Samba Sensation Eliane Elias’ Indian Debut Leaves a Lasting Impression

It was in many ways a concert of two parts, Eliane Elias is a dual specialty artist, a pianist and a vocalist. Being from Brazil she is an exponent of the samba or bossa nova sound. After moving to New York in the early 1980s, Elias took to playing jazz piano in the postbop style. She has been a jazz pianist in demand on the jazz circuit.

The concert at the NCPA, her first-ever appearance in India was played with her high-quality quartet with Marc Johnson on upright acoustic bass, Rafael Barata on drums, and Leandro Pellegrino on acoustic guitar, with Elias on acoustic piano, doubling up as a vocalist.

The dual theme continued at the concert at the Tata Theatre where Elias seemed to play at two different levels. Her concert began with a hesitant piano trio offering, an original composition. Then, expanding the group by bringing in the guitarist, the band played the very popular tune “Brazil” without much impact.

There appeared to be a little uncertainty in her approach to the music, possibly not knowing how an Indian audience would react to her sounds. However, the thousand-strong audience received her music warmly and the band moved up a gear to play some delightful and well-known Brazilian bossa numbers thereafter.

The highlight of the evening was the rendition of the famous “Desafinado,” which was played in two tempos. Starting out with the traditional samba version, Elias got into an uptempo swing passage where Marc Johnson played a long, inspired solo. In its entirety, this version of “Desafinado” sounded like Jobim meets Count Basie, part samba and part swing. It was delightful and the audience could not get enough of this arrangement.

The iconic tune, “The Girl from Ipanema” followed, with the audience invited to sing along and for an encore Elias and the band did another popular bossa tune, “So Danco Samba” where the sing-along continued.

The rousing finale ensured that the audience, high on expectation from this concert left the auditorium, clearly pleased with the concert.

Sunil Sampat is a jazz critic and Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone India. Write to Sunil at jazzwala@gmail.com