Gaia Wilmer & Jacques Morelenbaum - Millennium Stage (September 5, 2024)
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Live Tonight on Millennium Stage: Jaques Morelenbaum is a cellist, composer, arranger, and musical producer who has worked with great names of Brazilian music, such as Caetano himself, as well as Tom Jobim, Gilberto Gil, and Egberto Gismonti. Morelenbaum has recorded and arranged/produced some of the most important recordings of Brazilian music. He has also been a fundamental part of the Jobim-Morelenbaum quartet, and the duo and trio with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Gaia Wilmer is a saxophonist, composer, arranger, and music producer, and has been active both in Brazil and the United States. Wilmer has been carving herself quite a niche in the jazz and Brazilian instrumental music scene, and has worked with the likes of Egberto Gismonti, Ra-Kalam Bob Moses, Frank Carlberg, amongst others.
Trem das Cores is a celebration of Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian singer-songwriter and an important figure in Brazilian culture and in Morelenbaum’s and Wilmer’s lives. The idea comes from their love and great pleasure in working together with Caetano’s work, while also celebrating his 80th birthday. The idea comes most of all from honoring him as a composer, beyond his greatness as a singer and a poet—hence the idea of an instrumental journey through his music.
Wilmer and Morelenbaum worked together for the first time in 2018, in a project paying homage to Egberto Gismonti’s music—also a celebration of his 70th birthday—in a series of concerts in Brazil organized by Wilmer. They also worked together during and the recording of Folia: The Music of Egberto Gismonti with Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble and Morelenbaum as one of the guests. Since then, the desire of doing something together has been present in their lives and, during the pandemic, they came up with an idea: an album, together paying homage to Caetano. Thus, in 2022, in a project in partnership with Brazilian label Biscoito Fino, they assembled a group of musicians made up of two flutes, clarinet, two saxophones, cello, electric guitar, accordion, bass and drums, and began developing arrangements for songs that were less or more well-known, all written by Caetano Veloso (including some collaborations, such as “Terceira Margem do Rio” with Milton Nascimento). This album was recorded in September of 2022 and was released on August 15, 2023. The album has Mônica Salmaso, a Brazilian singer, as a guest in two of its pieces.
