Blogging
From Abroad

It’s a double feature this week!

I have found a wonderful restaurant called Modern Sound with professional live music several nights a week. I have been going quite often and am becoming a regular at the place. I hope to post more music from this venue in the future, which has a mixture of jazz, samba, bossa nova, and chorinho.

The first clip is of an amazing harmonica player who sat in with the group at the end of the evening. I’ve never been a huge fan of the harmonica, as it’s a very limited instrument, but not in the hands of this guy. This was the first time I have ever been really blown away by a harmonica player, and I didn’t even catch some of his finest moments on film, unfortunately. Still, you won’t be disappointed.

(A note about the videos: if you can’t see the full picture, try viewing them in full-screen.)

The rest of the clips are from part of their set that evening, so enjoy them all if you have time, or come back and listen to them one by one. The group’s name is Gente Fina e Outras Coisas, and you can find more music on their MySpace page http://www.myspace.com/gentefinaoutrascoisas.

The piano player in the rest of the clips is a great young European (Belgian, I think) player. I had originally assumed he was American (because he is obviously a jazz player). I’m starting to hear the differences between a Brazilian musician and a strictly jazz musician, now I just have to work on erasing the differences in my own playing.

Paz,
Colin