On Brazil’s side :

Singer Juçara Marcal (Metá-Metá, A Barca), whose voice shifts in an instant from suave sweetness to acidic violence ;

Pernambouco Lello Bezerra, the missing link between underground rock from São Paulo and traditional music from Salvador and Recife ;

Bassist Clara Bastos, who has played with all the great musicians of Brazilian popular music (Tom Zé, Itamar Assumpção, Socorro Lira …) ;

Drummer Mauricio Takara, legendary percussionist with the no less legendary São Paulo Underground ;

On France’s side :

Ensemble Nautilis’ leader, Christophe Rocher, a clarinettist and composer of unpredictable and explosive colors ;

The eclectic electric guitarist Christelle Séry (Cairn, Ensemble Intercontemporain, ONJ…), who concentrates jazz and contemporary music in each of her sounds ;

The prodigious Breton drummer Nicolas Pointard  (Moger, Kami Octet), capable of playing everything with finesse, whatever the circumstances ;

Doublebassist Frédéric B.Briet (Magma, Hask, Nimbus, Benoit Delbecq…), an indestructible companion in musical and human adventures ;

Biographies:

Juçara Marçal
Singer and composer

Lead singer with the group Metá Metá. She has also been a member of the groups Vésper Vocal and A Barca. In 2014, she released the solo album ENCARNADO. The album notably won the APCA Award – Best Album of 2014, the State Governor Award – Best Album – jury vote, and the Multishow Shared Music Award.

In 2015, she released ANGANGA, in partnership with musician and experimentalist Cadu Tenório. In 2017, with Rodrigo Campos and Gui Amabis, she released the album Sambas do Absurdo, inspired by Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. In February 2019, Juçara Marçal makes her acting debut in the play Gota d’água {Preta}.

Juçara Marçal released her new solo album, Delta Estácio Blues, in September 2021, sponsored by Natura Musical. Musical production is handled by Kiko Dinucci. The album is released in partnership with the QTV, Mais Um Discos and Goma Gringa labels. Delta Estácio Blues won the Multishow Award Super Jury prize for Best Album of 2021, and Crash for Best Song. The album was also chosen by APCA as Best Album of 2021.

Christophe Rocher
Composer, improviser and clarinettist
Artistic director and founder of Nautilis Ensemble

Trained at the Conservatoire de Clichy, then during his youth by the “masters” Jacques Di Donato, Fabrizio Cassol and Steve Coleman, among others, Christophe is today one of France’s leading clarinettists, known for his sonic textures and complex melodies, as well as being an original and innovative jazz composer.

He has collaborated with leading figures in jazz and improvised music in France, Europe and the USA. He founded the Nautilis Ensemble, within which he develops his music through a variety of creations and projects.

In 1991, Christophe obtained an engineering degree in Artificial Intelligence, which has enabled him to develop throughout his career a particular outlook on the link between music and the scientific world.

Christophe has always promoted a constructive vision of the place of creative music in contemporary society, both as an artist and as a creator of events and new groups.

Lello Bezarra
Guitarist

Lello Bezerra is one of the greatest Brazilian guitarists of our time. He is a composer, improviser, sound scientist and artist educator.

A multi-genre artist, Lello has a tactile relationship with sounds and a particular interest in Brazilian rhythms. He creates new languages and textures with guitars prepared and processed by bass, low and high-frequency generators, inverted loops, micromodules and other machines connected to active boxes and guitar amplifiers.

Currently, the most refined form of this post-contemporary work can be found on his first solo record, Since Until Then. The release show took place at SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, in November 2019, and the record was awarded a place on APCA’s list of the 25 best albums of the second half of 2019.

Clara Bastos
Doublebassist

Clara plays electric and acoustic double bass, having participated in albums and shows by artists such as Itamar Assumpção and Orquídeas do Brasil, Tom Zé, Luiz Tatit, Socorro Lira, Paulo Miklos, Música de Montage, Trio Amó, among others.

With Itamar Assumpção, worked for over ten years, also responsible for the transcription of his entire discography (song book – Pretobrás 2006, in 2 volumes published by Ediouro).

In the theater, as an instrumentalist, he has been part of the cast of 17 musical shows, the most recent of which are Denise Fraga’s Eu de Você (2019/2022), Sweeney Todd (2022) and Cabaret dos Bichos (2022).

She holds a master’s degree from ECA- USP with the dissertation “Processes of composition and expression in the work of Itamar Assumpção” (2012) and a doctorate from UNESP with the research “The state of presence in musical performance” (2019).

She is arranger in the musical projects A Viva Voz (Ruth Guimarães/Socorro Lira), 2021, and Preto Urbano (Salloma Jovino) 2022.

Mauricio Takara
Drummer, electronic experimenter

Mauricio Takara, born in São Paulo in 1982, began playing acoustic guitar at the age of seven. Two years later, he began playing drums. Takara played with local hardcore punk bands throughout the 1990s and founded Hurtmold in 1998, releasing five albums on the Submarine label. He released his first solo album on Desmonta Discos in 2003 and has since released three more solo albums on the same label, the latest being “Sobre Todas e Qualquer Coisa” in 2010.

Takara has recorded with numerous Brazilian artists, including Nação Zumbi, Vanessa Da Mata, Sabotage, Naná Vasconcelos and Marcelo Camelo, as well as renowned international artists such as Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Yusef Lateef, Roscoe Mitchell, Bill Dixon and Prefuse 73.

Takara also works with other Chicago projects and musicians, including the Exploding Star Orchestra, The Eternals and Josh Abrams.

Takara has toured Europe (Sonar Festival/Barcelona, Roskilde/Denmark, Womex/Seville and Club Transmediale/Berlin), the USA, India (World Socials Forum) and Brazil (Nublu Jazz Festival, SESC Pinheiros and opening act for Lo Borges and Milton Nascimento at the Coquetel Molotov Festival) and is considered one of the leading voices of the new post-tropical wave in Brazilian music.

Nicolas Pointard
Drummer

Nicolas is one of France’s most original and sought-after drummers. He started playing the instrument at the age of 9, played in small trash metal bands, then studied music in high school, played in traditional and then more experimental bands.

Later, the teachings of Césarius Alvim and Steve Mc Craven, as well as numerous workshops with Guillaume Orti, Benoît Delbecq and Carlos Zingaro, prompted Nicolas to turn to jazz and improvised music at the end of the last century, but always remaining curious, playing anything and everything with anything that came his way.

Frédéric B.Briet
Doublebassist

Frédéric B.Briet
Doublebassist

A professional musician since 1980, Frédéric played with the group Magma, alongside Christian Vander from ’87 to ’90, as well as with Simon Goubert, Michel Graillier, Georges Brown, Steve Grossman, Emmanuel Bex, Alain Jean-Marie, Aldo Romano, Denis Badault and others. In 1992, he co-founded the Hask collective with Guillaume Orti, Benoit Delbecq, Gilles Coronado, Steve Argüelles, Hubert Dupont and Olivier Sens, as well as the Orchestre Pédagogique Nimbus. In 2000, he helped create the jazz department at the Conservatoire de Brest.

Frédéric is one of the founding members of Ensemble Nautilis, with whom he collaborates on numerous artistic projects (Rrêve Sélavy, Third Coast Ensemble, No Silenz, Brain Songs, Bonadventure Pencroff, Les Bûches, etc.)

Band presentation by the musicians :

Sounds and images from ABAJUR’s residency and first tour of Brazil in October 2022 :

Full presentation of the band by the musicians (SESC Jazz Fest interview – October 2022) :

Recorded August 30 and 31, 2023 at Studio Medusa, Sao Paulo, by Janja Gomes

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