Jazz Articles about João Almeida

About João Almeida

Album Review

Michael Formanek has never been content to anchor a bandstand and call it a career. Over decades of work--from sideman stints with Stan Getz and Joe Henderson to the long-running Thumbscrew trio with Mary Halvorson and Tomas Fujiwara--he has operated as a composer and architect, building rooms rather than merely inhabiting them. New Digs recorded over two days in Torres Vedras, Portugal, stands as an ambitious project via this seven-piece trans-Atlantic ensemble shaped by a precise sonic design.

Album Review

Hyper.object: inter.independence

Read "inter.independence" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 5, 2022

The premise defined for this recording session was clear; each member of the quintet was “to develop their ideas individually and to not immediately react or engage in direct dialog with the other musicians from the group." Did they succeed? Absolutely not, and that is what ultimately makes inter.independence a success as a free improvised recording. Hyper.object comprised bassist Hernâni Faustino and pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro from the acclaimed Red Trio plus the electronics of Carlos Santos, trumpeter João Almeida, and ...

Album Review

André Carvalho: Lost In Translation

Read "Lost In Translation" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
February 12, 2022

Bassist Andre Carvalho conceived this album around the concept of “untranslatable words"—words for concepts that have no equivalent outside of their native language. He has used this idea to create a cycle of amorphous composition, realized here by a trio of bass, guitar and saxophone with the occasional addition of trumpet. The words come from languages such as Dutch, Urdu, Japanese and Sanskrit and can describe states of mind, grand philosophical concepts or something as mundane as a mark left ...

Album Review

João Almeida: Solo Sessions *||||

Read "Solo Sessions *||||" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 7, 2020

Listening to Solo Sessions *|||| by Portuguese trumpeter João Almeida, reminds one of a passage in Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On The Road, “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in ...