Jazz Articles about Bola Sete

About Bola Sete

Album Review

Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete: From All Sides

Read "From All Sides" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 11, 2026

When it comes to West Coast jazz of the highest order, Lester Koenig's Contemporary label set the standard, although Fantasy Records would also carve its own niche. Founded by the Weiss Brothers in 1949, Fantasy would be the home to two early jazz crossover artists, Dave Brubeck and Vince Guaraldi. With a taste for multiple genres, the label also documented the work of comedian Lenny Bruce and the country rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The latter group actually earned ...

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Album Review

Bola Sete: Voodoo Village

Read "Voodoo Village" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
August 12, 2004

In the mid-sixties bossa nova was the second most popular music after rock and roll, a situation that gave talented artists like Bola Sete exposure that otherwise might have been elusive. Like Charlie Byrd, another artist who paid the rent with Brazilian music, Sete combined formidable classical and flamenco chops with a jazz sensibility to create some truly wonderful recordings that are slowly making their way back into print. Tour de Force, an earlier reissue that combined two Sete albums, ...

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Album Review

Bola Sete: Voodoo Village

Read "Voodoo Village" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
July 4, 2004

Seven ball, corner pocket. If Bola Sete had chosen cue stick over guitar there’s little doubt he would have brought similar agility and acumen to the game of billiards. Luckily for listeners across the globe he chose the latter instrument as his means of expression. Particulars on Sete’s colorful career are recounted elsewhere—his Bohemian youth spent in Rio as well as his place at the ground floor of the bossa nova explosion and his narrow miss at beating the team ...

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Album Review

Bola Sete: Tour de Force

Read "Tour de Force" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
November 1, 2001

At the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival an unknown by the name of Bola Sete wowed the audience with a sprightly mix of traditional Brazilian singing, dancing, and guitar playing. The audience loved it, but unfortunately Sete’s appearance was ill timed and he never got much mileage out of it; the bossa nova craze wouldn’t hit until about a year later. In fact, Sete has always been a marginal figure in the Latin jazz scene, despite being a Brazilian native; even ...

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Album Review

Bola Sete Trios: Tour de Force

Read "Tour de Force" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
November 1, 2001

Post-dating the craze igniting pairing of Getz and Gilberto that resulted in Jazz Samba by several months these recordings by Brazilian guitar phenom Sete are cut from the same crowd-pleasing source- a fusing of South American folk themes and rhythms with jazz-based improvisation. Much of the music of Sete’s early American trios leans more toward the Latin side of the equation, but both rhythm sections bring solid jazz credentials to the table as well. The team of Tucker and Bailey ...

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Album Review

Vince Guaraldi & Bola Sete: Vince & Bola

Read "Vince & Bola" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
June 1, 2000

The ascendancy of the Bossa Nova ‘craze’ in the late 1950s and '60s was birthed by a succession of highly successful musical partnerships--Laurindo Almeida and Bud Shank, Sergio Mendes and Herbie Mann, Stan Getz and just about every major Brazilian musician of the day including Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto--all were major proponents of the style. One partnership that is often bypassed in discussions of the music is that shared between Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete and California-based cool jazz ...