Sexteto Bernardo Moreira - Entre Paredes (July 23, 2021 Jacc Records)

1. António Marinheiro 07:56

2. Mudar de Vida 07:29

3. Canto de Amor 08:18

4. Verdes Anos 06:33

5. Navio Triste 04:59

6. A Morte Saiu à Rua 08:47

7. Serenata no Tejo 10:41

8. Canto do Amanhecer 04:54

João Moreira - trompete/trumpet

Tomás Marques - sax alto/alto saxophone

Mário Delgado - guitarra/guitar

Ricardo J. Dias - piano

Bernardo Moreira - contrabaixo/double bass

Joel Silva - bateria/drums

Arranjos e Direção Musical/Arrangements and Musical Direction Bernardo Moreira

Gravação, mistura e masterização/ Recording, mix and master - Luís Candeias

Fotografia/ Photography - Márcia Lessa

Design - João Bicker/FBA.

Gravado a 2, 3 e 4 de Novembro de 2020 no Convento São Francisco, Coimbra

Recorded on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of November of 2020 at the Convento São Francisco Coimbra

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Marta Warelis / Carlos "Zíngaro" / Helena Espvall / Marcelo dos Reis - Turquoise Dream (March 2021 Jacc Records)

1. Finer Grades 06:59

2. Pale Bluish 10:23

3. Specific Gravity 07:47

4. Revealing a Line 08:59

5. Blue to Green 07:06

Marta Warelis - piano

Carlos “Zíngaro” - violin

Helena Espvall - cello and effects

Marcelo dos Reis - acoustic guitar

ALL MUSIC BY

Marta Warelis, Carlos "Zíngaro", Helena Espvall and Marcelo dos Reis

RECORDED

Live at Museu National Machado de Castro

Jazz ao Centro Festival 2019

19th October 2019

EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION

JACC Records

RECORDED BY

João P. Miranda

MIX AND MASTER

Marcelo dos Reis

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Fail Better! - The Fall (2021 Jacc Records)

1. Ground Floor 07:23

2. Rise Up 06:44

3. Falling Stars 13:58

4. Skyfall 06:54

5. Down Under 07:36

Luís Vicente - trumpet

Marco Franco - drums and flute

Marcelo dos Reis - electric guitar

José Miguel Pereira - double bass

Albert Cirera - soprano and tenor saxophone

ALL MUSIC BY

Marcelo dos Reis, Marco Franco, Luís Vicente, José Miguel Pereira and Albert Cirera

RECORDED

Live at Salão Brazil

JACC - Jazz ao Centro Clube

20th October 2017

EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION

JACC Records

MIX AND MASTER

Marcelo dos Reis

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Marcelo Dos Reis / Eve Risser - Timeless (JACC RECORDS 2017)

The first meeting of French pianist Eve Risser and Portuguese guitarist Marcelo dos Reis is a journey with and within strings, many and strange kind of strings (borrowing the title of Sun Ra's seminal album). Both Risser and Reis employ unconventional strategies that extend the sonic palette of the piano keys and its metal strings and the acoustic guitar's nylon strings, preparing their instruments by attaching various objects to their strings.

Risser and dos Reis already established themselves as improvisers who like to experiment with sounds, textures and formats. Risser who also plays the harpsichord, blurred the distinctions between new music, composition and improvisation with her White Desert Orchestra and explored song formats with the free-improvising The New Songs quartet. Dos Reis has collaborated with like-minded experimental improvisers such as Elliot Sharp, Toshimaru Nakamura and Andrea Neumann, plays in a duo with harpist Angélica V. Salvi and in the free jazz meets free-improvisation groups Fail Better!, Chamber 4, and Pedra Contida.

Timeless was recorded at Jazz ao Centro Festival, Coimbra, Portugal in October 2016. The seven pieces are titled after different artifacts, devices and seasons that measure time, but these free-associative improvisations actually consciously do not surrender easily to any sense of time. Risser and dos Reis flow with the sounds and explore their infinite spectrum. Both focus on shaping and sculpting their resonance and friction qualities until you are lost in sonic turbulence and can not tell any more who does what. Risser and dos Reis at times sound as incorporating ideas from the minimalist compositions of Morton Feldman, blended with Japanese ritual koto traditions as on the enigmatic-exotic “Hourglass” and “Balance Spring”. Other pieces stress the resourcefulness of both as highly imaginative improvisers. “Water Clock” shifts instantly from a leisured, mysterious soundscape to an urgent and intense free-improvisation and “Timewheel” offers an even denser and tougher version of such free-improvisation. “Chronometer” is the only piece that suggests a melodic-playful vein and the dense commotion of “Pendulum” even hides a lyrical theme.

Timeless offers a rare kind of beauty. Review by Eyal Hareuveni, freejazzblog.org

1. Sundial  9:33

2. Hourglass  8:48

3. Water Clock 10:19

4. Timewheel  5:25

5. Chronometer  5:31

6. Pendulum  6:36

7. Balance Spring  8:22

Eve Risser  unprepared and prepared piano 

Marcelo dos Reis unprepared and prepared acoustic guitar

Staub Quartet - House Full of Colors (JACC RECORDS 2017)

Artistic creation is closely linked with the need to take that which remains hidden in the unconscious to a higher level governed by consciousness. 

In the exercise of transforming the occult into something visible, the artist, through a state of catharsis of being, goes about creating an imaginary space where they are able to germinate symbols, capture ideas and project from the magic of playfulness an aesthetic argument that aspires to transform the creative impulse into a significant and substantive action. 

However, for a work to be deemed a truly creative act, it is not enough to solely unearth the hidden in the unconscious nor to bring from the darkness that which exists in the depths of being. There must exist, within the artist, the will to manifest a transparency that allows the light to enter their inner world. 

The symbolism contained in the existing link between the action of "letting in the light" and creative realization, is embodied in a sublime way through House Full of Colors, the debut album by STAUB Quartet. 

This cooperative project, rooted in the development of acoustic improvisation, brings together four essential figures of our time in European creative music: violinist Carlos "Zingaro", guitarist Marcelo dos Reis, bassist Hernani Faustino and cellist Miguel Mira. The approach offered in this album debut of this quartet of distinguished musicians - all having emerged from today’s thriving Portuguese music scene - finds its inspirational epicenter in the concepts of light and color. 

This conceptual reference is embodied in the album title as well as the names of each piece while also giving life and nurturing a musical approach that yearns to explore uncharted creative territories. So claimed Paul Cezanne, "Light is not something that can be reproduced, but something that should be represented using something else". 

The artistic testimony amalgamated by STAUB QUARTET in House Full of Colors, the means used for that representation, are sounds and music. Talking about color also involves talking about light; it is due to light that we see the shapes and colors of forms. However, with subsequent discoveries about how the brain interprets colors in "Color Theory", outlined by Goethe, along with the current research in color psychology, it is agreed that color has a subjective value that is based on the phenomenon of human perception.

There is no doubt that subjectivity can be fertile ground for the blossoming of an artistic idea that seeks to extrapolate the perception of color to music and, in the case of House Full of Colors, that aspiration materializes in a sublime manner. The album passes through different climates - mostly associated with the perception of color and light that gives it life - but finds a common denominator in its abstract nature (which is to say that it doesn’t respond to predetermined stylistic concepts), a spacious and relaxed exploration of the material (which comes from careful listening and mutual understanding with which they interact collectively) and the constant playful instinct that pervades the improvisational approach of the quartet. In its subtle journey, the music passes through the spacious contours and introspective calm of Quiet Arcs, the disturbing intensity that emerges from the complex sound structure exposed in Red Curtains, the fleeting and elusive character of Opacity Rings, the sonic flirtations and emphatic dramatics of Knots of Light, the haunting beauty of a dream-like atmosphere developed in Resonant Shades and the multi-weighted temperament open to myriad readings emanating from Discrete Auroras. All of it ranked by the quality of the ideas of its interpreters and framed in the context of a consummate collective delivery. 

At the time, the brilliant Kandinsky - influenced by Goethe and Delacroix - showed that sound and color had powerful effects on the human condition as both can become "means to exert a direct influence on the soul." 

Based on similar principles, STAUB QUARTET, through House Full of Color, has produced a work capable of illuminating the soul of everyone who is willing to "let in the light" to their inner world. 

Sergio Piccirilli

1. Quiet Arcs 6:10 

2. Red Curtains 6:59 

3. Opacity Rings 10:13 

4. Knots of Light 5:19 

5. Resonant Shades 9:14 

6. Discrete Auroras 5:42

Miguel Mira cello

Carlos Zíngaro violin

Hernani Faustino double bass