Saturday, Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m.—BRANDON—Guagua is a Burlington based psychotropical jazz band which performs Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz music. The psychotropical jazz term comes from the euphoric effect of guitar, piano and horn melodies layered over their tropical African, Caribbean, and Brazilian polyrhythms. Their sound is uniquely exuberant and danceable. The group performs at Brandon Music Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Guagua’s live shows go well beyond studio cuts, with an intercontinental dynamic range, a 30-plus original song repertoire and never-to-be-repeated arrangements and solos.
The band’s lineup includes Geoff Kim on guitar and tres, Andrew Moroz on piano, Scott Dean on timbales, Keith Levenson on congas, John Thompson-Figueroa on bass, and Carla Kevorkian on percussion.
Guagua was born at the Radio Bean, a beloved musical incubator/coffee house in Burlington. It was a cold Tuesday night in January 2004 when composers Raph Groten and Geoff Kim invited what would become the core of Guagua to work out some of their original Cuban, Brazilian, and metaphysically-inspired compositions in front of the Radio Bean regulars. No charts, no set lists, not even a real book was to be seen that night. All they had to go on was their wide diversity of musical knowledge, some half-formed ideas and an ability to communicate with each other rhythmically and musically.
The fully-stoked sound of Guagua soon attracted attention outside of Radio Bean, and the band quickly grew tired of hearing “you guys should record some of this stuff”; and so their debut CD, “Pan Frito,” was released in August 2006. Guagua then followed with their critically-acclaimed CD, “Psychotropical.” The new originals on this album have influences from around the hemisphere: the Cuban flavored tracks “Purple Oranges,” “Newgalloo,” “Son Nuevo,” and “Bolero Cha”; the Brazilian-scented “Not Your Mama’s Samba” and “FKB”; multicultural numbers like the Brazilian/Cuban flip flopper “Psychotropical”; the mixed-metric salsa number “En Siete”; the Druid-Santeria cocktail “Celtic Bembe”; the uncategorizable “KoreanFilm Society”; and even the band’s vocal debut in “Afro Kimchi.”
This event is a part of Vermont Arts 2017, celebrating arts in Vermont.
Concert tickets are $20. Reservations are recommended. Venue is BYOB. Call 802-247-4295 or email info@brandon-music.net for reservations or for more information. Brandon Music is located at 62 Country Club Road, Brandon.
Photo courtesy of Brandon Music
GUAGUA
