A Kiss for Brazil

Best of 2024 A dynamic year so far for jazz vocals - and there's something inside so strong as the feeling intensifies still more liltingly on A Kiss for Brazil. Featuring the great singer from Bahia, Rosa Passos (Amorosa, 2004 is her classic) - there are few singers on the planet who can take a note for a walk like US singer Karrin Allyson.

The A Kiss for Brazil version of Tom Jobim's 'Wave' covered so often since Equinox by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 is for these ears among the 21st century treatments peerless. Walk into any winebar an ocean distant from Rio and say from unequatorial Redditch to a less than sweltering Scunthorpe, Carlisle to Carlyon Bay guaranteed - some time some day - the bossa nova breeze of 'Wave' somehow lifting up out from the in-house PA will make your day if sufficiently receptive to hear it as if or even for the first time.

One of the year's best jazz albums and not only because of the version of 'Wave' but for the Passos contributions and the feel the rhythm section injects. Personnel with Karrin include gifted guitarist - known for his work with Monty Alexander - Yotam Silberstein, whose own album Standards lit us up inside earlier in the year. Recorded in a Teaneck studio in New Jersey last year Harvie S is immaculate on bass. Another triumph for jazz indie Origin - their best album since Nnenna Freelon's sublime Time Traveler.