Flora Purim photo by Lindy Pollard
Flora Purim (b. 3/6/42) 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”.
Early Life:
Purim was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Jewish parents who were classical musicians. Her father Naum Purim played violin and her mother Rachel Vaisberg was a pianist. When her father was out of the house, her mother played jazz.
Musical Beginnings:
Purim began her career in Brazil during the early 1960s. During this period, she made a recording, entitled Flora e M.P.M., in which she sang bossa nova standards of the day by Carlos Lyra and Roberto Menescal. Later in the 1960s, Purim was lead singer for the Quarteto Novo, led by Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira.
After reaching young adulthood, Purim mixed jazz with radical protest songs to defy the repressive Brazilian government of that time. A 1964 military coup led to censorship of song lyrics, and she later commented on this period of her life as follows:
I wanted to leave Brazil. There’s a river there called the San Francisco River. I used to sing to the river, that, as it flowed out to the ocean, it would take me to America.
Discography:
As leader: 27
with Airto Moreira: 10
with Fourth World: 5
As Guest: 18
Filmography:
As a leader: 1
As sidewoman: 3
One thing to share:
Purim was imprisoned at Federal Correctional Institution, Terminal Island in Los Angeles, California in August 1974 for cocaine possession; she was given the inmate number 2775. During her year and a half imprisonment from 1974 to 1976, she organized a concert on March 3, 1976, which brought in some famous musicians from the outside: Cannonball Adderley, George Duke, Airto Moreira, Miroslav Vitouš, Raul de Souza and Leon “Ndugu” Chancler. Purim usually performed these concerts with little or no rehearsal time, for about an hour. One performance was broadcast on KBCA FM (105.1), an L.A.-based jazz station. Among the tunes they performed were Chick Corea’s “Light as a Feather”, “500 Miles High”, and “Celebration Suite”. This was the first time such a co-operation between civilians and inmates had ever taken place.
Official website: link didn’t work allmusic has a nice section on her
Source: wikipedia
Tao Talk 
Anyone in jazz automatically has my respect. It’s a ridiculous hard kind of music to play. It’s cool that she gave back after being in jail.
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Ditto on jazz musicians, and yes on the giving back. She has brought a lot of joy to the world with her singing, and I say that from my personal joy in listening to her.
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She does have a great voice…and I knew she would with the word jazz mentioned.
You are popular today! Thanks for doing that…a great debut for the Beatles thing.
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Thanks a lot, Max. I really had no idea what to write until I started typing and the boys put in their opinions 😉
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P.S. Thank you for your kind and generous introduction. I’m humbled.
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You deserved it! and thanks again!
I hope people don’t burned out on the Beatles…it will be going on until March 22 I think lol
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I’m only superficially acquainted with her work–I like the selections here–clearly I need to listen to more. (K)
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Same here, K.
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Flora Purim has an amazing voice. I only knew of her because of Chick Corea’s version of “Crystal Silence” that featured her, which I included in my Sunday Six installment two weeks ago. I remember you commented at the time that you had a planned post dedicated to Purim as part of your Women Music March series. I’ve greatly enjoyed reading it.
I have an all-female pop punk trio lined up for my new music feature tomorrow. Perhaps you sufficiently like them to feature at some point in your series.
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She has a wonderful voice for jazz music. Will try to look for your music feature tomorrow and possibly add them.
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This is sounding pretty good today Lisa. Ive been listening to Flora a long time. Found her through Chick Corea and Stan Getz. Just wonderful in my book.
My son (Big Earl) was visiting with his gal who’s from Brazil. I gifted her an old Flora album I had. She fell in love with her. She also gifted me some music from her home country. Nice huh?
Great choices and thanks for the nudges. I have a big pool of music and one person who’s tops in it is Billie Holiday. Hands down one of my favorite vocalists.
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I’m glad you got a connection going with her, that’s how I first heard her also. Big Earl’s Girlfriend sounds like my kind of people.
I covered Billie Holiday on 3/25/21 🙂
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I probably popped in for that Billie take. I do get around once in a while. Hard to keep up with all you good folk.
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I know what you mean, CB. Not enough hours in the day!
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