Brasil Bam Bam Bam

‘What was a French boy, living in South London, doing putting up aerials at the age of 15 so he could play batucadas on pirate radio?’ That's what DJ Gilles Peterson apparently pondered of his young self while recording this super session on location in Rio de Janeiro. It's fair to say that few white DJs have done as much for music of black origin as Peterson and Brazil's music, inevitably, has always loomed large in his aesthetic. Here he masterminds a kind of musical equivalent of fantasy football, assembling his dream team of icons and legends, with a few young bucks mixed in up front. It's billed as a journey through Brazilian music culture from past to present, and while it may be unashamedly Rio-centric, retro-tinted and London-soul-infused, when it sounds as good as this, who cares? Brazilian soap star Emanuelle Araújo lends a gorgeous, Joyce-esque lucidity to an archetypically Peterson update of the early 80s jazz-funk classic ‘Southern Freeez’ (sic).

By contrast, the Recife-born percussionist Naná Vasconcelos supplies a gratifyingly murky intro to the delicious ‘Mystery of Man’ and plenty of atmosphere haunting ‘City of Saints’, while a mighty, 70-something samba singer Elza Soares is simply talismanic on ‘Nanã’ and ‘Aquarela do Brasil’. Singer-songwriter, actor and all-round superstar Seu Jorge and Kassin, founder of Carioca big band Orquestra Imperial, also crop up. Indulgent? Just a little. A triumph and a joy? Definitely.