Dreamers

Dreamers makes a case for the Mexico-born, New York-based vocalist and composer Magos Herrera as a talent deserving not just wider, but universal, recognition. Recording with a string quartet for the first time, Herrera comes at beauty with a purpose, covering Spanish and Portuguese classics by songwriters (Octavio Paz, Gilberto Gil, Federico García Lorca and Caetano Veloso among them) who dared to dream under repressive regimes. Transporting arrangements by Jaques Morelenbaum, Diego Schissi and others amplify the character of everything from Brazilian bossa nova (“Coração Vagabundo”) to Chilean folk (“Volver a los 17”). Both jazz-adept Herrera and the stylistically omnivorous Brooklyn Rider quartet use deep technique in the service of wonder here: Their fluid phrasing and rhythmic dexterity lift us into the orbits of these visionary songs.