LENY ANDRADE & QUINTET - WINTER 2015

"Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil" - Tony Bennett

Leny Andrade, considered by many as the greatest singer of Brazilian jazz, is a
well-respected jazz artist. Leny Andrade's eclectic style is a synthesis of samba and jazz.
She has had several hits on the Brazilian charts. In 2007 she shared a Latin Grammy
Award with Cesar Camargo Mariano for Best MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) Album, Ao
Vivo.

Leny Andrade has performed with Charlie Byrd, Herbie Mann, Toots Thielemans,
Eumir Deodato, Paquito D'Rivera, Luiz Eça, Dick Farney, João Donato, Pery Ribeiro, and
Francis Hime. She has been described by Tony Bennett as the "Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil".
Likewise in Europe where she toured, she was the acclaimed Brazilians' First Lady of Jazz.
This resulted in the recording of an American Songbook album Embraceable You in July
1991 at Volendam, in the Netherlands.

The influential US publication Village Voice declared her album Maiden Voyage
produced in 1994 the best jazz album of the year. In 2007, her album Ao Vivo recorded
with the pianist Cesar Camargo Mariano was prized a Grammy Award of Latin America.
New York Times critic Stephen Holden wrote of Andrade's performance at Birdland
on August 27, 2008, "To describe Ms. Andrade as both the Sarah Vaughan and Ella
Fitzgerald of bossa nova only goes so far in evoking a performer whose voice seems to
contain the body and soul of Brazil. You may think you know 'The Girl From Ipanema,' the
final number in the show’s opening medley of Jobim songs. But you haven’t really
absorbed it until you’ve heard Ms. Andrade sing it in Portuguese; disgorge might be a
better word than sing, since, like everything else she performs, it seems to well up from the
center of the earth."

Leny Andrade released in 2014 the album Iluminados, with songs from the
prestigious partnership between the composers Ivan Lins and Vitor Martins, which created
numerous hits of Brazilian popular music in the 80s.