Sonzeira

Brasil Bam Bam Bam

(Talkin’ Loud/Virgin EMI)

15/20

The football World Cup is almost upon us, promising a jamboree of Brazilian carnival sights and sounds and sexy football. While Roy Hodgson’s Three Lions may not be able to assist with the last element, one Englishman has proven – over three decades – more adept at blending his talents with the South Americans.

And after producing Brazil Bam Bam Bam under the collective name of Sonzeira – boasting a raft of Brazil’s most cherished and venerated singers and musicians – the global taste maker, who reaches his half-century in September, shows he is still ahead of the curve.

10 years ago London-based Peterson released Gilles Peterson in Brazil, a double album which mined samba and bossanova classics as well as modern dance tunes, and he followed it up with Back in Brazil two years later. The love affair has never been stronger, and following on from his successful Havana Cultura project, football aficionado Peterson has orchestrated this latest album.

The 13 tracks, recorded in Rio de Janeiro, are loving makeovers of the BBC 6 Music DJ’s favourite Brazilian tunes, performed by a clutch of luminaries, including 76-year-old dame of samba Elza Soares, Marcos Valle, Lucas Santtana and Seu Jorge, the City of God actor and musician.

The two pre-album singles have hinted at what to expect. First there was a do-over of UK soul/funk classic Southern Freeez, and then Brasil Pandeiro, a rework of the 1940s Assis Valente track, which features one of the most prolific musicians on the Brazilian samba scene, Arlindo Cruz, on the cavaquinho (a small guitar). Both are dreamy, and as a whole Brazil Bam Bam Bam serves as an enjoyable national musical portrait.

“Brazil’s music culture is massive … such a huge amount of stuff to fit in,” says Peterson. “I wanted to try and cover it all – to make a kind of Buena Vista meets club culture, but to keep it sonically very modern.”

Brasil Bam Bam Bam certainly does all that, and provides the perfect sun-kissed holiday anthem, even after England are prematurely toppled out of the football tournament in June. This superb album, and perhaps a caipirinha or two, will soon wash away any Three Lions blues and be the soundtrack to the summer.

Club Bam Bam Bam, where Peterson will be playing back to back all night with DJ Nuts, possessor of possibly the best record collection in Brazil, comes to an unknown London venue on May 15.

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Words: Oliver Pickup