Featuring:
Mario Bakuna on Acoustic Guitar, Vocal Trumpet and Vocal.
Gerson Saeki on Double Bass
Luiz Augusto Cavani on Drums

After a very successful season performing at international festivals and prestigious music venues in Europe, Africa and Brazil, promoting his previous album Where Rio de Janeiro Meets Bahia, Mario Bakuna’s latest release is Brazilian Landscapes.

Conceived by Mario Bakuna, Brazilian Landscapes features new arrangements of material by great composers such as Emilio Santiago, Marcos Valle, Claudio Bertrami, Rique Pantoja, Gilberto Gil, Djavan, João Bosco, Arismar do Espirito Santo, and the ‘forrozeiros’ Dominguinhos and Luiz Gonzaga.

Brazilian Landscapes is a tribute to the culture and memory of Brazilian people and it’s the result of years of inspiration Mario Bakuna drew upon while travelling through Brazil, experiencing its rhythmic and harmonic richness.

From the arid landscape in the northeast that’s brought to the chorus of songs of Forró, Baião and Xaxado, to the African influence found in Ijexá, the popularity of Samba and the sophistication of Bossa Nova, Mario and his musicians celebrate the most musically rich territory on Earth.

Mario Bakuna is a London-based Brazilian composer, arranger, singer and guitar player, with twenty years of professional experience. A graduate of the Free University of Music in Sao Paulo, Brazil, he studied with musicians such as Olmir Stocker, Roberto Sion and Roberto Bomilcar (pianist who played with Frank Sinatra during his visit to Brazil). In Brasil, Mario Bakuna has played alongside the trombonist Itacir Bocato, guitarist Renato Consorte, and pianist Nelson Aires, just to name a few.

His study focuses on the development of a music repertoire inspired by the greats of Afro-Brazilian Music, Samba, Jazz and Bossa Nova. In addition to developing new arrangements of music by enshrined Brazilian artists as Tom Jobim, Dorival Caymmi, Paulo Moura, and João Donato, in recent years he has been working on reinterpretations of Samba Jazz – musical genre that emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s and was led by musicians like Luiz Eça, Tamba Trio, and Edson Machado. Their repertoire was based on Brazilian Standards with more sophisticated harmonies inspired by the Post-Bossa Nova movement.

He travelled to Europe to expand his knowledge and skills and since settling in London has performed alongside musicians such as Jean Toussaint, Liam Noble, Ricardo dos Santos, Edmundo Carneiro, Cacau Queiroz, Alain Jean Marie, Dudu Penz, and Filó Machado.