Flora Purim

[upbeat music] Early morning mellow jazz grooves.

Flora Purim, Diana Philpurim.

If you will.

[singing] If you are feeling down, I got a perfect tune and a melody.

That's from 1974.

Another tune on that Native Dancer album is called Diana, which Wayne Shorter wrote as a personal tribute to Diana Purim, the newborn daughter of legendary Brazilian jazz percussionist Eerto Moreira and iconic jazz singer Flora Purim.

Eerto is on percussion here with short on tenor sax and Herbie Hancock piano.

Diana.

And so that carried over into, as a mom, She didn't believe in babysitters and whatever, so she would take me to shows and people's houses and whatever, whatever.

Now, she always was a champion of avant-garde jazz, jazz vocalists, so everyone from Dee Dee Bridgewater to Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone, of course, the usuals, but also Ursula Duzdiak, Flora Purim, you know, she had a wide range, but she really loved the kind of avant-garde things, right? The more kind of spiritual jazz.

And so in the early years of the orchestra playing in Philly, my mom used to go to these shows and whatever and befriended a lot of the members of the orchestra, including Sun Ra.

Now, you know, I'm like six.