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Greetings Good People,

The last project we produced before our live music hiatus, was held in Brasília, Brazil, four years ago. The curated series of concerts at Casa Thomas Jefferson, an English school that runs weekly concerts throughout the year was a month long succes.  The series, Jazz: A Retrospective, consisted of four performances highlighting the works of some major artists who contributed their arrangements and compositions to the evolution of jazz and it’s noble history.  

We began the series with New Directions: Birth of the Cool  featuring the progressive arrangements by Gil EvansGerry MulliganJohn Carisi and John Lewis.  We then payed tribute to the great pianist/composer Bill Evans in a second performance entitled Impressionism in Jazz: The Music of Bill Evans.   On the third concert we performed the music of two great jazz composers who used the profound significance of the blues as a springboard for many of their pieces in Blue Roots: The Music of Charles Mingus & Oliver Nelson.  For the last evening of the series we highlighted the music of a few prominent composers who wrote for the seminal group created by Horace Silver (who left us while the series was being put together) and Art Blakey in a performance entitled The Messengers: Blakey’s Composers.

The series was such a success that Casa Thomas Jefferson’s artistic director agreed to have us back in the near future for a second installment.  The idea behind this venture was to have Brasília’s top capable improvising musicians and the general public be exposed to this important array of music that was so fundamental in shaping this art form we call JAZZ

In the last few years I was fortunate enough to have been playing with some fantastic musicians who either live or have been spending some time in Brasília. I had Paulo Levi on soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones, Serge Frasunkiewicz on piano and Anders Hentze on drums by my side completing my local quartet.  We then invited a group of fine musicians to partake in this ambitious project:

In New Directions we were joined by: Rogério Midlej (voice); Moises Alves (trumpet); Bruno Medina (alto saxophone); Adil Silva (trombone); Ellyas Lucas (french horn) and Jhoninha Medeiros (tuba).  Impressionism in Jazz featured Genil Castro on guitar.  In Blue Roots once again Rogério Midlej; Bruno Medina and Adil Silva were present and we had Westonny Rodrigues on trumpet/flugelhorn and Ademir Junior on tenor saxophone.  Finally, Moises Alves, Bruno Medina and Ademir Junior performed compositions by the likes of Horace Silver, Bobby Timmons, Curtis Fuller, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson and Wayne Shorter on The Messengers.  

All the concerts, with the exception of the first one, were filmed by TV Senado and as soon as they are ready I will post them here.  Stay tuned!!!!