João Donato has died at the age of 88

Lula, president of Brazil, has led tributes to Brazilian composer and pianist João Donato who died yesterday aged 88 following hospitalisation and pneumonia. In the 1960s and 70s Donato recorded as a leader for such labels as Polydor, RCA Victor, Pacific Jazz, Muse and Philips and continued to be an influence - as Lula says in his homage ''he kept creating and innovating until the end.”

Donato collaborated with Michael Franks on Sleeping Gypsy in the 70s appearing on the song fittingly 'Down in Brazil' and his own compositions that have become synonymous with his work included 'A ra' ('The Frog') covered by Sérgio Mendes in the 1960s and 'Bananeira' ('Banana Tree') covered by Eliane Elias on the singer-pianist's 2011 album Light My Fire.

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What works better on this release by Danish-Finnish band JAF Trio is when the trio go a little more up tempo eventually on 'Something New'. Neither avant-garde nor toothsomely melodic the trio gain traction when they break free of the fairly easy to compute originals. A sax, bass, drums trio (saxist Adele Sauros, bassist Joonas Tuuri and drummer Frederik Emil Bülow are the trio members) as an entity has its limitations given the pressure it puts on the lead instrument and usually works best when that main instrument takes over completely given a flood of ideas and the sheer weight of their playing personality. That doesn't quite happen here but it's perfectly listenable to anyway. Most of the tunes are by Bülow, the pick is that quirky uptempo number mentioned earlier. JAF Trio, photo Sonja Vainionpää

João Donato has died at the age of 88

JAF Trio, JAF Trio, WeJazz ***