Carlos Lyra

One of the most important artists of the bossa nova movement, Carlos Lyra was also an intellectual behind the movement, forging new directions like the protest song. Lyra wrote some of the best moments of the bossa nova on his own or together with illustrious partners like Vinícius de Moraes. With Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra created a guitar academy that became a meeting point for future artists like Edu Lobo, Marcos Valle, Nara Leão, and Ronaldo Bôscoli.
Saravá! was recorded in Mexico, when Lyra and other Brazilian artists were in cultural exile. This album is a nice and classic Bossa Nova piece.

Vinicius de Moraes was the lyricist for many of Antonio Carlos Jobim's most durable melodies, and his death in 1980 understandably dealt the great Brazilian composer a devastating blow. That he greatly missed de Moraes is quite obvious in this lovingly performed, posthumously released concert, recorded (upon the tenth anniversary of de Moraes' death) at Rio's Centro Cultural do Brasil with just a chamber-sized selection of players from Jobim's band of family and friends. A few well-known pieces are included - there is a very touching rendition of "Insensatez" that makes this often-played tune seem freshly minted - but most of the selections are among the less familiar fruits of the collaboration, along with a few songs that de Moraes wrote with Carlos Lyra and Toquinho…

Bossa Nova translated as the "new beat" or "the new style", grew out of Rio De Janeiro in 1958. The instigators were a handful of artists with a desire to break from tradition, developing the samba rhythms with the influence of cool American jazz to find a music with such a warm soul and natural rhythm that no-one can help but tap and sway to its beat. Bossa Nova is palm trees swaying, it is like melting sugar in hot coffee, it is the setting sun and warm sand underfoot. It is the sound and beat of Brazil, it is one of the world's coolest musical styles and it remains to this day one of the world's great musical treasures.