Airto Moreira

Last updated

Airto Moreira
Airto Moreira.jpg
Moreira in concert in 2007
Background information
Birth nameAirto Guimorvan Moreira
Born (1941-08-05) August 5, 1941 (age 82)
Itaiópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil
Genres Jazz, jazz fusion, Brazilian jazz, pop, baião
Occupation(s) Musician, bandleader, composer
Instrument(s)Drums, percussion
Years active1954–present
Labels One Way, CTI, Arista, Warner Music Japan
Website www.airto.com

Airto Guimorvan Moreira (born August 5, 1941) [1] is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. [2] He is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. [2] Coming to prominence in the late 1960s as a member of the Brazilian ensemble Quarteto Novo, he moved to the United States and worked in jazz fusion with Miles Davis, Return to Forever and Santana.

Contents

Biography

Airto Moreira at Paul Masson Harvest Jazz Festival, Saratoga CA 10/3/81 Airto.jpg
Airto Moreira at Paul Masson Harvest Jazz Festival, Saratoga CA 10/3/81

Airto Moreira was born in Itaiópolis, Brazil, [1] into a family of folk healers, and raised in Curitiba and São Paulo. Showing an extraordinary talent for music at a young age, he became a professional musician at age 13, noticed first as a member of the samba jazz pioneers Sambalanço Trio and for his landmark recording with Hermeto Pascoal in Quarteto Novo in 1967. [2] Shortly after, he followed his wife Flora Purim to the United States.

After moving to the US, Moreira studied with Moacir Santos in Los Angeles. [3] He then moved to New York where he began playing regularly with jazz musicians, including the bassist Walter Booker. Through Booker, Moreira began playing with Joe Zawinul, who in turn introduced him to Miles Davis. [1] At this time Davis was experimenting with electronic instruments and rock and funk rhythms, a form which would soon come to be called jazz fusion. [1] Moreira was to participate in several of the most important projects of this emerging musical form. [1] He stayed with Davis for about two years. [4]

Shortly after leaving Davis, Moreira joined other Davis alumni Zawinul, Wayne Shorter and Miroslav Vitous in their group Weather Report, playing percussion on their first album (1971). [1] He left Weather Report (replaced by Dom Um Romão and Muruga Booker for their Sweetnighter album) to join fellow Davis alumnus Chick Corea's new band Return to Forever. [1] He played drums on Return to Forever's first two albums: Return to Forever and Light as a Feather in 1972.

Moreira was a contributor to many of Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart's world music/percussion albums in Rykodisc's The World collection, including The Apocalypse Now Sessions, Däfos , Supralingua , and Planet Drum , which won a World Music Grammy in 1991. [2] He can be heard playing congas on Eumir Deodato's 1970s space-funk hit "Also sprach Zarathustra" on the album Prelude .

Moreira has played with many of the greatest names in jazz including Cannonball Adderley, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, John McLaughlin, Keith Jarrett, Al Di Meola, Zakir Hussain, George Duke and Mickey Hart. [2]

In addition to jazz concerts and recordings, he has composed and contributed music to film and television, played at the re-opening of the Library of Alexandria, Egypt [5] (along with fellow professor of ethnomusicology Halim El-Dabh [6] ), and taught at UCLA and the California Brazil Camp.

In 1996, Moreira and his wife Flora Purim collaborated with P.M. Dawn on the song "Non-Fiction Burning" for the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Rio , produced by the Red Hot Organization.

In 2022 it was announced via the Flora Purim & Airto Moreira Facebook page that Airto was suffering severe health problems and that wife Flora was now his full-time caregiver. A GoFundMe page was set up by their daughter Niura with the aim of raising funds to move Airto to a more suitable care facility. As of July 2023, almost $45,000 has been raised.

Awards

Discography

As leader

With Sambalanço Trio

With Fourth World

As sideman

With Cannonball Adderley

With Gato Barbieri

With Stanley Clarke

With Chick Corea

With Miles Davis

With Paul Desmond

With George Duke

With David Friesen

With Stan Getz

With Astrud Gilberto

With Johnny Hammond

With Mickey Hart

With Freddie Hubbard

With Bob James

With Antonio Carlos Jobim

With Hubert Laws

With Duke Pearson

With Flora Purim

With Wayne Shorter

With Paul Simon

With Stanley Turrentine

With Grover Washington Jr.

With others

Filmography

See also

Sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hermeto Pascoal</span> Brazilian composer, musician and record producer

Hermeto Pascoal is a Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, Brazil. Pascoal is best known in Brazilian music for his orchestration and improvisation, as well as for being a record producer and contributor to many Brazilian and international albums.

Alan Rubin, also known as Mr. Fabulous, was an American musician. He played trumpet, flugelhorn, and piccolo trumpet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eumir Deodato</span> Brazilian pianist, composer, arranger and producer

Eumir Deodato de Almeida is a Brazilian pianist, composer, arranger and record producer, primarily in jazz but who has been known for his eclectic melding of genres, such as pop, rock, disco, rhythm and blues, classical, Latin and bossa nova.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Cobham</span> American jazz drummer

William Emanuel Cobham Jr. is a Panamanian–American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flora Purim</span> Brazilian jazz singer (born 1942)

Flora Purim is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Return to Forever with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. She has recorded and performed with numerous artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Opa, Stan Getz, George Duke, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jaco Pastorius, and her husband Airto Moreira.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Farrell</span> American jazz musician

Joseph Carl Firrantello, known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who primarily performed as a saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name on the CTI record label and for playing in the initial incarnation of Chick Corea's Return to Forever.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph MacDonald</span> American musician (1944–2011)

Ralph Anthony MacDonald was an American percussionist, steelpan virtuoso, songwriter, musical arranger, and record producer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raul de Souza</span> Brazilian trombonist (1934–2021)

Raul de Souza, also known as Raulzinho, was a Brazilian trombonist who recorded with Sérgio Mendes, Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Milton Nascimento, Sonny Rollins, Hermeto Pascoal, Cal Tjader and the jazz/fusion band Caldera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Gale</span> American jazz and R&B guitarist (1938–1994)

Eric Gale was an American jazz and jazz fusion guitarist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jay Berliner</span> American guitarist (born 1940)

Jay Berliner is an American guitarist who has worked with Harry Belafonte, Ron Carter, Charles Mingus, and Van Morrison, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marvin Stamm</span> American jazz trumpeter (born 1939)

Marvin Louis Stamm is an American jazz trumpeter.

Wayne Andre was an American jazz trombonist, best known for his work as a session musician.

The discography of jazz/jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham includes solo, collaborative, and work playing on other artists' albums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pete Turner (photographer)</span> American photographer

Donald Peter Turner was an American photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Opa (Uruguayan band)</span>

Opa were an American jazz fusion band made up of Uruguayan members. They started in the 1970s, and released two albums in the US: Goldenwings and Magic Time. Both were produced by Brazilian musician and composer Airto Moreira.

<i>Moondreams</i> (Walter Wanderley album) 1969 studio album by Walter Wanderley

Moondreams is an album by Brazilian keyboardist Walter Wanderley featuring performances recorded in 1969 and released on the CTI label.

John E. Gatchell was an American jazz trumpeter who was prolific in New York City recording studios from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. After serving in the U.S. Navy in the late 1960s, Gatchell became one of the founding members of the horn band Ten Wheel Drive, then Gotham. Gatchell was among the musicians hand-selected by Paul Simon, whom he considered to be the finest studio musicians for the 1981 Simon & Garfunkel Concert in Central Park

Hubert Laws is an American flutist and saxophonist with a career spanning over 50 years in jazz, classical, and other music genres. He is one of the most recognized and respected jazz flutists in the history of jazz. Laws is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm-and-blues genres, moving effortlessly from one repertory to another.

Burton L. Collins was an American jazz trumpeter.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 1749. ISBN   0-85112-939-0.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Yanow, Scott. "Airto Moreira". AllMusic . Retrieved October 22, 2011.
  3. Feather, Leonard (1987). The encyclopedia of jazz in the seventies. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 49. ISBN   978-0-306-80290-4.
  4. "M.E.L.T. 2000 artist's bio". Melt2000.com. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved October 22, 2011.
  5. "Europe Jazz Network Bio". Ejn.it. September 30, 2003. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved October 22, 2011.
  6. Seachrist, Denise A. (2003). The Musical World of Halim El-Dabh. Kent, Ohio, United States: Kent State University Press 296 pp ISBN   0-87338-752-X
  7. "Archives: Down Beat Critics Poll". Down Beat . Archived from the original on January 22, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2011. (see individual years linked from that page)
  8. "Airto & Flora Purim: The Latin Jazz All-Stars". View.com. Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved October 22, 2011.