The Brazilian Project

Bassist Gabriel Espinosa recalls that in the 1960s bossa nova records began arriving in his hometown, Mérida, and he fell hopelessly in love with the magic of this genre. With a long career, the musician who lives in Iowa, United States, has recorded eight albums that include collaborations with figures such as Armando Manzanero, Antonio Sánchez, Claudio Roditi, Romero Lubambo, Fred Hersch, The New York Voices and Anat Cohen, which places him as a prominent figure in Latin jazz.

His most recent album, The Brazilian Project (Origin Records, 2026), is a dream come true, lovingly crafted so that his compositions would be played exclusively by Brazilian musicians, as he does not play bass. The result, he says, "is pure magic, something unparalleled, 100 percent pure because they are young musicians who have played together for many years. It took me four or five years to finance this project, but I had to make it happen".

Some pieces were written with his wife and daughters in mind. When composing, he explains: "I had an image of them, a feeling. For example, 'Caramelo', dedicated to my daughter Natalia, which has to do with the sweet, playful girl, I wrote it as a baião. 'Fe', which I composed for my daughter Adriana, is a samba-canção, which is like a slow bolero, because she is more reserved".

Espinosa says that every time he undertakes a project he tries to discover new combinations. "I always try to do things that renew me, that push me to study, research, analyze and, from that, create something of my own. The Brazilian Project is an enormous source of satisfaction because it was achieved through a three-part collaboration. One comes from me, because they are my compositions. Another, from the arrangers who took my 10 pieces and found a magical point, and the last part, from the musicians, when they played them. It was also released by Origin Records, from Seattle, a very active record label that advertises in Down Beat magazine four times a year and has done a great job of promoting it".

CODA
A warm and rhythmically lively album

The Brazil Project has been well received by critics, as is the case with Thierry De Clemensat, from Paris Move magazine, who states that "each piece feels like a chapter in a great story, each with its own character, its own emotional arc. The sound is warm, elegant and rhythmically lively".