Rutgers University Jazz Lab Big Band Concert

From the Breath of the Spirit to the Pulse of the Beat: Jazz & The Music of Brazil

The development of musical style in Brazil can be described as an example of cultural creolization in the New World. The country’s rich history of music and dance is the result of a complex intertwining of several ethnic traditions, which has produced a rich exchange of distinctive cultural practices in the areas of language, religion, dance, and musical custom. The “blending” of these various influences from groups representing the Western and non-Western Worlds has manifested itself in the creation of not only a unique cultural sensibility, but original idioms of musical expression. This concert by the Rutgers University Jazz Lab Big Band, directed by Anthony Branker, will feature the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, Pat Metheny, Bill Cunliffe, and music from Duke Ellington’s “Latin American Suite.”