Take the very symbol of traditional Brazilian music -- the berimbau. Add the very modern sensibilities of one of contemporary Brazil’s leading vocal lights -- Paula Morelenbaum. The post-modern combination? Berimbaum, of course, an album that melds the very best of the old and the new -- the old new wave and the new new wave, bossa nova and nova bossa nova -- for a 21st Century blast of cool and hot.
Paula Morelenbaum knows bossa nova. For a decade she worked with the master himself -- Antonio Carlos Jobim -- in his stunning Banda Nova, a group he used to say consisted of “five beautiful girls, five handsome boys and one dirty old man” (her husband, Jacques Morelenbaum, being one of the handsome boys). Who knows? If the great Tom Jobim’s enormous heart hadn’t finally given out 10 years ago, they might still be on the road, delighting audiences from Carnegie Hall to Tokyo.
Of course, singing Jobim’s songs in their original Portuguese meant developing an intimate relationship with the great poet and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes. After the untimely demise of the Banda Nova, Paula continued to perform the classic repertoire of de Moraes, Jobim and their collaborators. There was the beautiful Quarteto Jobim-Morelenbaum and then the worldwide success with the stunning Morelenbaum-2-Sakamoto, both of which kept the great repertoire acoustic and pristine, with Paula’s pure voice soaring out front.
Now there’s “Berimbaum,” which lovingly helps ushers the great songs of Vinicius de Moraes into the 21st Century. A dozen Vincicius standards -- with music by the crème de la crème of Brazilian composers (Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Baden Powell, Chico Buarque and Pixinguinha). The songs have found a new audience on the dancefloors and in the hip nightspots of Europe, Japan, the United States, Brazil and elsewhere. On “Berimbaum” they are given dreamlike settings that retain the bittersweet sensuality of classic bossa nova while integrating the loops, samples, rhythm programming and other accoutrements of the 21st Century recording studio. Vinicius even shows up himself -- reading his poem “Soneto de amor total” on “Consolacao.” And Tom Jobim is around, too -- the arrangement of “Medo de Amar” was inspired by Jobim’s piano arrangement from his “Tom Canta Vinicius” and a sample of the master’s keyboard is included.
Berimbaum is blessed with the work of some of Brazil’s greatest contemporary arrangers. Pianist/composer Antonio Pinto has received international recognition for his work on the soundtracks to two of the biggest hits in the history of Brazilian cinema, Central Station and City of God. Leo Gandelman is one of Brazil’s leading saxophonists, with a stack of bestselling instrumental hits to his name. Celso Fonseca has been a top composer/producer and instrumentalist for more than 20 years. Beto Villares and Bossacucanova are cutting-edge arrangers and remixers. They wisely don’t deconstruct the great songs -- for the most part, Paula’s vocal parts are as straight forward and crisp as a spring day -- they decorate them with surprises. A harmonica here, a judicious blast of tambourine there, an underpinning of drum machines here, a ukulele there, some LP scratching here, some percolating Fender Rhodes there. It all comes together as a comprehensive and refreshing take on as auspicious a collection of songs as the 20th Century produced.
You think you know “Berimbau” or “Insensatez”? You’ve never heard them quite like this. “Brigas Nunca Mais,” “Voce e Eu,” “Primavera,” “Tomara,” “Consolacao,” “Canto de Ossanha,” “Medo de Amar,” “Seule,” “Desalento”? Not quite like this. And, closing the album, a whirl through Vinicius and Tom Jobim’s classic “O Nosso Amor,” with the wizards of Bossacucanova surrounding Paula’s voice with computer age swirls.

Vincius de Moraes -- poet, diplomat, bon vivant -- began writing songs more than 70 years ago. Nearly 50 years after the initial wave of bossa nova -- and nearly 25 years since his death -- many of those songs (indeed, all 12 here) are bona fide standards, as sturdy as anything written by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington or Irving Berlin.

Paula Morelenbaum now stands as one of the world’s premiere interpreters of bossa nova and MPB. A decade after the release of her first solo album, nearly two decades after she joined that remarkable band of beautiful girls, handsome boys and one incredible dirty old man, Paula Morelenbaum has given us a classic album of classic Vinicius de Moraes songs dressed in colorful modern clothes.
You’ve heard these songs a million times, but you’ve never had them quite like this. And you’ve never heard them sung any better.