Flor

marks vocalist and songwriter 's first recording in eight years. After 2013's , she and husband/drummer became parents to a son, Marley. Immersed in motherhood, she integrated her life and musical experiences, all the while contemplating her next creative step. is it: a compelling synthesis of originals, pop covers, Brazilian standards, and classical music performed by a new international quartet. It includes Brazilian guitarist and musical director , Brazilian drummer , and Armenian cellist/bassist . produced the nine-song set. She references the past immediately on opener "E Preciso Perdoar." A hit for in 1973, 's world changed when she first him singing at age 13. She fell in love with his simple, intimate, yet intricately detailed delivery and laid-back style. She presents the song with North African harmonic and rhythmic overtones from open-tuned guitars and droning cello atop a spectral percussion line. Her delivery adds drama, sensuality, and pathos to its lyric of unrequited love. offers a thoroughly updated read of 's "Sweet Love" with guesting on Rhodes piano. She stretches the soul tune to the margins of poppy funk using the lyric's promise of abundance and fulfillment to guide her vocal. wrote "Magnus," for her best friend's son (he and his siblings all sing on it). Her 13/8 bass line and hooky melody reflect South African township jazz and the melodic and rhythmic ideas of Beninese guitarist , who worked with her for a decade. That track and "What Does a Lion Say?," composed by bassist , represent the lyric heart of 's maternal vocation. Both are vulnerable, emotionally resonant, and intimate lullabies with glorious instrumental interplay between guitar and cello; 's beats underscore their melodies with rhythmic inflection points. 's "Roy Allan" is offered as a samba tribute to the late trumpeter. 's layered and stacked vocal choruses are transcendent, accented and expanded by fleet acoustic guitars, crystalline bass, and a whirlwind of organic percussion provided by guest . Single "Wonderful" is a jaunty pop song that features and . Its Afro-Brazilian rhythms bubble and groove under a sparkling, highlife-esque pop melody elucidated by an infectious hook. closes the set with an arresting version of 's "No Plan" from his posthumous EP of the same name. Her vocal drips with longing and desire as the protagonist resolves to experience the bardo, the place between as an eternal present, a "no place," of her own. Her want, confusion, and determination inhabit every syllable as electronics and 's drum kit frame her singing while 's manipulated cello accents it. In sum, is a welcome and profound return. and her collaborators dig under and through stylistic and genre conventions, then emerge with a jazz language of their own that embraces the world's sounds and emotions, and translates them flawlessly with warmth, intimacy, poetry, and humor. is a masterpiece. ~ Thom Jurek