Collection: Airto Moreira

Airto Moreira arrived in the United States in 1968 carrying an instrument collection most jazz musicians had never seen, and within two years he had changed what percussion meant in jazz. Born in Itaiópolis, Santa Catarina, in 1941 and raised in Curitiba in a family of folk healers, he was a professional musician at thirteen, playing in São Paulo nightclubs at sixteen, and a founding member of Quarteto Novo with Hermeto Pascoal by the time he was in his mid-twenties. The Quarteto Novo's 1967 album fused baião, samba and modern jazz in a way that had no direct precedent, and it was the record that announced both musicians to the wider jazz world. Moreira moved to the United States after Flora Purim and met Walter Booker in New York, who introduced him to Joe Zawinul, who introduced him to Miles Davis. He played on "Bitches Brew" (Columbia, 1970) and "Live-Evil" (Columbia, 1971) before joining Weather Report for their 1971 self-titled debut. A year later he was a founding member of Return to Forever with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Joe Farrell and Purim, appearing on the self-titled 1972 ECM album and "Light as a Feather" (Polydor, 1973). His CTI solo records, starting with "Free" (1972), drew on the same pool: Corea, Farrell, Keith Jarrett, Hubert Laws and George Benson. Moreira's impact on DownBeat was literal: the magazine added a percussion category to its readers' and critics' polls largely in response to his presence in the field, and he won it eight consecutive years from 1975 to 1982. He is still active.