This summer, a stranger might think that Brighton had been twinned with Ipanema.

It's not just the number of people in Brazil shirts congregating on the streets, nor the way people seem to be playing football everywhere you look. It's the number of bars who seem to think bossa nova is perfect summer music.

It's not surprising, therefore, that the Komedia was packed for one of the stars of Brazilian music, the singer/songwriter, Joyce. She's renowned in her native country as the first female singer who recorded songs from a woman's point of view - radical stuff in a macho society often governed by military dictatorships.

Looking amazingly youthful for someone who recorded her first record in 1964, she kicked off with the lively crowd-pleaser Banda Maluca from her 2004 recording, Just a Little Bit Crazy.

She was backed by bassist Rodolfo Stroeter, drummer Tutty Moreno, who's also her husband, and Teco Cardoso on flute and soprano sax. Joyce's voice is as warm as a Rio summer and charmed the Komedia crowd.

She played two sets - the first half was a bit laid back, focusing heavily on her bossa nova numbers but including one of her English language songs, the plea for racial harmony, The Colours Of Joy.

She also featured a few songs by Brazilian legend Antonio Carlos Jobim, one of the fathers of the bossa nova, before closing with a couple of popular songs from the Fifties.

The second set was a bit funkier with plenty of opportunities for the musicians to show their skills.

In particular, there was a driving sax solo from Cardoso. She finished the set with her 1980 classic celebration of womanhood, Feminina, a song which demonstrated all the expressive range of her voice.

A seated venue wasn't ideal - this is music to set one's feet tapping and hips swaying and perhaps she was also bit too laid back in the first set: the second part certainly had some verve to it. But she brought a bit of Rio to North Laine - and not a Brazil shirt in sight.