Pan Brazil - With Deise Andrade - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The story of Pan Brazil must be traced back to Pan Trio, the one-of-a-kind chamber jazz group initiated by flute player Staffan Hallgren in the early 80s, consisting of himself on flute, guitarist Ola Bengtsson and his brother Hans Hallgren on bass. They quickly established themselves as a much appreciated and very special jazz group, noted for an extraordinary interplay and clever arrangements of jazz standards, but also Swedish traditional songs and Latin American music. They released three full-length albums and regularly toured and comped some of Sweden's top singers. It was the trio's infatuation with Latin American music and want for more powerful rhythms that made them want to expand into a quintet around the year 2000, inviting drummer Peter Bylin and pianist Bo Hallgren to join them, thereby forming a constellation that exclusively dedicated itself to Latin American music. Appropriately, it was named Pan Brazil. Because of their background in jazz and Swedish folk music, their music became a cultural mix where Scandinavian traditions crossed with Brazilian samba and American jazz, shaping their sound into something quite different from a traditional 'samba band'. Quite soon they added further to their cultural mix by inviting the Brazilian vocalist Deise Andrade as a guest star, whose reputation as a skilled interpreter of Brazilian music was well-founded in Sweden. Her singing in her mother tongue, Portuguese, gave their performances and additional dimension, causing an immediate rise in popularity and gradually qualifying her as the band's 'sixth' member. As late as in 2010, Pan Brazil released it's first full-length album on Do Music Records, which is a selection of recordings culled from previous years, four of which featuring Deise Andrade on vocals. Gifted drummer Daniel Olsson has replaced original member Peter Bylin on their live concerts, and they re