Heaven has been particularly jazzy lately. In addition to the arrival of João Donato and Tony Bennett last week, this week they needed singers there and Leny Andrade e Dóris Monteiro, two muses who had already beautifully fulfilled their missions on this plan, went to shine from high above, like the true real stars they are.

I had the pleasure of seeing them both on stage and such experiences are worth a lesson in singing and devotion to art. Both were demanding performers and profound music connoisseurs. Leny was a classic painist and Doris had also a successful career in movies.

In addition to that, they had in common the precision of singing, accurate sense for the new (they were, for example, pioneers in what we know today as concept albums) and the impeccable good taste in choosing songs to their repertoires. They understood plenty how powerful voices can be.

Leny was known as the “singer of the musicians” and, in that sense, she is very similar to another diva, Ella Fitzgerald, with whom she also shared talent for scats. Doris, in turn, played an imporant part i: the golden age of the “chanchadas”, back in the 1950s. Chanchadas were Brazilian musicals, whose light narrative thread was sewn by performances of the most famous radio stars of the period.

Doris and Leny helped immensily in the construction of MPB (Brazilian popular music), a genre formed by the different nuances of what internationally became known as Brazilian Jazz, including but not limited to Bossa Nova and there is certainly much more to say about these wonderful women, but I would rather leave you with a couple of suggestions, in case you are not already familiar with their very special voices. Here ist goes:

Leny Andrade: I recommend the album that introduced me to the diva: Nós (Us, 1993). The piano (played by Cesar Camargo Mariano) and voice format gives Leny all the freedom to do what she likes best: improvise and enchant us with her vocal resources and her unmistakable timbre.

Doris Monteiro: Released in 1971, “Doris” is one of those albums that do not age as years go by. Its repertoire, ranging from Pixinguinha to Tom Jobim, and its modern visual conception, in the best “Doris style” remain thought-provoking and up-to-date.

Be seeing you!

G.F.