Vinicius Cantuaria has always been going for low-key, and the art of suggestion. I saw him playing and singing in a band with violinist Jenny Scheinman at his side, and he was always arguing for doing less: less ornamentation, less improvisation, staying at the core of a song, for three minutes, forever. Should he want assistance, the Brazilian has a fine phonebook to flick through – Norah Jones and Ryuichi Sakamoto add piano (they are not doing anything wrong when they keep the saccharine factor low), long-time collaborator Bill Frisell provides guitar, and Jesse Harris sings, but this is primarily a solo project, with Cantuaria adding percussion (low key), keyboards (low key), and his own Caetano Velosoesque vocals (yes, low key, too). Then, in his role as co-producer, he turns the volume down as low as you can get without fading away completely and cutting out anything inessential to the point where the results weigh in at a shade under 30 minutes. As the names of his friends suggest, after more than a dozen albums in various guises, Cantuaria is an integral part of new York‘ newest wave of Brazilian jazz, influenced by much more than samba rhythms. But this newest wave is always connected to the oldest wave, believe me! This is no Saturday night Big Apple rave-up, but more a luxurious Sunday morning pick-me-up.