Luiz Bonfá - Introspection/The New Face Of Bonfa (1970/72)

Handy twofer of most of Bonfa's early 70s output for RCA - the album between these two, Sanctuary, is harder to come by but I'm keeping a lookout.  The New Face Of Bonfa, from 1970, was an attempt to cross over to a US audience with some success; the string arrangements are occasionally laid on a bit too thick, but Bonfa's phenomenal guitar talent is always front and centre (not least in Africana, my favourite track from this album).  In contrast to Braziliana, Maria Toledo only makes two appearances here as one of the backing vocalists on Macumba and Peixe Bom; all the other tracks are instrumental.

Original Introspection cover art. CD cover at top uses same pic as New Face LP.

And speaking of Bonfa's phenomenal guitar talent - that's the sole focus of the 1972 album Introspection, presented first on this CD reissue.  It's small but perfectly formed - eight tracks in under 27 minutes, and not a second wasted in showcasing Bonfa's sheer melodic and harmonic talent and staggering technique (check out the hovering-UFO evocations of Adventure In Space).  The sole concession here to production effects is the phasing on the opener, which kind of works, but other than that, Introspection is an utterly timeless masterpiece.

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Luiz Bonfa & Maria Toledo - Braziliana (1965)

Some classic bossanova/samba goodness to go in to the weekend with, courtesy of legendary guitarist and songwriter Luiz Bonfa and his wife Maria Toledo on vocals.  Just over half an hour of blissful, summery chillout, bookended by sweet wordless duetting and featuring Toledo's wonderful, Astrud-Gilberto's-older-sister voice on most of the tracks, with subtle, unobtrusive arrangements in the background.

Bonfa's unique and influential guitar genius takes the solo spotlight on two tracks, Boticaro and Improviso, and as part of sublime instrumental tracks on Sugar Loaf, Baroco and one of his most famous compositions Samba De Orfeu.  The latter originally came from the Black Orpheus soundtrack that springboarded Bonfa, Jobim and others to fame.  More to come in due course from all of these icons of Brazilian music, while the sun's still out (tempting fate round here, I know!).

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