Brazilian Nights

Kenny G is best known as the quintessential smooth jazz musician with a long list of popular titles to his credit. Yet he does voyage outside the jazz-pop paradigm—he explored Latin music on 2008’s Rhythm and Romance and Indian music on 2011’s Namaste—and does so again here with a set of five classic bossa novas and five originals written in that vein with longtime collaborator Walter Afanasieff. While bossa nova is typically based around acoustic guitars, the two boost the percussion and sweeten things with an orchestra providing harmonic support.