Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Naná Vasconcelos was born in Recife, Brazil on August 2, 1944. At age 12 he began playing his father’s guitar and joined the city’s marching band. His intense curiosity and inquisitive ear prompted him to listen to music from Brazil’s greatest composer Villa Lobos to Jimi Hendrix. He played with every imaginable musical configuration in Recife from orchestras to street bands until finally moved to Rio where he began performing with Milton Nascimento.

By 1970 Argentinean tenor, Gato Barbieri came through Rio and invited Nana to join his group and everywhere the played Nana created a sensation. After the tours end he settled in Paris where he made his first recording, “Africa Deus”. He returned to Brazil to record Amazonas, began an eight-year collaboration with guitarist Egberto Gismonti, returned to New York and formed the group “Cordona” with Don Cherry and Collin Walcott, while touring and recording with Pat Metheny.

Throughout his career he has worked with everyone from B.B. King to Jean Luc Ponty to the Talking Heads but has never become a studio musician. With over two-dozen albums as a leader, Nana has contributed special energies to another sixteen albums with such musicians as Walter Bishop Jr., Jan Gabarek, Pierre Favre and Danny Gottlieb that go well beyond the usual contributions of a percussionist.

A master all of Brazil’s percussion instruments, specializing in the berimbau and taking it far beyond its traditional uses, he currently leads his own group “Bushdance” and has developed a theatrically staged piece that explores the full, fascinating range of sounds and songs that lie in the heart of his music.

Nana Vasconcelos has performed at the Woodstock Jazz Festival, “Luz De Candeeiro” to the AIDS benefit compilation album Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon produced by the Red Hot Organization and was awarded the Best Percussionist Of The Year by the Down Beat Critics Poll for seven consecutive years, from 1984 to 1990. He continues to perform, record and tour.

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