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| Jazz Music Drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, CD Release, Drom NYC Jazz music and Brazilian jazz drummer Mauricio Zottarelli and fellow Sao Paolo native pianist Gilson Schachnik celebrate the release of their CD Mozik, with a performance on Saturday evening, January 21, at Drom NYC, 85 Avenue (between 5th and 6th) 212-777-1157. The band features international cohorts from the CD, Brazilian jazz music guitarist Gustavo Assis-Brasil, Russian flutist Yulia Musayelyan, and Argentine bassist Fernando Huergo - playing a distinctive brand of muscular Brazilian jazz, engaging both their love of traditional Brazilian music and the early fusion Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. While jazz pianist Gilson Schachnik and jazz music drummer Mauricio Zottarelli were both born in the state of Sao Paulo, it wasn't until they landed in Boston that Brazilian music seized their imagination. But Brazilian music didn't capture their interest while they were in Brazil. Each grew up idolizing and playing American jazz. When they met at Berklee, however, their love of Brazilian music was rekindled. Says Zottarelli, "it's our honest expression of the music we love. We're not trying to recreate something or recover the past. We don't have any kind of agenda. It just so happened that we fell in love with Brazilian music. Brazilian jazz, while living in Boston. "Reared on hard rock, European classical music, blues, funk and jazz, they independently found their way to Berklee College of Music, earning scholarships to study at the prestigious institution. Moving to the United States provided a sudden, jarring perspective shift, and a reappraisal of their relationship to their musical birthright. Their captivating new album Mozik reflects their deep engagement with Brazilian jazz rhythms and forms, filtered through their love of the early fusion of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. "A lot of non-Brazilian musicians who play Brazilian jazz music are obsessed with being authentic, " says Schachnik, who wrote most of the album's arrangements. "That's not our goal at all. We're not trying to recreate bossa nova. We want to play with all the information that we've gathered over the years. I grew up listening to Return to Forever and Headhunters" Whatever qualms Schachnik (http://gilsonmusic.com) and Zottarelli once harbored about claiming Brazilian music as their own are washed away in this roots samba jazz celebration of Brazil's miscegenated culture. Zottarelli grew up in the town of Rio Claro in the state of Sao Paulo, immersed in music. He earned a degree in computer science in 1997, but his love of music led him to apply for and earn a scholarship to a summer program at Berklee. When he came to Boston in 1999 he thought it was just for a season, but he kept earning new scholarships to study film scoring, arranging, and performance, and by 2002 Zottarelli had graduated from Berklee. With his versatility and wide rhythmic palette Zottarelli has become one of the most sought after drummers on the scene since moving to New York City in 2006. He's toured internationally with Japanese pianist Hiromi's Sonicbloom, while performing and recording with an international array of artists, including Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Prasanna, Esperanza Spalding, Keiko Matsui, Richard Bona, Claudio Roditi, Chuck Loeb, Rosa Passos, Jovino Santos Neto, Nilson Matta, Toninho Horta, Filó Machado, Cidinho Teixeira, Marc Rossi Group, Hendrik Meurkens, and Oriente Lopez. He co-leads Dig Trio and recently released his first album under his own name 7 Lives, which documents his evolving synthesis of jazz, Brazilian jazz music and fusion. It's a vision that he also explores with Schachnik on Mozik, a jazz album conceived by Brazilian musicians who approach the music of their homeland with fresh ears and open hearts. "What I love about this music is that it's our honest expression of the music we love, " Zottarelli says. "We're not trying to recreate something or recover the past. We don't have any kind of agenda. It just so happened that we fell in love with Brazilian jazz music while living in Boston.""Mauricio Zottarelli is a machine! Keep your eyes on him" - Drum ProMagazine write your comments about the article :: © 2012 Jazz News :: home page |