AZYMUTH Vinyl Records and CDs

Brazilian group started out in the early 1970s as Grupo Seleção, a cover band. In 1973 they changed the band's name to Azymuth, inspired by a Marcos & Paulo Sérgio Valle song. (They also backed Marcos Valle on his Previsão Do Tempo album released in 1973.) In 1975 they released their first album, initially titled Azimüth. It featured the hit Linha Do Horizonte. In 1976 they scored another minor hit with Melô Da Cuíca ; Jazz Carnival, taken from the 1979 album Light As A Feather, was another hit, and 1980's Dear Limmertz also became a popular staple. The trio moved to the United States in the early 1980s, producing a number of albums that never came out in Brazil, and placing their bets on a mix of samba, funk and jazz that they defined as MPB-jazz (referring to Música Popular Brasileira). The main composer, keyboardist J. R. Bertrami, left the group in 1988, and was replaced by Jota Moraes and Marinho Boffa, but returned in the middle of the following decade, when the group signed with the label Far Out. After Bertrami died in 2012 keyboardist Kiko Continentino joined drummer Ivan "Mamão" Conti and bassist Alex Malheiros to continue the band.