Album Notes

Joyce is Brazil’s finest samba jazz vocalist – since her early days when she came to national recognition through the festival scene, she has had a major international career. Her reputation is global and her music speaks volumes - without even understanding the vocals one can be led on a sensual journey.

Hard Bossa is the first album she had made with a view to her fan base in Europe – it recreates something of the Feminina style which introduced a whole new generation to her work when the album exploded on the jazz dance scene nearly ten years ago. Feminina was the definitive embodiment of Joyce’s style and despite her love of the album she has never had the opportunity to get back to that style, mixing jazz and folk strands together in her unique way.

After playing the European circuit throughout the Nineties she has come to realize that there is a need to return to that sound, a need to take that period of her work to a new level. On hearing Hard Bossa for the first time, one is taken back to the heady days of samba jazz in the Seventies and Eighties, of glorious sun-kissed festivals along the beaches of Ipanema, of a young girl armed with just a guitar and an immense vocal talent. The retrospective feel of the album has more to do with the timeless feel Joyce has created rather than any sense of nostalgia, in fact leaving nostalgia aside allows her to produce a new vibrant album up there with her best recordings.

As is often the case with Far Out we have empowered the artist, leaving Joyce to make all the decisions on the production and the mixes. With the total freedom to express herself she has come up trumps and delivered a killer album.