A seventh album. A live recording. A Brazilian who spent twenty years fusing forró with jazz has finally captured it on tape at the right moment. A live jazz album is a genre within a genre. It has its own rules, its own hierarchy of quality, its own way of speaking to the listener. A studio recording allows you to control everything: balance, timbre, the length of a phrase, the point at which improvisation ends and arrangement begins. A live recording takes that control away and gives something else in return—risk. Real, physical, audible risk.

So yes, in our time jazz has a complicated fate. One version of it lives in conservatories, at festivals with dress codes, in dissertations on Coltrane’s harmonic systems. The other one floats around Spotify under titles like “Jazz for Focus” and “Smooth Evening.” You know the type. Saxophone doing the work of a scented candle. Nobody’s listening, everybody’s got it on. Now, the gap between those two versions of jazz is real, and honestly not a lot of people are even trying to close it. Why would they. Playing technically serious music that also feels warm and doesn’t shut people out at the door? That’s a weird thing to commit your whole career to. But that’s Levy DeAndrade. Multi-instrumentalist, arranger, born in Brazil, been at this for over twenty years.

DeAndrade‘s biography reads like a script for a documentary film. A childhood in Brazil, steeped in forró—a dance genre from the country’s northeast, tied to folk celebrations. A move to San Francisco, then to New York. Session work with artists of the caliber of Wayman Tisdale, Al Jarreau, Keiko Matsui. Years during which his reputation grew slowly and steadily: a musician capable of adapting to someone else’s material while simultaneously bringing his own voice into it. A path like this rarely leads to sudden fame, but it builds a foundation on which something enduring can be constructed.

A seventh album is a serious milestone, though one shouldn’t expect any surprises here, because by this point an artist has usually settled on his own language, the audience understands what it is being offered, and critics have formed their opinions. You can dig deeper into familiar ground, or you can shatter expectations. DeAndrade chose the former—and chose it with the confidence of a man who knows the value of his direction. Ponta Pé (Live) is a document of a concert performance, ten tracks in a live format. And therein lies one of the album’s chief virtues: improvisation, real-time interaction between musicians, the energy of the room. Everything that a studio recording can only imitate, the live format delivers freely—provided the musicians are up to the task.

The central idea running through DeAndrade‘s entire discography is a bridge between Brazilian tradition and American jazz. Forró, in his case, serves as a rhythmic and melodic foundation over which jazz harmonies and improvisational structures are layered. This formula worked on previous releases, and it works now—with the added advantage that a live recording lends it breath and unpredictability, qualities that exist only on stage.

First and foremost, pay attention to “Crossover.” The album opens immediately with a confident saxophone. The title speaks for itself—the track is entirely devoted to crossing genre boundaries, fusion in its finest sense. The horns work energetically, the rhythm section holds a tight groove, and within the first minutes it becomes clear what level of mutual understanding between the musicians the album will offer going forward. “Ponta Pé” is built around the dance rhythm of forró superimposed on jazz harmony. The instrumentation is rich, and every musician has his own space within the arrangement.

“Birds on the Wire“ is where the album exhales. The tempo drops, the saxophone stops chasing and starts drifting, phrases hang in the air longer than you’d expect. The rhythm section isn’t pushing anyone anywhere—they’re just holding the room. And here’s the thing about a track like this: it’s easy to lose people when you slow down in the middle of a set. You don’t. Not if the band has this kind of control. Then there’s “Back Home“—forties, fifties, old-school standards territory. Melodic lines you could hum on the way out of the club. Elegant harmonies, nothing clever for the sake of clever. The whole track is about roots, about going back. Which, if you know DeAndrade‘s story—Brazil to San Francisco to New York—means something a little more personal than it would for most.

“Just a Moment” continues the thread of slow ballads. The saxophone theme is lyrical, the rhythm restrained. Here DeAndrade demonstrates what distinguishes a mature musician from a young one: the ability to play quietly. Silence in the hands of a professional requires immense control, and that control is audible on this track. The album closes with “Soul Witness“—medium tempo, polyphonic texture, collective improvisation. A logical conclusion that gathers all the threads of the album into a single point.

For those who value instrumental jazz for its technical mastery and sense of tradition, the album delivers exactly what is needed. For those seeking music for an evening backdrop, for reflection, for a moment when one simply wants to listen to good playing—Ponta Pé (Live) creates an environment in which it is comfortable to dwell. And that is a valuable quality, especially when the world around us demands instant reactions to everything.

VERDICT

Although while listening I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I had heard all of this before. And I’ll be honest: Ponta Pé (Live) is precisely that kind of case, and therein lies both its strength and its only vulnerable point. After the first two tracks, the album’s trajectory becomes transparent: dynamic contrasts, tempo shifts, improvisations over a steady rhythm. A formula that has worked for decades—because it is effective. The question has always been how convincingly one deploys that formula, and DeAndrade deploys it at a level that is difficult to fault.

The integration of forró into the jazz context is executed masterfully. Two musical worlds come together in DeAndrade‘s work organically, with respect for both—Brazilian rhythms enrich the jazz structure, while jazz harmony lends forró a new dimension.

Yes, the album is predictable. Yes, it operates within familiar parameters. But the predictability here is a consequence of mastery, and the parameters are a consequence of deliberate choice. DeAndrade could have experimented, could have broken his own formula, could have surprised—and perhaps, on the eighth album, he ought to consider it. Yet Ponta Pé (Live) is convincing precisely because DeAndrade knows exactly who he is and what he wants to say. I always say that nostalgia in music is slippery territory: it can become a bridge to a new understanding, or it can become an end in itself. DeAndrade manages to maintain the balance.

For a broad audience, Ponta Pé (Live) may prove a revelation: this is what instrumental jazz sounds like when it remains serious music and simultaneously invites you inside. For those who have known DeAndrade for a long time and value his approach, this is a worthy continuation of the line he has been pursuing for many years. A seventh album. A live recording. A musician in peak form, with a band that knows the material and knows how to deliver it.

All information provided is prepared in accordance with editorial standards and is intended to offer useful insights for readers. Please note that the opinions, interpretations, and evaluations expressed by the author may substantially differ from the viewpoints of our readers or the general public at large, and we respect the diversity of opinions.