First Light

To record a fresh, innovative album that retains the charm of a century-old genre is quite an achievement. On the debut album by London-based choro quintet Alvorada, the crew of British and Brazilian musicians stay relatively faithful to the genre's identity, retaining the characteristic instrumentation, elegant polyphony and lilting swing that make it so well-loved among its fans. They also incorporate elements of samba and Brazilian funk, as well as touches of frevo and baião rhythms into their repertoire of originals and arrangements of lesser-known classics. Inventive harmonies and unpredictable melodic twists pepper the originals in particular, notably on the pensive title-track.

Rachel Hayter's flutes and Andrew Woolf's clarinets and alto saxophone are in turns playful, melancholic, bittersweet, joyous and yearning. Accompanied by Alua Nascimento on percussion, Jeremy Shaverin on cavaquinho and Luiz Morais on the seven-string guitar, they sound like old friends. In Europe at least, choro has never come close to reaching the popularity of bossa nova or samba, its more famous carioca cousins; after listening to this album, this seems even more curious.