AMARO FREITAS TRÍO

Legend has it that Amaro Freitas asked his parents for a piano when he was fifteen, but there was no way his family could afford it, so he had to make do with an imaginary keyboard. This was just after he had discovered Chick Corea, one of his greatest inspirations, along with Keith Jarrett and Thelonious Monk. It was a life-changing moment. He also became an admirer of Moacir Santos and Hermeto Pascoal. He soon became a virtuoso. Freitas hails from Pernambuco, a region with a rich musical heritage and home to Afro-Brazilian sounds and rhythms such as maracatu, frevo and baião. It didn’t take long for him to emerge as one of the great talents of Brazilian jazz

Born in Recife in 1991, he has released three albums so far in his career: Sangue Negro (2016), Rasif (2016) and Sankofa (2021). He defines the latter as a way of “going back to our roots in order to realize our potential to move forward”. And really there’s no better way to define his way of reconciling the traditional sounds of his homeland with the lessons of post-bop.