A Night of Brazilian Classics and 007 From Dori Caymmi

If anyone’s entitled to sing the Offspring-of-a-Famous-Parent Blues, it’s Dori Caymmi.

His father, Dorival, is one of the legendary figures in Brazilian music, the composer of dozens of the country’s hit songs and a key partner in the early career of Carmen Miranda. Given the talents of two other Caymmi siblings, singer Nana and flutist-composer Danilo, it’s no surprise that guitarist-singer-arranger Dori Caymmi has chosen to primarily make his career in the United States for the past decade or so.

But there’s no denying the breadth and scope of his own talent. Thursday night at the Jazz Bakery, Caymmi, leading a first-rate sextet, seemed primarily focused upon establishing the broad, international view of his music.

Much of the set was derived from his just-released album, “Cinema: A Romantic Vision.” The choices were, to say the least, far-reaching, including such dramatically un-Brazilian items as the “Pink Panther” and James Bond themes. For the most part, however, they worked well within the context of Caymmi’s carefully textured arrangements, aided especially by the soloing of pianist Billy Childs and saxophonist Scott Mayo, and the layered sounds of Bill Cantos’ synthesizer playing.

It’s hard to step away from one’s heritage, however, and the highlights of the evening were generated by familiar Brazilian items--”Samba de Uma Nota So” (One Note Samba), “Corcovado” and the classic “Aquarela do Brasil” among them.

Here, too, Caymmi’s arrangements--not hesitating to stretch melodies or add plangent dissonances--added striking new perspectives. And the dark, burry sound of his voice, reminiscent at times of fellow Brazilian Ivan Lins, deserves to be heard more often.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t heard nearly well enough in the audio mix for the group’s performance. Too often, both Caymmi’s vocals and his acoustic guitar were buried in the surrounding sounds, which also minimized the bass work of John Leftwich while exaggerating the repetitive bass drum of Michael Shapiro.

And that was a shame, because Caymmi--who, despite his offspring status, is a highly regarded artist whose early ‘90s albums received two Grammy nominations--revealed the capacity to produce a rich array of fascinating music.

It just would have been nice to have experienced it in its full glory.

* Dori Caymmi, tonight at the Jazz Bakery, 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City, (310) 271-9039. $18 admission at 8 and 9:30 p.m.