Longwood Debut
Enjoy an evening of expressive, expertly crafted Brazilian jazz as Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo teams up with Brazilian jazz drummer Duduka Da Fonseca and multi-Grammy nominee and virtuoso bassist Nilson Matta.
The trio combines Figueiredo’s sublime technique and ability to move freely between styles with Da Fonseca’s blend of music cultures, and Matta’s unique musical signature.
Diego Figueiredo
Brazilian guitarist Diego Figueiredo was born in 1980 in Franca, São Paulo State, has recorded more than two dozen albums, both solo and in collaboration with others, and constantly tours all over the globe. His expressive voice on the acoustic guitar draws inspiration from his home country’s rich musical heritage, but he also has a deep knowledge and sense of the quirkiness of jazz as well as the classic guitar tradition.
Figueiredo has released 30 CDs between his releases in Brazil, the European label Stunt Records, and now six albums on Arbors Records. He has played in more than 60 countries. He is the winner of several competitions including The Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition and Brazil’s VISA Prize. He has recorded and performed with Brazil’s biggest stars including Gilberto Gil, João Bosco, Roberto Menescal, Toquinho, Fafá de Belém, Angela Maria, Toninho Horta, and several years touring the world accompanying Brazil’s beloved composer and vocalist, Belchior.
For the last 12 years, Figueiredo has spent large swaths of time in North America, performing solo and in duos and trios with the likes of Larry Coryell, Ken Peplowski, John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, Chuchito Valdes, Stanley Jordan, and Cyrille Aimée. Figueiredo and Aimée toured heavily together from 2011–2015. Each artist has guested several times on each other’s albums, culminating in Aimée’s 2019 Sondheim-inspired album, Move On, which earned each of them an official Grammy nomination for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals.
Jazz icon George Benson says “Figueiredo is one of the greatest guitarists I’ve seen in my whole life.” Guitar World Magazine wrote that “it was his incredibly fluid and natural performance style, his sense of true enjoyment as he dazzled us, and his good-natured entertaining approach that truly grabbed us ... seemingly effortless and thoroughly fabulous.”
Figueiredo has also released four records on the Danish label, Stunt Records, including Broken Bossa (2015), and Come Closer (2019), which was a guitar/vocal album featuring four songs with Aimée, four songs with legendary Manhattan Transfer vocalist Janis Siegel, and two songs with Italian jazz singer Chiarra Izzi.
Figueiredo released his sixth album I Love Samba on Arbors Records in August 2024. This brilliant album from this masterfully creative guitarist featured two legendary Brazilian musicians—Nilson Matta on bass and Dudaka da Fonseca on drums, both of Trio da Paz fame.
Duduka da Fonseca
Duduka Da Fonseca is a brilliant Brazilian jazz drummer who is a founding member of Trio da Paz with Romero Lubambo and Nilson Matta. In New York, Da Fonseca followed his dream of playing with American jazz musicians where he could blend musical cultures. To date, he has recorded and performed with Gerry Mulligan, Phil Woods, Kenny Barron, Lee Konitz, Eddie Gomez, Joanne Brackeen, Herbie Mann, and many others.
Nilson Matta
Multi-Grammy nominee and virtuoso bassist Nilson Matta is a creative force in the evolution and popularity of Brazilian jazz in the United States. Not long after he came to New York in 1985, he began performing and recording with Grammy-winning jazz greats Joe Henderson, Don Pullen, Kenny Barron, Paul Winter, Sadao Watanabi, Paquito D’Rivera, and Randy Brecker, as well as Herbie Mann, Lee Konitz and Mark Murphy. Drawing from those collaborations—and from his work with Brazilian luminaries such as João Bosco, Oscar Castro Neves, Hermeto Pascoal, Chico Buarque, MPB4, João Gilberto, Luis Bonfa, Leny Andrade, and Johnny Alf in Brazil, to name a few—Matta developed his own musical signature, making him a first-call bass player of Brazilian music and jazz musicians.