FABIANA PASSONI (BRAZILIAN JAZZ VOCALIST)

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I was born in Poços de Caldas; a small town in Brazil. I started singing when I was 6 years old. My daddy would sit on the couch, composing songs and I would sing along with him. He taught me about interpretation and how to play to an audience.

My first professional contract was singing at political rallies throughout my home state of Minas Gerais. At 11, I was singing in nightclubs and at private parties. Through everyone’s eyes I was a huge success at so early an age. But I wasn’t happy. I didn’t like the kind of music I was singing. I was offered my first recording contract at 12. I turned it down. People were surprised. People were angry. I took a break from performing.

It’s important to me to connect to my audience; to make them feel better than when they came in; to leave an impression in their soul. That’s not easy to do when you are only singing rock, axé, pagode and carnival. My main goal was to simply sing the kind of music I wanted to sing; and to compose!

So I left Brazil and moved to New York to sing bossa nova jazz fusion. Ella Fitzgerald and Leny Andrade influenced my style. Unfortunately, the gigs that paid were the ones for pop, rock and axé. I didn’t last very long doing that and I stopped singing again. A few years passed by and I gave it another try. I was singing bossa nova; mostly at Brazilian BBQ houses and a few private parties. But I still had no confidence to write my own songs. I moved to California to get a fresh start.

Sitting on the beach one day, the lyrics for É Minha Vez popped into my head. From that day on things really took off. I charged ahead and my first CD is the result of this energy. Of course I couldn’t do it by myself. Paulinho and Rafael in Brazil gave me two great songs to record (Serenata and Isso É Hora). My producer, Dirk Freymuth, came up with some very creative arrangements for Darlin’ (an old Beach Boys’ tune) and Mudar O Mundo (Change the World).

The recording studio was a new experience for me. I learned a lot about myself there. Barry Goldberg was more than just an excellent engineer; he was also a friend who always seemed to have the right thing to say when things weren’t going quite right. I had wonderful musicians there with me too and I can’t wait to perform with them all again.

Now that I have the confidence to write more songs, I’m already hard at work on my second CD. I hope you enjoy my music.

 

FABIANA PASSONI - E' MINHA VEZ (2007)

A combination of jazz fusion with the older rhythms of Brazil such as bossa nova, baião, and samba

Fabiana Passoni - Vocals

Dirk Freymuth - electric guitar, kalimba

Kleber Jorge - nylon string guitar, cavaquinho

Octavio Bailly - acoustic bass

Sandro Feliciano - drums

Maestro Meia Noite - percussion

Robert Kyle - saxhophone, flute

Larry Williams - trumpet, flugelhorn

Eric Jorgensen - Trombone

Wayne Jones - Keyboards

Enrique Toussaint - electric bass

review by Paul J. Youngman: FABIANA PASSONI - E' MINHA VEZ (2007)

review by Egídio Leitão: FABIANA PASSONI - E' MINHA VEZ (2007)

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