...begins long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Ok, at least in a city far, far away from our homes nowadays.

 

It was in the streets and music clubs of Vitória (ES - Brazil) that I met Andrey Gonçalves when we were both musicians at the beginning of our careers, playing basically anything and everything that we could lay a gig on.

 

We never played in the same band together, but when I graduated with a Bachelor's in Classical Guitar, I wanted to play different genres of music after performing a classical piece called Concert for Guitar “Fantasia para un Gentilhombre” by Joaquin Rodrigo. So, I put a jazz trio together for that task and Andrey was the first name that came for the bass. After playing the whole Concert with a piano accompaniment, I switched gears and played 3 songs that displayed where I was musically at that point in life: a) Insensatez, from Tom Jobim, was the influence that I had from Brazilian music; b) Bright Size Life represented my love for Jazz and the influence from Pat Metheny; and c) Cliffs of Dover, from Eric Johnson, was the Rock counterpoint, the style that made me feel like being a guitar player at first. I’m so proud of what we did that night! We set things in motion.

 

Life happened and we moved out of our country to pursue different paths in music. I moved to Germany and Andrey moved to the United States. So, let’s jump forward in time and skip to the year 2020. The world was going through one of its craziest moments with a pandemic that forced the whole world to stay in their homes to quarantine. Meanwhile, Computers and the Internet were fast changing the way we interacted…

 

When covid hit us hard, I was living in Frankfurt (Hessen, Germany) and Andrey was living in Champaign (Illinois, USA). I was teaching guitar in different schools and had already recorded 2 independent albums: Rod Mancebo (2014 - Instrumental Jazz Trio) and Electrified Hope (2017 - Instrumental Rock/Fusion). Additionally, I made a project in 2018 called Project Song Diary – where I composed and recorded a song per day while filming the whole process for a whole year. On the other hand, Andrey was doing his doctorate in Jazz Performance and Music Education at the University of Illinois, playing gigs, teaching at a couple of universities, and getting ready to be a father. Yes, we were busy musicians! So, when we saw ourselves forced to be at home and noticed that a lot of musicians were doing collaborations online, fate brought us together again for a project called Three-O, with the participation of Douglas Helmer, a drummer from Vitória.

 

After we reconnected, we kept in touch for two years and decided to record together again. This time it was for real in a studio, all plugged and ready to go, as jazz musicians are supposed to do. So, in August 2022 I packed my guitar ""Ginger" and flew to the US where I met Andrey personally again after almost twenty years. Needless to say, my first visit to the US was delightful, playing great gigs for lovely audiences and recording 6 new songs with Andrey and the drummer Nikola Djokic, who went to school with Andrey for the same doctoral program.

 

This is the short version of how this album came together, and I’m proud of what we have accomplished so far. I am very thankful to have the opportunity to record with such great musicians.

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Thanks, guys! See you on the road soon!

Rod. Mancebo