Flora & Airto at the Blue Note NYC

July 9 - 14, 2002

During their one week engagement at the Blue Note in NYC, Airto and Flora invited two special guests to join their show.
Each set developed like this:

1. Airto's solo
2. Guest Musician joins
3. Flora & Band

Airto would open each set with a solo that created the right magical atmosphere for things to come. He pulled in even the youngest audience members who responded with dropped jaws and fascinated eyes.
Most evenings he took a tiny percussion instrument out of his pocket which had the shape and size of a beer mat. He started to move it, listening to it with sensitivity, until you could hear a bateria of 50 men or more coming out of this gadget. All this single handedly created by Airto.

It was so interesting seeing the show develop throughout the week:

One night the solo introduction developed into a monologue on how he felt coming to the US in the late 60's, leaving his native Brazil and how his vision of where home is had changed through the years.
Personal, humble and wise.
Another night he was so close to me, moving his rattles and shakers around that I felt their vibrations touching my body. What more to ask for then a shamanistic healing by Airto?

For the first three days Brazilian trumpet talent Claudio Roditi joined the band. This configuration created a hot Latin Jazz session for the first half of the set. It was crisp, very high energy and the band was very tight.

For the second part of the week acclaimed studio musician - guitarist Hiram Bullock sat in for an extended improv-session with Airto. Their encounter was much more free flowing and even though the musicianship was great, the guys sounded aimless at times, loosing themselves in the improvisation. Every now and then Hiram pulled things together by breaking out into "California Dreaming" and other familiar pop songs.

Okay, anticipation of Flora's appearance rose. And there she came and her magic lifted us even higher. Grace, beauty and female mystery entered the room and the energy shifted.

A beautiful new song "Estrela Primavera" composed by Airto was heart wrenching. But Flora came out the best with the "20 Anos Blue", an old Elis Regina staple. She was diving into a creative and sensual improvisation, pulling different sound colors and textures out of the depth of her body. She was expanding into the song. Turning and twisting inside of it, she was moving the whole house with her.

Keeping tradition, they ended with "Tombo" which to the horror of the manager made the Blue Note guests stand up and dance. The musicians which had played on and off with Flora & Airto for the last 15 years were at their best and delivered very strong solos throughout the show.

Flora told us afterwards that she had just finished her next CD which we will all have to wait for with patience. She talked about the amazing grounds of Peter Grabriel's Real World Recording Studios where she recorded it.

Airto just came out with a new bootleg compilation . This time he remixed the material of "The Other Side Of This" according to his vision. You can get it at there next show.

reported by Juergen Bamberger, NYC
www.juergenbamberger.com