| The cliche about Nara Leao was that she was "the muse of bossa nova." As a teenager in the late 'Fifties, she opened up her parents house as a salon for the movers and shakers of the early bossa nova scene - Tom Jobim, Joao Gilberto and others to hang out in. In the early sixties, as bossa nova exploded internationally, Nara rose to stardom. Soft and sweet, moody and sensuous, she performed pop and beautiful samba and bossa standards and established her reputation as one of the outstanding talents of her generation. She toured Japan, Brazil and France with Sergio Menzies and returned to record political songs that were critical of Braziląs prevailing military junta. Nara's catalogue of recordings are so magical, of such a consistently high standard, they are sacrosanct in Brazil. this compilation concentrates on recordings made in 1967 her absolute best period. Nara Leao has more recently began to cultivate an audience in Japan where like Astrud Gilberto, Elis Regina and Claudine Longet her sweetness strikes a real chord. Sergio Cabral, "It's a mystery why she hasnąt been recognized as one of the most influential characters of our music. We forget people easily. But I believe that, at least unconsciously, the revolution she started was realized by the people who surrounded her."
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