The Midnight Sun

by Richard S. Ginell With a constantly shifting series of musicians at her back, Purim turns in a correspondingly eclectic album, veering freely from the Great American Songbook to jazz-rock to Brazil and back again. However, this album begins in a somewhat unfocused manner -- Flora does not sound completely comfortable with the songs in English -- and only hits its stride somewhere in the middle, when the Brazilian elements really kick in. Of the standards, "Angel Eyes" is backed bittersweetly by the British saxophone quartet Itchy Fingers, and there is a leisurely, spare-textured "Midnight Sun" featuring George Duke. Flora also makes a gentle return to "Light as a Feather" from the RTF days, and some marvelous Brazilian cruising can be heard within an otherwise frustrating start-and-stop rendition of Milton Nascimento's "Nothing Will Be as It Was." Fascinating in spots.