Vocalist Maria Rita (WEA International) comes from elite blood: her mother is the late Elis Regina, one of Brazil’s greatest vocalists, and her father is pianist and arranger Cesar Camargo Mariano. Rita takes on her legacy head-on with her self-titled debut, which was a hit in Brazil and earned her a Latin Grammy. The CD is filled with tunes by some of Rita’s homeland’s best-known songwriters (Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins), and the album brims with acoustic jazz, Brazilian art song and intelligent pop-sometimes all on the same tune. The Portuguese lyrics are not translated, so the music has to convey their emotional impact-and it does. Rita’s voice has some of the breathiness that sounds so bossa nova, but the arrangements let her dig her heels in and color in a lot more of the sound.
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