Jazz Bistro’s World Music Wednesdays: Brownman & CRUZAO
August 10 @ 8:00 pm - 10:30 pm EDT
$20Event Navigation
Brownman Ali — trumpet (Trinidad)
Marcus Ali — alto (Trinidad)
Paco Luviano — bass (Mexico)
Luis Orbegoso — congas (Peru)
Mark Kelso — drums (Canada)
CRUZAO is dedicated to the amalgamation of authentic Latin rhythms, jazz harmony and Black American Music grooves, in a chord-less setting. Led by Trinidadian born, New York trained, 2x National Jazz Award winning trumpet player Brownman Ali, this hard hitting latin-jazz unit funkifies it’s audiences with Brownman’s original compositions, high-energy virtuosic jazz soloists, and includes some of the most acclaimed Jazz & Latin artists residing in Canada. This dynamically energized group began it’s career in 2001 as a musical experiment in the tonal qualities of Latin music composed in a chord-less environment (no piano, no guitar). Since the late ’50s jazz musicians have richly explored this unique musical texture creating a 7 decade chord-less jazz tradition, however, this texture had never been explored in Latin America, due to the dominance and omni-presence of the piano “montuno” or equivalent guitar structures. he result of this musical experiment – Brownman & CRUZAO – the first chordless latin-jazz-urban unit in history. CRUZAO features the Ali Brothers — Brownman Ali on trumpet, with his younger brother Marcus Ali — as it’s front line, backed by bass, congas and drumset.Their debut release “Shades Of Brown” topped the jazz and Latin charts internationally, resulting in years of touring which included 5 years of headlining the Havana Jazz Festival and a myriad of awards and accolades including 2 National Jazz Awards, the coveted Montreal Jazz Fest’s “Grand Prix du Jazz” award, a CBC Galaxie “Rising Star” award, a SOCAN composition award, and 5 Toronto Independent Music Award nominations. CRUZAO’s unique chord-less approach to Latin-jazz is now required listening for New York University’s Latin-jazz course.“Brownman Ali & CRUZAO break down the boundaries between latin, jazz and funk in the most innovative way we’ve seen yet”.– Memo Acevedo, NYU latin percussion professor
“… deliciously quirky & invigorating… seethes with energy, particularly showing off the versatile skills of trumpeter Ali and his brother Marcus on alto sax” – Geoff Chapman, Toronto Star
www.Cruzao.Brownman.com for more info.