Meet Triste Janero

Triste Janero's sole album is pleasant if blandly effervescent soft pop/rock with a Brazilian bent, also filtering in strong rays of easy listening pop and light jazz. Sergio Mendes is an unavoidable point of comparison, though Triste Janero were perhaps less slick and more youthful, putting a number of contemporary pop/rock numbers ("Walk on By," "Get Together," the Lovin' Spoonful's "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice") to the fluffy bossa nova-fied beat, and changing Nilsson's "Without Her" to "Without Him" to fit the vocals of lead singer Barbara Baines. Material of more authentic bossa nova origins crops up in the rendition of "How Insensitive/Somba de Orphia," and the group proves itself capable of writing in the style on the single "Rene de Marie," a hit in Triste Janero's native Dallas. Yet the most impressive — if least typical — track on the record is the eight-minute instrumental "T.J. Blues," which is a pretty hot little organ jazz number.