Maritaca Quintet
Biography
Featuring
THOMAS CLAUSEN - piano
TECO CARDOSO - flutes, saxes
LÉA FREIRE - flutes
FERNANDO DEMARCO - bass
AFONSO CORRÊA - drums, percussion
Upcoming tours for
the MARITACA QUINTET:
November 2007 and spring/ summer 2008 !
Sax/flute virtuoso TECO CARDOSO is one of Brazil's most established musicians, and among the world's greatest on his instruments. He is well known for his own projects, e.g. the awarded CD ”Meu Brasil”, and for playing with other important artists such as Dorival Caymmi, Edu Lobo, João Donato, Joyce, and Monica Salmaso. He has toured in Europe, North America, and Japan, played at important festivals - North Sea, Copenhagen and more - and the best clubs - the Blue Note clubs in New York, Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka, the Quasimodo in Berlin, Stadtgarten in Cologne, New Morning in Paris, the Hollywood Bowl, the Bird's Eye in Basel, just to mention a few. His flutes and saxes have been brought to stage with among others Hermeto Pascoal, Toots Thielemans, and Jim Hall.
For a number of years TECO and leading flutist, composer, and arranger LÉA FREIRE have been working together, touring in the US, in 98 playing at the Blue Note in New York, and recording for MARITACA, LÉA's own CD label and music edition, one of the most important labels in Brazil today, for which the very best of Brazil's musicians record. One of TECO's and LÉA's projects in common is the wonderful and praised CD “QUINTETO”.
Both LÉA and TECO have received the finest reviews from top reviewers of jazz and beyond for individual as well as mutual and other constellations of concerts and recordings, LÉA also for her CDs where she plays with trombonist Bocato, and for the very charming and great “NINHAL” in her own name, including some of her most famous compositions “Samba de Mulher” and “Vatapá”. This spring of 2007 LÉA also released a quite different and big symphonic project with exclusively her own music - the wonderful CD “CARTAS BRASILEIRAS”.
THOMAS CLAUSEN has studied at the Royal Academy of Music as pianist and composer, has performed and recorded in his own name and with so many of the world's greatest that only a few be mentioned here - Miles Davis, Gary Burton, Dexter Gordon, Thad Jones, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Elvin Jones, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Ben Webster, Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Henderson, Toots Thielemans, Roy Haynes, Johnny Griffin, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Stanley Turrentine, Ed Thigpen.....
THOMAS has composed and arranged for the DR Big Band (Danish Radio Big Band), symphonic orchestra, choir, ballet, theater, and small jazz combos, and has been honorably awarded numerous times. With the release of more than 16 albums in his name, he has become one of the most important musicians in Europe today.
In 97 THOMAS' passion for Brazilian music led him to create the THOMAS CLAUSEN BRAZILIAN QUARTET including Danish sax and flute player JAN ZUM VOHRDE, bass-player FERNANDO DEMARCO and drummer and percussionist AFONSO CORRÊA, both Brazilians with residence in Europe, and with whom he started to explore choro and other Brazilian styles and rhythms.
While touring in Brazil in January 2005, THOMAS invited TECO CARDOSO to play with the group. This collaboration continued when the THOMAS CLAUSEN BRAZILIAN OCTET featured TECO CARDOSO as special guest at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival the following summer.
So, besides THOMAS CLAUSEN on piano, the basic THOMAS CLAUSEN BRAZIL TRIO consists of FERNANDO DEMARCO on bass, and AFONSO CORRÊA on drums and percussion.
This trio has developed to a level of supreme heights of interplay within the last decade, combining the freedom of jazz with the very special and colorful original Brazilian rhythms of samba, baião, choro, ijexa, maxixe, afoxé, valsa etc.
The trio was chosen by the Royal Danish Consulate to represent Denmark in New York, and in previous years has been written about its projects, with or without various complement of players:
“...a beautiful combination of elegance and devil-may-care sound...” (Politiken). “Their CD “BALACOBACO” including Jan zum Vohrde (as/fl), Mikkel Nordsoe (gt) and the Madame Claude Harp Trio is no less than a “...masterpiece...” “, “...enchanting...”, and “...utterly spellbinding...”, Boris Rabinowitsch, Politiken, who also writes: “...what Clausen has done with choros makes me think of what Piazzolla has done with the Argentine tango...” - “... Thomas Clausen's relationship with Brazilian music has developed into a deep-felt reciprocated love...”.
THOMAS CLAUSEN's newly released and quite different CD “Back to Basics” with his new JAZZ TRIO has also been extremely positively received by the press.
AFONSO CORRÊA - “...a tasteful Brazilian swing drummer and colorful percussion player...” - studied at the Conservatório de Música e Instituto Villa Lobos, and has performed/recorded with Elza Soares, João Donato, Dom Um Romão, Bo Stief, Mads Vinding, Ben Besiakov, Thomas Clausen, Christian Sievert, and more.
FERNANDO DEMARCO - “...performance of a master, combining nonchalance and precision...” (Politiken) “...skilled, ingenious, and imaginative...” (Berlingske Tidende) has performed/ recorded with among others Thomas Clausen, Gary Burton, Jacob Fischer, Christian Sievert, Ben Besiakov, and recently based in London with a number of great English and Brazilian artists.
In 2006, with great success TECO CARDOSO and LÉA FREIRE toured in Brazil and Europe together with the Copenhagen and London based THOMAS CLAUSEN BRAZIL TRIO. The success of the quintet with TECO and LÉA led to the recording in Copenhagen of the just now released CD “WATERBIKES” (M 1037).
In may 2007 the group made another just as successful tour in Europe, this time as an exception without LÉA, who was busy releasing her CD “CARTAS BRASILEIRAS” mentioned above. However, while in England, great guitarist and composer JONNY PHILLIPS joined the band.
The music of the MARITACA QUINTET is a specially written repertoire, based mainly on compositions by Léa Freire, Thomas Clausen, Jonny Phillips, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
CD: MARITACA QUINTET: “WATERBIKES“ - the brand new release, featuring
Thomas Clausen, piano
Teco Cardoso, flutes & saxes
Léa Freire, flutes
Fernando Demarco, bass
Afonso Corrêa, drums & percussion.
The performances on this CD mix three visions of Brazil - the sensible foreign image of Thomas Clausen, the broad perspective of the Brazilians that represent their country and music abroad, which is the case with Fernando Demarco and Afonso Corrêa, and the images of Teco Cardoso and Léa Freire, who live and produce in Brazil today. Choro, samba, bossa nova, maracatu, maxixe, ijexa, and other styles and rhythms, with space for collective creation, and with new arrangements that privilege the enormous musical intimacy of the instrumentalists.
“Water snake, water stone, water eyes, wondrous water world, and then the water bike. Scientists of today have discovered that sounds propagate better in water. It must be true. Musicians love the image of this substance that interconnects everything, that seems to take gravity away, and like the womb becomes the nest for their musical visions and dreams. Water is music-matter. Try to visualize the magic of green and yellow maritaca parrots diving into this setting flooded with musicality. Imagine this concert in Copenhagen as Chagall hovering above the Brazilian swampland. Or could these birds be joyful yellow-green Vikings from bright Nordic skies having crossed the Atlantic?
Brazil - Denmark - so far apart - and still just separated, or rather connected by the fluid of the seas. Denmark, surrounded by sea, and with bikes all over. At a shore in Copenhagen Teco Cardoso found and photographed these immersed bikes. Water and bikes, logically in conflict, however, inspiring the fantasy - that from one country to the other it takes only a ride on bike under water - water bikes ...”. Léa Freire.
