The Best of Marcos Valle - Carioca Soul

Over the years a number of Brazilian musicians have managed to crack the U.S. market, but other key figures from that country remain relatively unknown here. The great singer/songwriter Marcos Valle is one of them. Equally adept at writing vocal pieces and instrumentals, Valle first rose to prominence in the early 1960s when he was still a teenager. His work draws from jazz, classical, and Brazilian styles to create pop music that is highly accessible and musically sophisticated. Unlike many other artists, he has continued to produce interesting work for several decades, and Carioca Soul presents a nice set of material collected from albums released in the ’90s and the ’00s. There are plenty of fine tracks here, but the impossibly catchy “Parabens” stands out; it’s more than eight minutes long but you want it to go on forever. Valle’s cool lead vocal is surrounded by awesome rhythm guitar, percussion, keyboards, flute, and finger-popping bass. The album includes previously unreleased live versions of “Samba de Verao,” “Mentira,” and “Batucada Surgiu.”