Lilananda Jazz QuintetEt Le Quatuor Varèse

A rejoicing update for these haunting Bossas packed with smells of quaint nostalgia and Prousts Madeleines. The Lilananda Jazz Quintet - under the direction of bright arranger Pierre Drevet - reboots that memories-loaded repertoire, fearlessly combining a the heat of a rhythm-based music with the aerial sonorities of a string quartet. A bold mix of soloists, instrumentals and improvisers.Jobim, Joao Bosco, Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, Chico Buarque - all the icons are here, at the service of this heady resetting of their unique tradition, keeping unspoiled Bossas vibrant heart, while offering a renewed and sublimated listening session.Were entering a new world, where the already intense harmonies of the genre - sometimes hidden behind the melodies seeming simplicity - is upgraded with a blend of chords, back voices, harmonies and reversals along with Ravel and Debussys quartets inspired sonorities.Swift tuttis, backs, counterpoints and Big Band choruses all join forces to reinvent the Brasilian repertoire. Strings spring with virtuosity out of their traditional role, playing rhythms in pizz, competing with the guitar and diving into tuttis as brass would.New extensions. Mingling of tones. The voice is used either as an second brass or to double the guitar. Trumpets, bugles, mutes add up and develop the sound palette. The battery, the drums as well as a batucada-inspired use of the whole Brazilian rhythmic instrumentation, intensify the connection with the tradition, while an alternately acoustic and glittering guitar builds a strong personality to each chosen-with-care piece of this repertoire.This uncommon poetry, lying between the layers of high-quality texts written by immense authors and the subtlety of melodies and harmonies, intricate as a whole, is the core of Bossa Nova. This genre - which has always been carried by huge vocalists - is here served by Claire Vaillants deep an profound timbre, who embodies these melodies with ease, class and energy.