Samba of Sorts

SSC1755 2025-04-11

Track List

Viola Violar - 6:09
Lucena - 6:33
Santo Antonio - 4:32
Frenzy - 4:48
Pau de Arara - 5:35
Jogral - 4:33
Samba of Sorts - 4:28
Paloma Plage - 5:38

Musicians

Helio Alves - piano
Guilheme Monteiro - guitar
Gili Lopes - bass
Alex Kautz - drums

The infectious spirit of Brazilian music in all its incredible forms is impossible to deny. Musicians from around the world succumb to the elements of samba, forro and bossa nova. For Brazilian musicians, the essence of these sounds and rhythms is tied up in all the music they create. The new collective ensemble Unity Quartet, featuring Hélio Alves, Guilherme Monteiro, Gili Lopes and Alex Kautz, weave their Brazilian influences into their own forward-thinking version of jazz, as can be heard on their new recording, Samba of Sorts.

The members of Unity Quartet hail for different parts of Brazil but have all made New York their home. Pianist Alves and drummer Kautz hailed from Sao Paulo, while guitarist Monteiro moved from Rio de Janeiro and bassist Lopes from the southern town of Porto Alegre via London. All of them met through large and active network of Brazilian musicians in New York City, meeting and playing with one another in various projects.

The four musicians came together in 2021 to play original music and select covers in an open, exploratory fashion, melding their roots in 1970s and 1980s Brazilian popular music with their love for jazz. It was at Brooklyn’s Bar LunAtico that the quartet found an incubator for their project, playing the club regularly and developing an esthetic and language all their own.

Unity Quartet takes its musical cues from many sources. From the samba jazz of the 1960s to the contemporary popular sounds of MPB, the Quartet filters these sounds into a heady New York City jazz style. The Quartet captured these sounds on December 1 and 2, 2022 at Brorby Studios.