Natureza

Natureza is an obscure, truly lost Brazilian recording uncovered by the venerable London-based Far Out Recordings. For reasons still not entirely clear, it went unreleased until 2022. While living in New York in the mid- to late 70s, Joyce and her husband, drummer Tutty Moreno, met German producer Claus Ogerman. Introduced by Brazilian drummer Joao Palma, Ogerman asked Joyce to audition for him and was so excited by the results that he decided to produce an album. Joyce brought in Palma, Tutty, featured singer/multi-instrumentalist Mauricio Maestro (who wrote or co-wrote four of these seven songs), and Nana Vasconcelos. Ogerman hired Michael Brecker, Mike Maneri, Warren Bernhardt, Joe Farrell, Buster Williams, and an orchestra. The recordings took place at Columbia Studios. Ogerman wanted to do some fine-tuning to mixes and charts, and find a label. Joyce returned to Brazil. Ogerman met with some label resistance and wanted her to return to New York and re-record her vocals in English -- she vehemently opposed this and fate intervened. She became pregnant with her third child and refused to travel. Contact between the two became rare, then non-existent, and the tapes vanished. Only two songs ever appeared from the sessions: The spiraling, luscious, 11-minute version of "Feminina" in 1999 and "Descompassadamente," sung by Maestro, that appeared on an Ogerman compilation in 2002. The songs were mixed by engineer Al Schmitt and mastered from the original tapes. Far Out released these with the remaining five tracks in unmixed form. Due to significant deterioration of the masters, the best audio source for the unreleased cuts was an unmixed copy Joyce possessed. The label took great care in restoration and mastering, but the sound quality on those is identifiably inferior. That said, given the sheer quality of the music, the sound -- by no means bad -- hardly matters. The breezy samba that guides "Feminina" (the 1980 single version became an international classic) is stretched by the jazz band, layered multivalent percussion, electric keyboards, vibes, elegant flute solos from Farrell, gorgeous backing vocals, and orchestral textures. "Moreno" is an elegantly wrought acoustic samba with glorious vocal extensions by Joyce alongside her impressive guitar playing. "Coracao Sonhador," on which Maestro sings lead, is pure Ogerman in presentation: Orchestral strings and winds hover and float above a rumbling bassline, acoustic guitars, and percussion as the singers airy baritone is wrapped in flute and sax. The duet vocals on "Descompassadamente" are sublime, syncopating and elasticizing the sound of orchestral brass, layered hand percussion, and hyper guitars. While "Misterios" weds bossa to jazz balladry, the eight-and-a-half-minute "Ciclo Da Vida" commences as an orchestral tone poem before Maestros vocals seemingly emerge from the ether. Closer "Pega Leve" is a frenetic, syncopated samba with multivalent, interlocking, and bumping drums, muscular guitars, and percussion from Tutty and Vasconcelos; Ion Munizs flute solo rises above them and frames the soaring chorus vocals from Joyce and Maestro. While Natureza was a long time coming, it qualifies as a masterpiece from the iconic singer/songwriter, even in its mostly "unmixed" state. ~ Thom Jurek