Orchestra Angrajazz

Angrajazz Orchestra is a training/work-in-progress project held by the Cultural Association Angrajazz.  Constituted in July 2002 and formed mainly by Terceira Island’s born musicians, the Orchestra gave its first concert at the 4th Angrajazz.  Claus Nymark and Peter Moreira have been the Orchestra’s musical directors, from the beginning.

The Orchestra has played with many well known Portuguese jazz musicians such as Paula Oliveira, Mário Laginha, Zé Eduardo Afonso Pais, Mário Barreiros, Hugo Alves, Luís Cunha, Paulo Gaspar and Ricardo Toscano.  Apart from numerous concerts in Terceira Island, the Orchestra has performed in Lisbon for five times, twice in Funchal, and in the islands of São Jorge, São Miguel, Graciosa and Faial.

Throughout its existence, Angrajazz Orchestra has carried on monthly working sessions with its musical directors, and also with the guest musicians that have been featured at the Festival.  This fact has made Angrajazz Orchestra become the main “jazz school” in the Azores.  Together, the Angrajazz Orchestra and the Festival, can be considered as the main and most important means of unveiling the jazz music in the Azores.

In the year of 2015 the Angrajazz Orchestra participated in the cultural program “Lisboa na Rua” organized by the Lisbon EGEAC/Cultura agency and by Hot Clube de Portugal.  The Orchestra was part of the cycle “The Art of the Big Band – 5 Jazz Orchestras”.

At the 18º Angrajazz, the Orchestra performed, for the first time in Portugal, the integral of “The Far East Suite” written by the great jazz musician Duke Ellington.  In that occasion the Orchestra featured two very important Portuguese jazz musicians – clarinetist Paulo Gaspar and saxophonist Ricardo Toscano.  In 2017 the Orchestra played with great success this same program at Teatro Micaelense (S. Miguel) and at Teatro Baltazar Diaz (Funchal).

The Orchestra has released two CDs –”Angrajazz Orchestra with Paula Oliveira” (2006) and “Angrajazz” (2018).

In this 22º Angrajazz, the Orchestra will have as guest the bass player, composer and orchestra director Zé Eduardo and will present a repertoire entirely consisting of pieces by the great American composer Cole Porter, in honor of the 130th anniversary of his birth. The entire program has arrangements by Zé Eduardo and has the participation of the local singer Joana Pacheco.

Zé Eduardo (born 1952) is a jazz Portuguese bass player, but also a jazz pianist, composer and pedagogue. Founder and director of the Jazz School of the Hot Clube de Portugal in Lisbon in 1979, he was also pedagogical director of the “Taller de Músics de Barcelona” (Barcelona) from 1983 to 1990. Zé Eduardo is a main personality in the Portuguese jazz scene of the last decades, responsible for some of the great moments of this genre in Portugal. He is certainly responsible for the emergence of a whole new generation of outstanding jazz musicians, both in Portugal and Spain.

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