São Paulo Underground

"Rob Mazurek returns to Brazil and floats his cool blue cornet over a spellbinding collage of saturated textures, syncopated rhythms and electronics."— Time Out Chicago (who voted São Paulo Underground one of the Top 10 jazz albums of the year in 2011)

Rob Mazurek, cornet kingpin in the Chicago post-rock/modern jazz scene, has played with everyone from his own Exploding Star Orchestra to Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke, and Pharoah Sanders. Now he has joined forces with like-minded talents he met in Brazil to form São Paulo Underground. They create a fascinating, limitless sound, stirring up freewheeling Sun Ra–inspired excursions with psychedelic electronica and swaths of samba and other Brazilian sonic strains. All About Jazz calls the results "a modern approach to Brazil's tropicalia, that takes into account advances in sound manipulation and engineering“ and comments, “It is street music from the Brazilian subterranean avant-garde and it is wonderful.”

This concert is a cabaret-style show with beer, wine, and soft drinks available. It is also a hint of things to come with the Wex’s Via Brasil initiative, which will provide opportunities for many more artists of all disciplines from Brazil’s vibrant art scene to come to Columbus in the coming years.