By Andrew Poretz . . . .

Italian singer Mafalda Minnozzi (who goes by her first name) and New York guitarist Paul Ricci returned to Pangea last week with a sold-out show, Courageous Voices: The Musical Soul of Women. The pair have worked together since meeting in Brazil in 1996, creating many CD and DVD collaborations and performing countless times throughout Brazil and Latin America.

The concert showcased mainly Italian and Brazilian material and was dedicated to important women’s voices in music, including Astrud Gilberto, Ella Fitzgerald, the Italian singer Mina, Édith Piaf, and the recently deceased Ornella Vanoni.

This writer first encountered them at a free concert two years ago at the Perelman Performing Arts Center downtown and was instantly entranced by Mafalda’s exquisite, playful singing and Ricci’s brilliant, innovative guitar work. Both Mafalda and Ricci are also songwriters, with Ricci also a composer for television and movies in Brazil.

The polyglot Mafalda is fluent in Italian, Portuguese, and French, as well as English. They opened the set with the bossa nova “Garota de Ipanema” (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes), better known as “Girl from Ipanema,” but with the original Portuguese title and lyrics. Mafalda’s playful, sexy nature was evident from the outset.

The duo performed several other Jobim songs, including a sparkling “Dindi” and a rendition of “Triste” with a long, rubato opening and a little bit of scat. Mafalda’s version of scat is only sounds, rather than the nonsense words of traditional scat. She often uses her voice as an instrument and is capable of producing rather unique sounds when the mood strikes her. At times in the set, she also utilized mouth percussion techniques to add rhythms.

A pair of “Brazilian-flavored Italian” songs associated with Ornella, “La Voglia e la Pazzia” and “Bello Amore,” was a delightful segment.

For a refreshing twist, they took the haunting Jacques Brel classic “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” later recorded by Piaf, and played it as a blues. Piaf “lived a life of the blues,” Ricci noted. (The English version is “If You Go Away.”)

They returned to Jobim with an excellent arrangement of “Águas de Março” (“Waters of March”), with Mina in mind. (Mina recorded it in Italian, as “La Pioggia di Marzo.”)

Mina presented the very “graphic and explicit” “Ancora, Ancora, Ancora” (“Again, Again, Again”) that was censored back in the 1970s. Mafalda and Ricci’s arrangement became increasingly intense, as if it were the soundtrack of an artsy adult film.

Ricci interspersed bossa history, crediting guitarist Barney Kessel and trumpeter/singer Chet Baker as key influences on the West Coast “cool jazz” style that young Brazilian musicians, such as Antônio Carlos Jobim, admired and adopted in the late 1950s.

“Desafinado” (or “Off Key” – Jobim’s response to critics who said the bossa was impossible to sing and “out of tune”) was the biggest highlight of the night. Ricci set the mood with a gorgeous guitar intro. Mafalda began rubato before settling into the Brazilian rhythm. She included more mouth percussion at the break – she is truly an instrument. Ricci is not just a masterful guitarist and arranger, but also a perfect accompanist. He carefully watches Mafalda as she sings, attuned to her every note, gesture, and shift in tempo or direction like a musical mind reader.

This was an excellent, beautiful set. Mafalda and Ricci’s musical chemistry is spot-on. Her singing and Ricci’s guitar work were both exceptional. Mafalda is also quite funny and playful. The pair will return to Pangea.

Learn more about Mafalda at https://news.mafaldaminnozzi.com/ and Paul Ricci at https://empathiajazz.com.br/bio/paul-ricci/.

For more great shows at Pangea, visit http://www.pangeanyc.com.