Matheus Prado Trio, ‘A Night in Rio’, Brecon Jazz Club, The Muse Arts Centre, Abergavenny, 11/02/2025

Matheus Prado – electric bass, seven string acoustic guitar, lead vocals, Paul Jones – keyboard, backing vocals, Liz Exell – drum kit, tamborim

Matheus Prado is a Brazilian musician and composer who has been based in Cardiff for more than a decade following his studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD).

He has established himself as one of the leading jazz double bassists on the South Wales jazz scene and beyond and has been a regular visitor to Brecon Jazz Club / Festival appearing as part of international collaborations with the Japanese pianist Atsuko Shimada and with the guitar duo of Maciek Pysz (Poland) and Jean Guyomarc’h (France).

He has also performed live and on record with vocalist Annette Gregory, the force behind Kidderminster Jazz Club. The pair first played together when Prado was part of a Cardiff based trio that accompanied Gregory and her pianist and musical director John McDonald at the 2017 Brecon Jazz Festival.

As a result of this collaboration Prado has also performed live as part of the Kidderminster Jazz Club house band accompanying saxophonist Alan Barnes and the late, great vocalist Tina May. The Tina May performance was a particularly brilliant event with the singer really bringing the best out of the house band. Tragically we were to lose her just seven months later in March 2022.

As a leader Prado released the excellent septet album “Childhood” in 2020, a recording that demonstrated his abilities as both a bassist and a composer. A review of a Kidderminster Jazz Club performance by the Prado Septet, combined with a look at this very impressive album can be found here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/matheus-prado-septet-kidderminster-jazz-club-town-hall-kidderminster-06-02-2020

In addition to his credentials as a jazz bassist Prado has also retained an abiding love for the music of his homeland, of which he has an impressively encyclopaedic knowledge. He has also visited Brecon with the Cardiff based Ocaso Latin Quartet, an international ensemble featuring Prado, Portuguese vocalist / percussionists Ines Castillo, Peruvian pianist Pedro Asencio and Wales’ own Mark O’Connor on drums and percussion.

Ocaso features Prado as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist and these aspects of his talent were also to feature in tonight’s show, a celebration of the music of Brazil. The strap line “A Night in Rio” was chosen because of the fact that at on any given night all the sub genres of Brazilian music can be heard within the confines of a very small geographical area – Brazil’s answer to 52nd Street maybe? Or Brecon on Jazz Festival weekend?!

The musicians that Prado chose to accompany him in this one off trio were also based in Cardiff. Drummer Liz Exell is a regular visitor to Brecon and a real audience favourite. pianist Paul Jones is also a leading figure on the Welsh jazz scene and beyond,  variously playing with the Jones O’Connor Group, the Gareth Roberts Quintet and Aidan Thorne’s Duski among others. More recently Jones’ playing has been heard with Group Listening, his ambient / contemporary classical duo with clarinettist Stephen Black.

This celebration of the music of Brazil was divided between Prado’s impressive original compositions in a variety of Brazilian styles and works by internationally known Brazilian composers such as Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Caetano Veloso, amongst others.

Prado was featured on electric bass and vocals (no double bass) and also on seven string acoustic guitar. It was more reminiscent of his work with Ocaso rather than his regular jazz output. He had obviously liaised closely with Jones with regard to song selections and arrangements, the versatile Jones also adding backing vocals to some songs. The similarly adaptable Exell, who I suspect may have been working with Prado and Jones for the first time, quickly found her way into the music, responding positively and appropriately at all times.

The trio commenced their explorations of the music of Brazil with “Groovy Samba”, a composition by Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian pianist, composer and bandleader who later moved to the USA where he enjoyed considerable commercial success and worked with jazz musicians such as alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. The effusive Prado also told us that Mendes had employed the young Harrison Ford as a carpenter at his property prior to the latter’s acting career taking off! The musical performance featured Prado playing a Fender jazz bass, sounding almost guitar like during the course of his solo,  and Jones deploying an electric piano sound at his Nord keyboard.

“Chorinho na Gafiera” was a composition by the trombonist Astor Silva, written in the traditional choro style and dating back to the 1930s. This saw Prado continuing on electric bass and Jones continuing with the electric piano sound that he would persist with almost throughout the evening as the pair again traded solos, paced by Exell’s sympathetic and understated brushed drum accompaniment.

The first of Prado’s original compositions, “Meute em Paz”, was based around an Afro-Brazilian rhythm and featured Prado’s vocals for the first time, singing in the Portuguese language. This was a more overtly rhythmic piece and saw Exell deploying sticks for the first time as Jones soloed at the keyboard with Prado responding on bass.

The playful “Aquile Um”, written by the Brazilian vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Djavan, also featured Prado’s vocalising alongside an instrumental solo from Jones. Prado is a more than adequate singer, his sweet, high pitched vocals well suited to singing the sings of his homeland.

A second Prado original, “Choro Para Elas” was written for his youngest child Maria and was an instrumental item notable for the exchanges between the leader’s bass and Jones’ keyboards. Written for a young child it was an appropriately playful piece that saw Jones teasing the audience with a series of false endings.

Also written by Prado “Childhood” was the title track of his 2020 septet album but was arranged here in a more obviously Brazilian style for the trio. Introduced by keyboards and drums and with Exell continuing her subtle drum commentary throughout the performance saw Prado and Jones trading solos before entering into a further sequence of musical exchanges.

“Aqua Beber” (translating as “Water to Drink”) was the first of tonight’s bossa nova pieces and was written by the father of the genre, Antonio Carlos Jobim. This saw Prado combining bass and lead vocal duties with Jones adding backing vocals from behind the keyboard, and doing so very effectively.

The final number of an enjoyable first set was the Prado original “Baiao No. 2”, a piece exploring the Baiao rhythm that migrated from Africa to Brazil. Centred around the ‘rhythmic cell’ that the informative Prado demonstrated to the audience, this was an immersive piece with a suitably infectious rhythm and a mantra like lyric delivered by both Prado and Jones. The latter was also featured as an instrumental soloist, stretching out over Prado’s buoyant bass lines and Exell’s most dynamic drumming thus far. Prado’s bass solo was then followed by a return to the mantra like lyrics and rhythms. Great stuff.

Set two began with Prado solo,  singing and playing playing two songs on seven string acoustic guitar, an instrument widely used in Brazilian music, its distinctive sound deriving from the presence of an additional bass string.

Prado began by singing a song written in the choro style by guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and activist Caetano Veloso, one of the most significant figures in contemporary Brazilian music. The song title “Sanpa” is an abbreviation for the name of the city of “Sao Paulo”, a place where Prado has previously lived and worked.

Next we heard “Gente Humilde”, a song written in the 1940s by the Rio based guitarist and composer Garoto in conjunction with the lyricists Vinicius de Moraes and Chico Buarque, the words having been added to the melody later, a kind of Brazilian ‘vocalese’ if you will. An introductory passage of solo guitar demonstrated Prado’s mastery of the seven string acoustic and his playing was subsequently augmented by an accomplished vocal performance.

To conclude this largely acoustic section Prado put down the guitar to deliver emotive reading of the beautiful Jobim ballad “Luiza” accompanied by Jones at the keyboard. The song was a big hit in Brazil and on the evidence of this performance it was easy to see why. Even when sung in Portuguese the sentiments behind the song were obvious, even to a predominantly English speaking audience.

Exell returned for Prado’s composition “Maracatu No. 1”, a tune exploring the Maracatu rhythm,, meaning “drunken roll”,  from Pernambuco in North Eastern Brazil. This was an infectious rhythm that European or North American listeners might reasonably describe as funky and the vibrant rhythmic interplay between electric bass, keyboards and drums was consistently interesting, with Exell deploying sticks throughout. She was to enjoy a short unaccompanied drum passage alongside further solos from Jones and Prado.

Introduced by a passage of unaccompanied electric bass that featured Prado’s tapping of the strings “Vestido Longo” was written by bassist Arismar Do Espiritu Santo and was another piece to feature Prado’s vocals – and even his whistling. It was also notable for a drum feature from the stick wielding Exell, who was coming increasingly into her own during this second set.

Prado’s own “Saudades da America” was inspired by the music of the Brazilian guitarist and composer Toninho Horta, a musician who has been cited as being an inspiration for the distinctive guitar sound of Pat Metheny. Written in the samba style this piece featured Prado’s bass and vocals alongside Jones’ keyboard soloing and a brushed drum feature from Exell.

An excellent second set concluded with Prado’s “Sapato Nova”, which incorporated his vocals alongside a virtuoso, Jaco-esque bass solo plus a further drum feature from the increasingly confident Exell.

The deserved encore featured the only real Brazilian standard of the night, Jobim’s “One Note Samba”, perhaps the only song with which the majority of the audience would have been previously familiar. This was sung in Portuguese, with Prado also featuring as an instrumental soloist.

Prado’s decision to omit the majority of the rather predictable tunes that normally make up a Brazilian themed jazz show (no “Girl From Ipanema”, “How Insensitive” or “Black Orpheus”) was a wise one and gave the event a greater authenticity, especially with all the vocals being delivered in Portuguese. For me it also made the evening far more interesting and virtually all the material was new to me. I also liked the fact that Prado also put such a strong emphasis on his own writing. Let’s hope that he is able to record a second album featuring this side of his musical output at some point.

Another plus point was his presentation style, with the affable Prado imparting a lot of useful and intriguing information about Brazilian music and culture.

Prado impressed as a musician, vocalist, composer and presenter and received excellent support from Jones and Exell. This wasn’t a regular working trio, indeed it may even have been a glorious ‘one off’, and things were understandably a little ragged at times but the players quickly grew in confidence and the second set was particularly impressive. The inclusion of the solo acoustic guitar and vocal pieces added a welcome variety and revealed a new side of his talent. The support of a gracious and highly appreciative audience also helped and despite the unfamiliarity of some of the material the trio’s performance on this ‘Night in Rio’ was very well received, sending the audience home on a chilly February night with a little Brazilian sunshine in their hearts.