Outros Choros do Brazil

A choro supergroup of sorts, the three members of Aquarela have worked with the likes of Gilberto Gil, Airto Moreira and even Cesaria Evora. Aquarela undoubtedly know the dusty old choro songbook inside out. And they generally don’t stray too far from it here, though this French release piques interest with a brace of Gallic interpretations in the form of Serge Gainsbourg's ‘La Javanaise’ and a second-cousin to Edith Piaf's ‘La Foule’, entitled ‘Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir’, which translates as ‘Let Nobody Know My Suffering’. While their smooth, ballad-paced treatment of Gainsbourg's early-career calling card lacks the original's sly glamour, the Piaf cover – if you can call it that – is more interesting, with a fascinating back-story to boot. As it turns out, Piaf apparently adapted her swaggering pièce de résistance from a composition by long-gone Brazilian choro musicians Enrique Dizeo and Ángel Cabral. Aquarela effectively reclaim it, with Tuniko Goulart's guitar and Edu Miranda's bandolim an unlikely replacement for Piaf's thundering strings. Tom Jobim and Hermeto Pascoal also get the Aquarela treatment but it's typically the long dead choro pioneers who bring out the best in this trio, with Zequinha de Abreu's ‘Tico Tico No Fuba’ being the cue for some particularly dextrous dialogue between the strings and oboe by Oboman Fillon.