Vinicius Cantuária, the Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist, places great faith in the power of mystique. His music abides by not only the subtleties of bossa nova but also an enterprising haziness shared by experimental rock and the cooler strains of fusion. As a performer he employs intimacy as a strategy, drawing listeners close and then holding them at arm’s length. His diffidence can seem willful, almost passive-aggressive.
That was one problem with Mr. Cantuária’s strangely low-impact set at the Jazz Standard on Wednesday night. Another was the sparseness of the accompaniment: a trumpeter, a drummer and two percussionists, with no bass or additional chordal instrument to fill out the sound. Mr. Cantuária, playing a nylon-string guitar with a hint of echo, made little attempt to compensate, residing in the realm of understatement. The percussionists, wary of overpowering him, trod so lightly that their grooves felt tentative, even listless.
Mr. Cantuária doesn’t usually have this much difficulty balancing the sound of a band. Over the last dozen years or so, since his arrival in New York, he has made the most of concise orchestration. His fine new album, “Cymbals” (Koch), features mostly duo and trio arrangements, with jazz musicians like the cellist Erik Friedlander and the pianist Brad Mehldau.
The set included just a handful of songs from “Cymbals,” and two of these were respectfully low-key covers: “Vivo Sonhando,” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, and “Você Está Sumindo,” by Geraldo Pereira and Jorge de Castro. The other selections were “O Batuque,” a drone-imbued samba written with the percussionist and singer Naná Vasconcelos, and “Você e Eu,” a gently rippling love song.
Mr. Cantuária sang these melodies in the soothing, slightly nasal tone of a João Gilberto disciple, but he didn’t come close to matching Mr. Gilberto’s effortless magnetism. So he was better on the tunes with assertive rhythm, like “Cubanos Postizos,” his comradely tribute to the guitarist Marc Ribot, and “Rio,” an ambivalent nod to the city of his youth.
Almost every song featured an improvised flourish by the trumpeter Michael Leonhart. He played with sensitivity and precision, and his rapport with Mr. Cantuária was deep. But sometimes it felt as if his polished solo commentary were imported from another show, one with a more immediate sense of purpose.
