (1976).

Critics' polls named her top jazz singer repeatedly in the 1970s; Wikipedia counts four Down Beat wins. In the 1980s she spent about three years with Dizzy Gillespie's United Nation Orchestra and in August 1986 gave three nights at the Canecao in Rio, her first return concerts in Brazil. She sang on Gillespie's Live at the Royal Festival Hall and Mickey Hart's Planet Drum, both Grammy winners, and on the Apocalypse Now soundtrack. Fourth World, with Airto, made albums in 1993 and 1999; Speed of Light (1995), Perpetual Emotion, Flora Purim Sings Milton Nascimento and Speak No Evil followed, and Flora's Song with Corea in 2005. She received the Order of Rio Branco in 2002. If You Will (2022, Strut), her first album in about 15 years, was nominated for a Grammy for best Latin jazz album and includes a new "500 Miles High" in memory of Corea, who died in February 2021 while it was being recorded.