Eliane Elias Releases Two Gems On Blue Note
From Bill Evans To Bossa Nova Eliane Proves She Can Master It All.
Eliane has been a force to reckon with in the jazz scene ever since moving to New York from Sao Paola in 1982 and has been recording award winning albums ever since.
She started her career as a first rate pianist in Sao Paola and soon became known as the pianist with lightning fast finger runs and a beautiful touch. Lately she has added singing to her repertoire and has begun to become a household name.
Launching A Career In Sao Paola
Eliane was born in Sao Paola Brazil into a musical family; her mother was a classically trained pianist, who also had a love for jazz. Eliane began studying the piano when she was seven, a few years later she was transcribing great jazz solos and composing her own originals.
At fifteen she was teaching piano and jazz improvisation at one of the leading music schools in Brazil. She began her performing career when she was seventeen, playing her own compositions and working with singer/songwriter Toquinho and Poet Vinicius de Moraes.
Starting Out In New York
In 1981 while in Europe she met bassist Eddie Gomez who encouraged her to move to New York. She took his advice and after spending some time studying privately with Olegna Fuschi at the Julliard School of music, she managed to land a job with experimental post bop fusion based group Steps Ahead; Eddie Gomez was the bassist in the band.
She recorded one album with the group and it was enough to draw attention to her work; her splendid piano playing was a major part of the album’s success.
She followed up the Steps Ahead album with Amanda recorded in 1984. The album was a duo project made with her then husband Randy Brecker in tribute to their new born daughter Amanda.
She began to release albums under her own name soon after that and to date she has released about twenty one albums for labels like Denon, RCA Victor and Blue Note Records.
Captivating the Critics And Jazz Fans
All of her albums have won critical acclaim. She has also been nominated for many Grammy awards, including one for her collaboration with Herbie Hancock on her 1995 release Solos And Duets.
In 1997 Downbeat readers’ poll named her Album The Three Americas best jazz album and named her in five other categories. Her original music has been performed and recorded by the renowned Danish Radio Big band.
Her Latest Work Bill Evans And Bossa Nova
Her two latest albums continue the tradition of excellence. Eliane is known for and also marks a triumphant return to the Blue Note Roster.
The first Something For You, a Tribute to Bill Evans a giant of a pianist in his own right, is bravely tackled by Ms Elias. She does him justice not by playing as if she was a clone, but by using his influence and arrangements as a launching pad.
On the disc she plays many of the standards that he was known for playing including: Waltz for Debbie, the classic My Foolish Heart, Solar and Blue In Green, both compositions of his one time employer Miles Davis.
The disc also includes two versions of the title track, Something for You, which incidentally was a previously unknown track from Evans. Eliane wrote lyrics for and recorded it as a solo piece for piano and voice, then she included the original version with Bill Evans himself playing the tune before it smoothly slides into an excerpt of Eliane’s new version.
On Bossa Nova Stories, Eliane shows why she is regarded as one of the best interpreters of Brazilian music with a disc chock full of pleasant surprises.
It opens with the much covered The Girl From Ipanema, with orchestration that does not overwhelm, while she manages to squeeze freshness from it’s every chord.
They Can’t Take That Away From Me, a Gershwin classic, gets a soft restrained sensual reading. Estate adds the great Toots Thielemans on harmonica to compliment the beauty of her take on the song.
She covers Stevie Wonder’s Superwoman, with a tough tenderness that only she can bring. Other standout tracks include A RA (The Frog) which make you wants to move, the classic Desafinado and Falsa Baiana which is one of the most stripped down tracks on the disc opening with her singing over a gently strummed guitar with piano filling out the bed of sound; the song eventually slides effortlessly into a group groove.
These two albums released in 2008 and 2009 respectively have already earned great critical review and topped many charts and most writers believe that its’ only a matter of time before she becomes as well known as some of the other singers out there.
Eliane Elias Bossa Nova Stories
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Elias Something For You
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Eliane At The Piano
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