This fabled 11 minute+ version of Brazilian icon Joyce's groundbreaking "Feminina" was recorded at Columbia Studios, New York in 1977, for the as yet unreleased Natureza album. Produced, arranged and conducted by the great Claus Ogerman (Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Billie Holiday... the list goes on), Natureza would have ostensibly been Joyce's big break to international stardom, but mysteriously, it was never released. With Joyce came fellow Brazilian icon Mauricio Maestro, while Nana Vasconcelos and Tutty Moreno were already living in New York, and Ogerman employed North American jazz legends Joe Farrell, Michael Brecker, Buster Williams, Mike Manieri and a full orchestra for the sessions.

In anticipation of the monumental forthcoming Natureza album release via Far Out Recordings, this astonishing version of a true classic gets its first proper 12" vinyl release for Record Store Day 2022. In the spirit of making the release special for Record Store Day, rather than leave it as a single sided 12", Far Out boss called up Joyce to talk about the recording, recorded the conversation, and got it pressed onto the B-side.

Joyce - Feminina (produced, arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman)

The tenth record in our Brazil 45s series - http://www.mrbongo.com/products/jorge-ben-joao-donato-7

A. Jorge Ben & Toquinho - Carolina, Carol Bela
AA. Joao Donato - Ara

Jorge Ben & Toquinho - Carolina, Carol Bela 

Jorge Ben is a name that any lover of Brazilian music will be very familiar with. He is widely regarded as the James Brown of Brazilian music and is famed for writing the Brazilian anthem ‘Mas Que Nada'. For the duet ‘Carolina, Carol Bela' he teamed up with the singer & guitarist Toquinho. Toquinho is best known for his collaborations, as composer and performer, with Bossa Nova poet Vinicius de Moraes.

'Carolina, Carol Bela' featured on the album ’Toquinho’ by Toquinho. It was originally released in 1970 on the small independent Brazilian label, RGE. This version is the first time it has been reissued as a 45.  

The song was sampled by DJ Marky and XRS for their Drum & Bass track ‘LK’ (V Recordings, 2002). This went on to be a huge chart hit across the world, and a number one hit in the UK.

Joao Donato - Ara

Joao Donato is a Brazilian Jazz and Bossa Nova Pianist. He has collaborated with many of the greats of Brazilian Music, including Tom Jobim, Astrud Gilberto and Gilberto Gil. He was one of the few Brazilian artists who went over to perform in the States during the Bossa Nova boom of the late 60’s. The song ‘Ara’ was originally released on his seminal album Quem é quem”, (EMI, 1973), an album that is full of great tracks and was considered as one of the 100 best albums in all times by the Rolling Stone magazine. 

See more of our Brazilian 45 series here.

Joao Donato - A Ra

This record is the result of a 1964 jam session organised by Astor Silva and Wilson Das Neves and was originally released in 1975 on the Brazilian label Discos CBS.

The idea behind the record was to break the traditional bossa trio mould and create instead a harder edged Jazz and bossa sound that allowed for more soloing and improvisation.

The result is a stone-cold classic bossa title and an essential album for all Brazilian music fans (we promise). The album includes classics such as Kenya, Nana, Consolacao and Berimbau. 

Unfortunately neither the vinyl nor the CD versions are available anymore although we may repress in the future if demand is high enough – so please let us know if you’re interested.

Os Ipanemas - Berimbau

Neno Exporta Som - Deixa A Tristeza

Far Out Recordings are honoured to be working with master composer, arranger and pianist, Antonio Adolfo for the first time since releasing his Destiny album in 2007. This time we present the first ever vinyl reissue of his era-defining Viralata LP: An essential album from Brazil's majorly progressive heyday of late seventies jazz-funk. Viralata is a sacred artefact of Brazilian music, which Antonio himself describes as ‘a product of my hybrid musical influences that joins together flavours of marchinhas de carnaval, frevo, toada, classical, baião, mpb and jazz, etc’.

The album’s first track ‘Cascavel’ is the emotionally charged, celebratory dance anthem, which became a London jazz-dance classic in the early ‘90s after Far Out label boss Joe Davis discovered a handful of copies in a second hand shop in Sao Paulo and brought them back to London to sell to DJs like Gilles Peterson and Patrick Forge. In recent years the track has been played out by the likes of Floating Points, Mr Scruff and Andrew Ashong, it was also the last song ever to play on the hallowed soundsystem of London’s beloved club Plastic People…

“Saturday nights at Plastic People wouldn't have been the same without this album. Cascavel was such an important track for the club, it was the last tune we played there before the doors were closed forever.”
Sean McAuliffe, (Plastic People & NTS Radio)

Viralata sits comfortably on the same pedestal as Azymuth's Light As A Feather and Joao Donato’s Quem É Quem, which is no co-incidence. All three keystone LPs were recorded and engineered by Toniniho, considered by many to be "the Brazilian Rudy Van Gelder" whose magic touches in the studio also helped to produce Marcos Valle's Previsão Do Tempo and Joyce's Água E Luz among many other holy grails and unassailable classics of soulful Brazilian music.

Antonio’s work has been widely performed by his legendary Brazilian contemporaries including Sergio Mendes, Emilio Santiago and Erasmo Carlos, but also by platinum-selling American icons including Stevie Wonder, Herb Alpert and Dionne Warwick. Following an early 70s spell of studying jazz in the USA, Viralata’s release in 1979 arrived at the height of a flourishing period of Antonio’s career. With his late 60s and 70s output following through on his influences of tropicalia, funk, MPB and easy listening, the almost entirely instrumental Viralata marked an apex for Brazilian jazz.

Os Ipanemas - Berimbau

Mr Bongo