LAMA

Oneiros

Label: Clean Feed Country: Portugal

"The particularly dynamic and inventive Portuguese jazz scene has a new front with the trio LAMA. Curiously enough, the project was born in Roterdam, where the double bassist and composer Gonçalo Almeida and the trumpeter Susana Santos Silva were at the time (2008) studying in the jazz department of the local conservatory. There, they met the Canadian drummer Greg Smith, who used to work in the nearby dance school.

Acting in the frontier line between the "mainstream" and the so called avant-garde, Oneiros proposes a particular jazz vision for the 21st century, with an interesting use of electronics. The double bass is assisted by a pedal box, and Almeida likes to loop his rhythmic lines once in a while. The trumpet is sometimes digitally processed in real time, giving us different results than the ones presented by Santos Silva with her own quintet or the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.

Both are distinctive figures of the Portuguese jazz circuits: Gonçalo Almeida as a member of the Luso-Italian quartet Tetterapadequ (still living in Holland, he plays also with Atos, Spinifex Quintet, and the Michal Osowsky Collective) and Susana Santos Silva integrating the above mentioned big band, which performed and recorded with people like Lee Konitz, Carla Bley, John Hollenbeck, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Chris Cheek and Joshua Redman, among others. In his turn, Smith is a groove master, active in the International bands such as Colonel Red Live (England), Sandra St Victor's Sinner Child (US/NL) and Kori Withers (US). Smith has also recorded and performed with NYC saxophonist David Binney.

The main focus of the music here is in improvisation, and you'll be surprised with how fantastic it sounds."-Clean Feed Records