Joyce w/ Mauricio Maestro – Natureza LP Far Out Recordings (UK)

LP version. Not long after the dawn of her career, as a teenager in Rio de Janeiro, Joyce was declared “one of the greatest singers” by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Yet despite reputable accolades and the fact that she has since recorded over thirty acclaimed albums, Joyce never quite achieved the international recognition of Brazilian contemporaries. There was a moment when it seemed she might be on the cusp of an international breakthrough. While living in New York, Joyce was approached by the great German producer Claus Ogerman who recorded with Jobim and João Gilberto. Featuring fellow Brazilian musicians Mauricio Maestro (who wrote/co-wrote four of the songs), Nana Vasconcelos and Tutty Moreno, and in-demand stateside players including Michael Brecker, Joe Farrell, and Buster Williams, the recordings for Natureza were produced by Ogerman. Mysteriously, Natureza was never released, and what should have been Joyce’s big moment never happened. The Brazilian craze was coming to an end, making way for disco and new wave at the end of the seventies, and Ogerman struggled to find an interested major label. Additionally, it wasn’t quite finished. Ogerman wanted to add finishing touches to the mix and to record alternative English lyrics — a critical artistic difference between Joyce and Ogerman. Joyce had a handful of hits in her home county, including “Clareana” and the iconic “Feminina”. Already a feminist pioneer, these successes were hard fought. Joyce had caused controversy as a nineteen-year-old when she became the first in Brazil to sing from the first-person feminine perspective, and the institutional sexism she faced was worsened by the censor-happy dictatorship. A few years after the success of her albums Feminina and Agua E Luz in Brazil, Joyce’s music began to find its way to the UK, Europe, and Japan, and “Feminina” and “Aldeia de Ogum” became classics on the underground jazz-dance scenes. The full-length version of “Feminina” from the Natureza sessions was on a Brazilian Jazz compilation (1999) and “Descompassadamente” was licensed for a CD compiling the work of Claus Ogerman (2002). Forty-five years since it was recorded, Natureza finally sees the light of day, as Joyce intended: with her own Portuguese lyrics and vocals. Featuring the fabled 11-minute version of “Feminina”, as well as the never before heard “Coração Sonhador” composed and performed by Mauricio Maestro, Natureza‘s release is a landmark in Brazilian music history and represents a triumphant, if overdue victory for Joyce as an outspoken female artist who has consistently refused to bow to patriarchal pressure. While “Feminina” and “Descompassadamente” were mixed by legendary engineer Al Schmitt and mastered from the original master tapes, the remaining five tracks are unmixed. Due to significant deterioration of the master-tapes, the best audio source for these tracks was an unmixed tape copy Joyce had kept of the recordings.