Amália Baraona 

While Americans celebrate Independence Day, my 4th of July commemorates the first Review of my first CD "Mulheres" by Alison Bentley for the LondonJazz News on July 04, 2012. Other reviews had been published in 2010 when the CD came out in Italy on the Fo(u)r Records website, in Croatia on Vjesnik and in Albania on Tirana Times, but Ms Bentley's review two years later for a UK's multi-award winning jazz publication, made it all worth it! Fireworks were all over me as if it wa

Today is my husband's graduation's day as a classical double bass player. The accomplishment of a dream that Dinko cherished and pursued for the last 4 years with daily hard work despite of the sporadic frustration, pain and doubts. I often wonder why the double bass? He plays beautifully other instruments much easier to carry around, like the clarinet or the guitar! Seriously: go to a gig carrying a clarinet; now, do the same with a double bass! That's my point! It's big and

Rainy grey windy days like today can be spent cuddling, sitting in front of the TV wasting life, or sleeping, which I often do like any of us, I guess...! But 2017 started in a very special way for me and to continue expressing myself through music and being happy as a person, these days I've been trying to work on who I am rather than what I do, where I go or with whom. It does sound too philosophical, but it has been very rewarding as well as painful, to be honest with myse

Is there anything not to love about Jobim's music? He's been present in the most important moments of my life! I grew up listening to Jobim in Brazil and he's been with me all along throughout my life, in the good as in the bad moments. I met my husband in a gig in Zagreb, and guess what was the first song we ever played together minutes after we were introduced? Yeap! It was one of Jobim's classics: Corcovado (Quiet nights of quiet stars). Dinko on saxophone, me on vocals, s

4 years ago today I was having one of the most joyful days of my life: the launch of my 2nd CD "MENESCANTANDO - A Tribute to Roberto Menescal". "Menescantando" was the only CD that I published in Portugal, with the label Numérica. Ironically, the record label closed down (without a word to the artists under contract!!!) and the album had little distribution in Portugal and abroad. But compared to the fulfilment of my dream to record Menescantando with the support and particip

Bossa Nova would not have been entirely what it was without Nara Leão, known as "the Muse" of this movement. Nelson Motta called her "the most intelligent voice of Brazil", discrete, balanced, profound and sensitive. She was all that, and much more! As a middle class young lady back in the mid-50s in Rio de Janeiro, she broke barriers for the women of her time who were not allowed to mix with musicians ("not a respectable profession"...this still sounds familiar...), let alon

Tonight there was a heavy storm in Skopje. The lightening, thunder and wind were pretty scary...! Best antidote to fear? Thinking of beauty, music, and inevitably, Tom Jobim! This chain of thought led me to the bookcase where my Bossa Nova sources are preciously kept for the rainy days... and the sunny ones too :-) "A onda que se ergueu no mar", by Ruy Castro, is one of those books, a reference for the stories that I love sharing with the public during the Bossa Nova shows. A

Voices have colors; so do photographs even when they are in black & white! Music can be blue, joyful, shiny or shady, and it can all be captured by photographers who feel the music, and go beyond the sound seizing the emotions of the musicians. I love checking pictures of gigs or rehearsals and "listening" to them. Yeah! Photos can sing! And some photographers are masters of seeing the music and listening to the images. The whole thing gets so intertwined that it becomes one.