Maria Fumaça cover

Maria Fumaça

Released

As the long arc of MPB took Brazilian popular music from early ’60s samba to late ’60s psychedelia to early ’70s folk and soul, it would inevitably lead to at least one late ’70s reckoning with jazz-funk that would rival anything recorded above the Equator. Banda Black Rio’s Maria Fumaça is just that album, the stunning debut of a seven-member ensemble who were purpose-built to accomplish that very task. And the slinky / slippery / sleek instrumentals on this record so seamlessly embody a simultaneous tradition of Afro-Brazilian and Black American traditions — especially in their blazing horn charts and hipsway-engineered basslines — that it’s hard to tell where the Jorge ends and the Herbie begins. Call it Terra, Vento e Fogo.

Nate Patrin

Suggestions
Black Byrd cover

Black Byrd

Donald Byrd
Off the Wall cover

Off the Wall

Michael Jackson
Dancing Machine cover

Dancing Machine

The Jackson 5
Hand Jive cover

Hand Jive

John Scofield
Testifyin’ cover

Testifyin’

Clarence Carter
There's a Riot Goin' On cover

There's a Riot Goin' On

Sly & the Family Stone
Breezin’ cover

Breezin’

George Benson