Airto Moreira

Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira has always been comfortable with challenges. The acclaimed musician has added his unique talents to the groundbreaking Live-Evil-era electric Miles Davis, early incarnations of jazz fusion bands Weather Report and Return to Forever, and Mickey Hart's Planet Drum ensembles. And now he's entered the age of beats and machines with Homeless, his first solo outing in seven years.

"A lot of young people are sampling and looping my sounds, so I thought I'd give them something new to think about."

"I'm always open to experimenting," Moreira said. The idea came from his record label, M.E.L.T. 2000, and it offered a chance to work with his daughter, Diana, and her husband, Krishna Booker, who run the band Eyedentity. Moreira is very pleased with the result, because "it's done in a way that you don't know what is electronic and what's played," slyly adding, "a lot of young people are sampling and looping my sounds, so I thought I'd give them something new to think about."

Now 59, Moreira was born in the southern Brazilian town of Itaipolis, and began drumming while still a toddler. After a brief stint as a vocalist, he went on to found the seminal Quarteto Nova in 1963, blending Brazilian music with jazz, before heading to the U.S. in 1968 with his wife, singer Flora Purim, to escape the military dictatorship in his homeland.

He made an immediate impact on the American jazz scene, according to Chris McGowan, co-author of "The Brazilian Sound; Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil", by being "the first Brazilian percussionist to be playing a lot of different instruments at the same time. He brought them all together with an avant-garde, progressive sensibility, and revolutionized the role of percussion, both in jazz and popular music. After him it was a wave, and he was at the forefront."

And he remains creative, with the new disc rich in varied percussive textures alongside the programmed beats. But Homeless also marks Moreira's return to singing after many decades, as on "Vira Poeira" (Burning To Dust).

"I love to sing, and there were songs to be sung, so I just did it," Moreira laughed. He was very comfortable with the words, mostly penned by his daughter, and "sometimes I got the lyrics and improvised the melodies on the spot - they were just grooves."

There's a strong vein of social consciousness running through the record, whether in the shanty town, tribal ambience of the title track, or the ghostly hopelessness of "Street Vendors (D'JOMBO)". It seemed natural to Moreira to "try to make people aware of what's happening around the world. I think all so-called artists should be doing that."

The album title also has a double meaning, Moreira insisted. Not only does it refer to all the displaced peoples of the globe, but to his own music, which "you can play anywhere in the world; it's global, it doesn't carry a flag."

The idea of crossing boundaries, geographical and musical, is hardly new to Moreira; he's always been a musical polyglot, a trait which, according to McGowan, might have reached a high point on "his collaborations with Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussein on the Planet Drum albums. They're really rich rhythmically, and a true world fusion."

These days Moreira might keep a lower profile than he did in the 1970s, but he's still very active. Along with his own disc, he recently finished working on Purim's new album, and has been recording with jazz pianist George Duke. There's a possibility of more work with Hart. He teaches a course in Brazilian music at UCLA, where he's also part of the experimental World Jazz ensemble. And he recently played a series shows in Europe, culminating in a London concert with the Master Drummers of Africa.

"I feel spiritually and energy-wise much more together," he concluded. "Music means much more for me now than it used to."

This article first appeared on sonicnet.com