Diego Figueiredo - Come Closer (2019)

Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo has previously released three albums on Danish Stunt Records. With Come Closer, Brazilian / Danish collaboration is up on four albums, and still the artistic expression seems to take me on in intensity, nerve and presence. Come Closer - who draws Peter Littauer and Søren Friis as executive producers - is thus a very simple but also very poignant album, on which the soloist has three beautiful singers visiting: Cyrille Aimée, Janis Siegel and Chiara Izzi. The three add to the instrumentalist's virtuoso deal with both Brazilian and American standards a distinctive, nude authenticity, which garments the material. I myself prefer the Brazilian songs - Antonio Carlos Jobim's standards: Once In Loved, Dreamer and One Note Samba - but also standards of eg. Miles Davis, Don Redman and Henry Mancini work fine. Diego Figueiredo has a very light, humble and technically well-grounded approach to the whole material. But the ease seems most immediate in the versioning of Jobim's songs.