It’s 50 years since the singer best known in Brazil simply as Joyce made her first recording, and she celebrates with a fresh and enthusiastic set reworking of favourite bossa nova and jazz standards. She was 15 back in 1964 when the bossa star Roberto Menescal heard a home recording of her work and helped to launch her career, and now she returns the favour with refreshingly slinky, thoughtful reworkings of two of his best-known songs – O Barquinho and Nós E O Mar – with guitar backing from Menescal himself. This is a celebration of Joyce’s Raiz (roots) in which she also includes favourites by Tom Jobim and Dorival Caymmi, and is backed by a trio including jazz pianist Helio Alves and her percussionist husband, Tutty Moreno. Her breezy, versatile singing and guitar work ensure that even a well-worn song such as Desafinado is given a slinky contemporary edge.
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