Celso Fonseca

Fonseca recorded this remarkable album in Leblon, a neighborhood adjacent to the famed Ipanema beach. There must be something in that air, because after 2005's very good (but somewhat less remarkable) Rive Gauche Rio, The Leblon Sessions makes a gentle but palpable return to the ephemera of bossa nova. Fonseca sings as if he's whispering secrets in your ear, and his guitar alights in the spaces in between like a rare and reticent bird. The classic songs are punctuated by Beatles and King Crimson covers for variety.