Jovino Santos Neto Explores North & South America on New Adventure Music Release

On October 19, Adventure Music will release Veja O Som/See the Sound, the highly anticipated new release from acclaimed pianist Jovino Santos Neto. The two-CD set pairs the Latin Grammy-nominated Santos Neto with a host of guest artists in a series of duet performances that melodically symbolize music's power to unite. As he says in the CD's liner notes, “This project was born from a phone conversation I had with Adventure Music founder Richard Zirinsky, Jr. exactly one year ago...I was thinking that perhaps I could do a solo piano record, and he suggested instead that I should consider recording a series of duos with select musicians, saying that what the music world needed at that stage of extreme global uncertainty was the reassurance of one-on-one human warmth and interaction. Hermeto Pascoal once said, 'A música segura o mundo (Music holds the world together.)'"

With that inspiration to guide him, Santos Neto recruited an elite group of musicians from the US and Brazil to join him on his musical journey. Ten tracks, featuring saxophonists David Sanchez and Anat Cohen, mandolinists Mike Marshall and Danilo Brito, vocalists Gretchen Parlato and Tom Lellis, clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, guitarist Bill Frisell, percussionist Airto Moreira, and vibraphonist Joe Locke, were recorded at several studios in the States, from New York to Los Angeles to Jovino's hometown of Seattle. Another ten, featuring João Donato on electric piano, vocalists Monica Salmaso, Joyce Moreno, and Paula Morelenbaum, Ricardo Silveira on guitar, Luiz Guello on pandeiro, congas and djembe, Toninho Feragutti on accordion, Vittor Santos on trombone, Gabriel Grossi on harmonica, and Teco Cardoso on flute, were recorded at various studios in Rio and São Paulo.

The repertoire that these outstanding pairings cover includes three pieces that were written by the very artists who participated on the project—Joao Donato's “Ahiê," “Cruzando o Sertão/Crossing the Hinterland" by Luiz Gello and Santos Neto, and the CD's title track, written by Santos Neto and Airto Moreira—along with compositions written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Toninho Horta, Jacob Bittencourt, Djavan, Hermeto Pascoal, and Pixinguínha.

The performances on See the Sound are all the more remarkable considering that Santos Neto had never performed with a majority of the musicians, and that they deliberately chose to record material that none of them had much experience performing live or in the studio. The music that resulted from those intimate collaborations captures, in Jovino's words, “the honesty of the meeting of the spirits."

See the Sound is Santos Neto's first recording in nearly two years, following his two 2008 releases on Adventure, the Latin Grammy-nominated Live at Caramoor (with pianist Weber Iago) and Alma do Nordeste. Jazz Times called Alma do Nordeste a “joyous collection," and Allaboutjazz.com lauded Santos Neto for his ..."thoughtful craftsmanship, stylistic knowledge and expansive musicianship." Alma do Nordeste was included among the Seattle Times' Best Jazz and World Music CDs of 2008, which praised it as “consistently enthralling."

Three-time Latin Grammy nominee Jovino Santos Neto, a master pianist, composer and arranger, is among the top Brazilian musicians working today. Currently based in Seattle, Washington, throughout his career he has been closely affiliated with the Brazilian master Hermeto Pascoal. He was an integral part of Pascoal's group from 1977 to1992, where he fine-tuned his artistry, performing around the world and co-producing several legendary records.

Jovino's personal style is a creative blend of energetic grooves, deep harmonies, telepathic improvisation, lyrical melodies and great ensemble playing, always inspired and informed by the colorful richness of Brazilian music. His compositions include samba, choro, baião, xote, forró, marcha and many more styles, rooted in centuries-old musical tradition while pointing to new and adventurous harmonic languages.

Currently, Jovino leads his Seattle-based Quinteto and teaches piano and composition at Cornish College of the Arts. He can also be heard as a piano soloist, working with symphony orchestras, jazz big bands, chamber music groups, and in collaboration with musicians such as his mentor Hermeto Pascoal, Bill Frisell, Paquito d'Rivera, Airto Moreira, Claudio Roditi, David Sanchez, Joe Locke, Marco Granados and many more.

Since moving to the US from his native Rio de Janeiro in 1993, Jovino Santos Neto has continued to tour the world and to record prolifically. He has recorded multiple CDs with his Seattle-based Quinteto, including Canto do Rio, nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2004. In 2006 Adventure Music released Roda Carioca with an all-Brazilian lineup including Joyce, Hermeto Pascoal and several other notable musicians and long time colleagues, earning him a second Latin Grammy nomination. In 2007, after receiving a special commission from Brazil's Petrobras, Jovino composed and recorded Alma do Nordeste, a musical journey translating the essence of Northeastern Brazil into melodies, rhythms and improvisations—connecting regional, universal, imaginary and real stories. In 2008 he released a piano duo with Weber Iago, Live at Caramoor, also nominated for a Latin Grammy award in 2009.

His compositions have been performed by the Seattle Symphony, NDR Big Band in Hamburg and by numerous chamber music groups. Jovino gives lectures, clinics and master classes worldwide on the music of Brazil.

Jovino has received commissions by the Cheswatyr Foundation, IAJE, ASCAP, CMA/Doris Duke Foundation, Jack Straw Foundation, Seattle Arts Commission, 4Culture, Artist Trust and Meet the Composer. He has been artist in residence at some of the most prestigious music schools in the world, and was the recipient of a Golden Ear Award as the Best Jazz Instrumentalist of the Pacific Northwest in 2004.