After being part of Once Blue, in the 90’s, with other musicians that have become well known in the jazz scene, Rebecca Martin started her solo career focusing on her own music, a mix of rock, pop folk and jazz. Her first solo album, written and produced by Martin herself, was called Thoroughfare. In 2002, she would definitely have the critics on her side with her album Middlehope, with a very original and personal approach on jazz standards. Praised for mixing a strong pop sensibility with the resources of a jazz musician, she recorded with Paul Motion and was the first singer-songwriter to play at the Village Vanguard, in New York, in more than 30 years. Rebecca Martin’s original music and the american songbook are the core of this concert alongside Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.

The fantastic accordion player is the special guest of another OJM concert devoted to young soloists.

Praised by major international jazz figures like Joe Lovano, Randy Brecker and Lenny White – that awarded him the victory of the Made in New York Competition 2016 –, João Barradas is the next guest of Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos’s cycle devoted to Jazz New Talents. The young accordion player is interested in the exploration of all the instrument’s possibilities and has created a great impact in the jazz universe as well as in that of classical music. In the latter field he has won more than 30 competitions and has become an established musician in the international circuit. He has recorded a first CD with only 19 years-old – Surrealistc Discussion, with Sérgio Carolino – and works regularly with contemporary composers.

But in the jazz world, which is what brings him to this project with OJM, João Barradas’s impact is not lesser. He has been appointed as a top figure of the accordion by top names of the North-American jazz such as Nicholas Payton and Walter Smith III, and participates in the most important national and international festivals. In 2017, Inner Circle/Nischo released the record Directions, in which the musician leads a group formed by João Paulo Esteves da Silva, André Fernandes, Bruno Pedroso and André Rosinha, highly praised by the critics (“a lot of ideas, versatility, energy, high intensity. Barradas has just arrived to the premier league and has already won the title” – Nuno Catarino, Bodyspace). In this record that can be found two original themes that will also be presented in this concert, with new arrangements written by two OJM musicians: Letter to Mother’s Immersion (arrangement by João Pedro Brandão) and Varazdin’s Landscape (arrangement by José Pedro Coelho).

The rest of this concert’s programme has its origin in the extensive OJM’s repertoire, resulting from a decade and a half of collaborations with the most creative composers and arrangers of our time. It is a selection of defiant compositions that will be the vehicle for the imaginative improvisations of João Barradas. It will include the music Certeza, by João Paulo Esteves da Silva, a theme from the middle 1990s that has already become a Portuguese jazz standard. From the prolific collaboration of OJM with Kurt Rosenwinkel comes the theme Our Secret World, associated with a phase when the American guitar player experimented hip-hop influences in the construction of original harmonic nets. Besides these two themes with arrangements by Carlos Azevedo, the programme also includes the Brazilian influences in the work of a crucial composer within the big band universe, Maria Schneider – with Choro Dançado. The dance theme continues on a composition by the drum player John Hollenbeck, and the programme is completed with a visit to Jimmy Hendrix’s rock, in an arrangement by Jim McNeely of what is, in fact, the most jazzy composition from the guitar icon: Up From the Skies.


Repertoire:

Letter to Mother’s Immersion - João Barradas - arr. João Pedro Brandão

Varazdin’s Landscape - João Barradas - arr. José Pedro Coelho

Choro Dançado - Maria Schneider

Our Secret World - Kurt Rosenwinkel - arr. Carlos Azevedo

Certeza - João Paulo Esteves da Silva - arr. Carlos Azevedo

Joys & Desires #2 - John Hollenbeck

After a Dance or Two - John Hollenbeck

We Sit Down for a Pint - John Hollenbeck

Up From the Skies - Jimmy Hendrix - arr. Jim McNeelly

Tom Waits, Beatles, Elvis Costello, Chico Buarque, Serge Gainsbourg and Queens Of The Stone Age are some of the artists and bands that Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos will visit with the help of Manuela Azevedo. With original arrangements for big band, these themes will be interpreted by the charismatic leading voice of Clã in this new encounter with OJM. Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos invitated Manuela Azevedo in 2014, following the work the orchestra has developed in the last few years with voices from diverse musical universes, from jazz to Brazilian music, to world music and pop.

Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos and Manuela Azevedo return to the stage to support the project IPO-Porto- Caring for You!

Aiming at raising awareness for the crucial role of research in the future of cancer treatment, Porto’s Portuguese Institute of Oncology Gentil Martins (IPO-Porto) organises another solidary show at Coliseu Porto, whose funds go totally to cancer research.

On the 17th of April the IPO-Porto celebrates 43 years of activity centred in the Patients, for those who work hard every day to provide them the best innovative and high standard health care.

Pianist from Coimbra is the guest soloist of the sixth concert of the cycle dedicated to jazz new talents.

We have heard the voices, the saxophones and a guitar. Now, the special guest of another OJM concert dedicated to the new gerations of national jazz will sit at the piano and share the stage with the experienced big band. Graduated by the Superior School of Music and Performance Arts of Porto, where he studied with Pedro Guedes and Abe Rábade, he concluded the Jazz course with a recital entirely composed by originals, obtaining the 20 highest mark. He has a MA in Performance by the University of Aveiro and, beyond the academic world, he has been playing in his own name with his quintet and also with projects such as Michael Lorent & The Groove Merchants and the Septet of Nuno Ferreira. He has participated in João Mortágua’s records – Janela, Mané Fernandes – BounceLab and Alexandre Coelho Quartet. He has signed the original score of the theatre play A Lenda da Princesa Peralta, and he won, in 2011, the second prize in the Combo Jazz category of the Young Musicians Award.

The program chosen for this concert includes an original theme by Gonçalo Moreira – Poema à Mãe –, two original themes by Carlos Azevedo that go back to a first stage of the big band’s existence – Does It Matter and Pipiwipi – and a composition by João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Bela Senão Sem, that we already could hear in an homonymous record that OJM and the piano player recorded together in 2013. The alignment is completed with themes chosen from the immense repertoire that OJM has been interpreting throughout the years, by unquestionable and multi-awarded figures of the North-American contemporary jazz. It is the case of Kurt Rosenwinkel, with a theme as iconic as Zhivago, that left a mark on the jazz of the 90s; or of Maria Schneider, master of the big band colours, with a theme born out of a hang-gliding journey in Rio de Janeiro; or two themes by Jim McNeely, pianist and composer of the historic Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (We Will Not Be Silenced and Extra Credit); to the influential pianist Fred Hersh, with two themes that made part of a very recent partnership with OJM: The Orb and Arcata.

The educational services of OJM – LabJázzica – are almost starting a new initiative! It’s called “2,5,1” and it’s a music-theatre performance, with the duration of between 15 and 20 minutes, performed by a small ensemble made of music students from articulated teaching and people from the creative team of LabJázzica. These small concerts were created especially for kindergardens and primary schools classes. The first tour will go to the Jardim-Escola João de Deus and to the Primary School of Matosinhos – Headquarters.