Let me be forthright, I wish I had more info to share about this album. Doris Monteiro’s Agora, released in 1976, was a revelation then as it still is now. It’s a funk album, it’s a chanson album, it’s a detached post-bossanova album, it’s a whole bunch of other unclassifiable stuff, but first (and foremost) it just oozes with coolness and sophistication.
Doris at that moment, was a 40 year old pop idol widely known for her very detached, almost flat singing style drawing from the rich well of Brazilian bossanova and pop standards. Couple that with an icy, very European-like demeanor, you would be hard-pressed to not present her very much like a Brazilian Nico. It’s a miracle that her personality led to fame more through TV and cinema work rather than music. The records she released sold well but weren’t really much to write home about, truth be told. Somewhere, for a brief period in the mid ’70s, she got hip into the samba scene and the next generation, MPB upstarts, deciding to jump head first into creating an album wherein she could work with whatever unique vocal gifts she had in those styles.
This is the album where it finally clicked. Using all the warmness of ’70s studio sounds, her main co-conspirators — arranger, Geraldo Vespar and keyboardist Ricardo Gilson — created unique dance moods that melted a lot of her icy feel. Wedding her voice to a far jazzier and (weirdly) more refined, orchestrated sound, Agora felt part of the vanguard of Brazil’s rapidly evolving folk rock scene.
“Maita”, gives you a taste of what the rest of album holds. The angular interplay between the acoustic guitars, woodwinds, and Doris is beyond breezy. For me, it’s a track that puts me directly on the beaches of Doris’s native Rio De Janeiro.
As if feeling that much lighter feeling, here Doris herself, gracefully unfurls as its track. In short notice that supposed coolness dissolve and we hear her slowly warming up until you hear her let out an audible giggle. Somehow, this reimagining of a candomble-influenced original by the magnetic Afro-Brazilian Giovana wins over the supposed ice queen of the Amazon.
After that point, the rest of the album gets more natural and digs deeper in richness of sound and dynamics. You’ll hear urbane, smooth sun-wilted dance songs like Paulo César Pinheiro’s “Partida” or her strident cover of Gilberto Gil’s “Lugar Comun” take on gorgeous, wistful turns through her study. You’ll hear deeply personal iconic bossanova cuts like Tom Jobim‘s and Vinicius De Moraes‘s “Lamento No Morro” gain on the feel of learned conversation, sounding sung and played as if Doris was right there with you.
Graced with a simply fantastic crew of musicians you really should check out anything in their oeuvre — I see guitarists Burnier & Cartier, accordionist Sivuca (!), the late great bassist Luizão and many more — Agora just sounds impeccably composed, befitting a cast and crew affording Doris all their talent to take her to that next level.
From groovy easy funk monsters like “Dia de Feira” that under the hands of João de Aquino were far more complex that led onto tracks like my favorite “Tema do Doris”, a gently soaring country-tinged self-sung portrait, there’s just something quite mood setting about this album. Perhaps there’s a warm elegance to this album that would quietly be influential to others like Eli Regina that’d shortly feel its pull in their creative sprawl.
I still do look at that album cover and think about how different it looks from most Brazilian album covers from this time. So similar in composition to Joni Mitchell’s Blue album, another career defining release full of warm deeply personal sophistication.
In Blue Joni looks down to a certain sadness prevailing throughout it and choses to create music matching the feel of her likeness. Only in Brazil, can Doris navel gaze and find a certain happiness/affirmation even though they’re sharing the same disposition. I guess that’s what they call it saudade, right?
Note: This review was originally authored/published here on July 7, 2014. It has been updated with new information and research.