WICN Artist of the Month, September 2025: Flora Purim

As WICN celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 through October 15, and recognizes Brazilian Independence Day on September 7th, we honor Flora Purim. Often called “The Queen of Brazilian Jazz,” Purim is a complete singer who comfortably performs many types of American and Latin music. Coming of age in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and gaining recognition for her singing during a time of political repression following the 1964 military coup, Flora has dedicated her career to sharing a message of freedom and resilience with audiences around the world.

Purim possesses a rare six-octave vocal range. Influenced by legends like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, her voice moves seamlessly between lyrics and wordless improvisation, always grounded in melody and rhythm. She grew up listening to classical music with her parents, traditional Brazilian music with African influences on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, and American jazz on the radio and on records.

She first gained recognition in Brazil by singing bossa nova, which was very popular, but also considered somewhat avant-garde for Brazilian music at the time. She later appeared on television and performed throughout the country. Flora became known for blending jazz with radical protest songs as a way to defy Brazil’s repressive military government. She once said she used to sing to the São Francisco River and imagine that, as it flowed out to the ocean, it would take her to America.

In 1967, Flora married Brazilian jazz drummer, composer and percussionist Airto Moreira. Upon moving to New York the following year, she first worked with Duke Pearson and Stan Getz, which led her to tour Europe with Getz and Gil Evans. During this tour, she met Chick Corea and eventually joined and toured with his band, Return to Forever. In addition to her practical experience, Flora was taught to read and write music by Brazilian musician Moacir Santos in the late 1960s.

Within the first few years of living in America, Flora discovered a change in her attitude and a loosening of her style. While maintaining her incredible technique and musical abilities, she decided to focus more on communication with the audience.

“I changed my whole concept about singing. In Chick’s band we tried to establish communication between ourselves and the people by getting to the basics of the music. We never left technique behind, but if we had to, we would sacrifice technique in order to communicate. It was the beginning of the current phase of my life, when I really decided to say to people that there is a place for beautiful music, a place to be free, and that I could take them there.”

Through her work in Return to Forever, Purim was at the forefront of bringing a Brazilian style and sensibility to jazz fusion. Return to Forever, in turn, helped her achieve even more popularity in the world of jazz.

In 1973, on the heels of her success with Return to Forever, Flora released her first solo album in the United States, Butterfly Dreams, which led her to be named top female jazz artist of the year by Record World and Cash Box. Her follow-up album, Stories to Tell, supported this title and received even more international praise. Now, she is a four-time winner of Down Beat′s Best Female Jazz Vocalist award and a two-time Grammy nominee for Best Female Jazz Performance. In September 2002, Brazil’s President Fernando Henrique Cardoso named Purim and Moreira to the “Order of Rio Branco,” one of Brazil’s highest honors for those who have significantly contributed to the promotion of Brazil’s international relations.

Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Flora wrote, recorded, and performed with Carlos Santana, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, and Dizzy Gillespie and his United Nations Orchestra. As a result, she was a part of Gillespie’s Grammy Award-winning album Live at the Royal Festival Hall and Grammy Award-winning album Planet Drum by Mickey Hart.

In 1974, Purim was arrested on drug charges in Los Angeles. On March 3rd, 1976, towards the end of her 18-month sentence, she organized a concert that made history. The concert featured herself and a band including George Duke, Miroslav Vitous, Raul de Souza, Leon Ndugu Chancler, and Airto Moreira. This concert, which was broadcast on live radio and widely publicized across the country, marked the first time such a concert was staged in a US prison.

Even now, Purim says, “I don’t want to be known by any labels but just as a human being with the ability to communicate.”