João Lencastre

This recording happened during a two gig tour with Leo Genovese and Drew Gress. We had a day off and since I had written new music for the occasion, I thought it would be a good opportunity to record it. I've known Leo for almost 20 years and we've played together many times ever since, and I've been a huge fan of Drew since I remember and it was a blast to play for the first time and share these musical moments with him. Over the years I've recorded different formats of my bands, from trios to quintet, sextet or even octet. I realized that I have never recorded my music in a quartet format and thought that the sound of my long time friend and partner in crime on many different projects Pedro Branco, who is an amazing guitar player and musician, would be a great addition to the music.

It was an effortless recording, and the whole session didn't last more than three hours. Except for the track “Staying Power”, that we decided to change the arrangement on the spot, all the chosen takes were the very first ones.

The music sounds fresh and spontaneous, where everyone's taking chances and letting the moment tell you what to play, which is to me what this thing called Jazz should be.