Em Casa Com os Gil

Released to coincide both with Gil’s 80th birthday and the Amazon documentary series At Home With the Gils, this soundtrack album consists of 15 songs drawn from every era of his long career, played by Gil and several generations of his family. There are more than a dozen of them and there are bellyfuls of familial laughter when one of them remarks in the first episode “we’re like the Brazilian Kardashians.”

Recorded at Gil’s home in Araras in São Paulo state as they rehearsed for a European tour, the performances are relaxed, particularly the idiosyncratic whistling on ‘Esotérico’ and a Wacky Races rendition of 1977’s ‘Sítio do Picapau Amarelo’. It probably all makes more sense in the engaging context of the films rather than as a stand-alone disc. That said, the selections offer a decent overview of Gil’s many-faceted career from the lovely acoustic bossa nova rhythms of 1976’s ‘Queremos Saber’ to the update on the style that is ‘Sereno’, first recorded in 2018 with his son Bem Gil. We also get a bluesy ‘Back in Bahia’, the soft-rock inflections of ‘Touche Pas à Mon Pote’, a heavier rock vibe on 1984’s ‘Feliz por um Triz’, samba-soul on ‘Realce’ and some wonderful, weightless Brazilian jazz on ‘Babá Alapalá’.