HUMANIZATION 4TET (PT/USA)

“In a happy conjunction between Lisbon and Dallas (Texas), ever since 2008 this Luso-American quartet has been making an intense, dry and radical music which owes as much to free jazz as it does to punk rock. Soon catapulted to and applauded in the international circuit, LLHQ excel by their degree of collective improvisation built around themes/riffs in healthy proportions, giving birth to a very physical and warm music.” Rui Neves, in Jazz em Agosto Festival Lisbon Portugal

“The band plays with the intensity and energy that you might expect from their funk and free jazz roots, but they also play with an extraordinary level of control. While the band moves seamlessly from assertive grooves to free, someone is always grounding the performance […] It’s that level of continuous focus that distinguishes the band from some likely parallels such as Last Exit and The Thing.” Stuart Broomer, in Point of Departure U.S.

Believe Believe Reviews:

“Believe, Believe is not restricted anywhere, but at the same time maintains a close focus […] Believe, Believe is a powerful statement: infused with the sweaty vibe of Live In Madison, but traced to a tight 35 minutes that groove, seduce, and slap you with a few punches that knock you back. Structure and freedom in a masterful balance, performed by a Portuguese-American alliance that tests the first element to the maximum and performs the second with a keen focus. In short, this is the shit you want to see live” Guy Peters – enola magazine Bélgium

“Taking jazz and boosting it with the concentrated energy of punk and metal, they come out with a challenging and exciting piece of work […] This group is very tight and focused no matter how far out they go […] This was an excellent record with the band perfectly melding modern and free jazz with just the right amount of thematic material. They play brilliantly as a group, and just as well as soloists, making for a consistently interesting and exciting álbum” Tim Niland – jazz & Blues U.S.

“A four gentlemen meeting who obviously know each other well and at the same time are confident of each other after so many years, they challenge both each other and us, so it lasts […] The music is both free and structured, dynamic and exceptionally uncompromising – here nothing is spared. There is music here that is sure to speak to both a jazz audience, but also to rock people with open senses.” Tor Hammero Norway

„The music is a constant tug-of-war between punk metal and cool jazz. The electricity of improvised rock is countered by post-bop swing that reads as confusion, but is far from it ” Mark Corroto – All About Jazz New York

„Just what are the group’s virtues? Prime amongst them is the contrast between the crisp but simple themes and the exuberant free jazz which they engender. Even though Lopes’ name takes top billing, he doesn’t hog the limelight. Consequently the outfit convinces as a true band, something affirmed by the spread of writing credits among the foursome” John Sharpe – All About jazz New York  

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take a listen over here:

https://luislopes.bandcamp.com/album/believe-believe

https://youtu.be/bqx-hn09dEE (Brainlust Distraction film by António Júlio Duarte)

https://youtu.be/8XLCuBQP1mE (Eddie Harris/Tranquilidad Alborotadora)

https://youtu.be/y8MY2G2bvwM (Replicate I)

https://youtu.be/KXS9IsBFS5o (Engorged Mosquitoes)

http://www.luislopes.pt/

https://www.facebook.com/lopesjazz

https://www.rodrigoamado.com/

Humanization 4tet is a band formed by the Portuguese Luís Lopes and Rodrigo Amado with the Texan brothers Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez. Rooted in jazz, the band practices in a dynamic way a music that can run from the simplest melody to the most aggressive Noise, or from the most organic improvisation towards more targeted composition, never losing sight of its primary objective of conceptual construction and implementation of an identity. This is reflected since their first “Humanization 4tet” debut album, edited by the Portuguese label Clean Feed, named best album of 2008 by Portuguese magazine Jazz.pt. Plus, the add of more two records: “Live in Madison” and “Electricity”, both edited by the French label Ayler Records, all internationally acclaimed. The band is presenting now the album „Believe Believe”, resulting from their latest tour in U.S. and recorded in New Orleans. In Portugal they played at Jazz em Agosto Fest – Gulbenkian Foundation, Seixal Jazz Fest, Além Tejo Fest  Santo André, Festa do Jazz Português – São Luiz Lisbon, ZDB Gallery, Maus Hábitos Porto, Ciclo Jazz às 5as – Centro Cultural de Belém Lisbon, Hot Club Portugal, among other venues and concert halls. In the U.S.  they have made three tours on the road, playing in places such as: Sandaga Marquet, Phoenix Project, RCB Mixtape Sessions (Dallas); Firehouse Gallery, Lola´s (Forth Worth); The Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Trailer Space Records, Me Mer Mo Series (Austin); Avant Garden, Project Row Houses, Spruce Goose (Houston), Mustard Zone (Denton); Desert Flower (Big Spring); Minicine (Shreveport); Spinster Records (Tulsa); Blue Nile, Chickie Wahwah, Zeitgeist, Snug Harbor, Side Bar, Always Lounge (New Orleans); Bobo Galery, (Asheville); Eyedrum Galery (Atlanta); Bossa (Washington); Fiume, Leroy’s Lounge, Osvaldo Romberg Studio, Wherehouse (Philadelphia), Union Pool Brooklyn, Downtown Music Galery, The Stone (New York), Hideout (Chicago), Audio For the Arts (Madison). 

Luís Lopes

First started out as a Blues and Rock guitarist, then ventured into Jazz and Free Improvisation.  He leads several groups that soon positioned him in the international scene: Humanization 4tet (with Portuguese sax player Rodrigo Amado and Texans Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez), Lisbon Berlin Trio (with Germans Christian Lillinger and Robert Landfermann), Guillotine (with french cellist Valentin Ceccaldi and drummer Andreas Wildhagen from Norway). He integrates collectives such as the Lisbon 9 elements ensemble LFU – Lisbon Freedom Unit, The Trio Garden (with Bruno Parrinha and Ricardo Jacinto), and also BBBB-Big Bold Back Bone a swiss-portugese electro-acoustic quartet. Then, he has his solo works, characterized by a full experimental attitude and can range from Noise to Pianissimo. Plus, he cherishes and privileges duo projects, examples are collaborations with Jean-Luc Guionnet, Fred Lonberg-holm, Noel Akchoté and Julien Desprez. He has released records on labels such as Clean Feed, Shhpuma Records, Wide Ears, Creative Sources, Ayler Records, JACC, and his own LPZ Records. This records were acclaimed in international press like Wire (Inglaterra), Citizen Jazz, Jazz Magazine and improjazz (France), Enola Magazine (Belgium), Downbeat, All About Jazz NY, Cadence Magazine, NY City Jazz Records, Signal to Noise, Point of Departure (U.S.), Toma Jazz (Spain), All about jazz Italy (Italy), Jazz’n’more/blues roots (Germany), FreeForm FreeJazz (Brazil). Lopes has been a regular presence in stages such as Jazz em Agosto (Gulbenkian), Jazz ao Centro Coimbra, Portalegre Jazz Fest, Seixal Jazz, Sines em Jazz, Serralves em Festa, Festival Rescaldo Culturgest, Ljubljana Jazz Fest, Konfrontationen Fest Nickelsdorf Austria, Tricollectif Soiré Tricot Fest Paris, Jazz or Jazz Fest Orleans, Clean Feed New York Fest, Clean Feed Chicago Fest, Clean Feed Colónia Fest, Clean Feed Berlin Fest, Snug Harbor New Orleans, The Stone New York, HideOut Chicago, Ausland Berlin, Exploratorium Berlin, Occi Amesterdão, Klappfon Fest Basel, Win Zurich, Hærverk Oslo, Brötz Göteborg, Entrepreneurs Museum Moscow, Suoni Per Il Popolo Fest Montreal, among many others.

 

Rodrigo Amado

Nominated, for the fifth consecutive year, by the El Intruso International Critics Poll (more than 50 critics, from 18 countries) as one of the top 5 tenor saxophonists in activity, alongside the likes of Evan Parker, Joe Lovano, Ken Vandermark, Jon Irabagon, Ivo Perelman, Chris Potter and Ingrid Laubrock, Rodrigo Amado released last year „A History of Nothing” (Trost Records), the second album from the quartet he keeps with three of the most important figures of today’s creative jazz scene – Joe McPhee, Kent Kessler and Chris Corsano. With two new releases for 2019 – “No Place To Fall”, a duo recording with Chris Corsano, and “Summer Bummer”, the second album with Gonçalo Almeida and Onno Govaert – Amado prepares to tour extensively with his American quartet in Europe.

 

With this formation or fronting his celebrated Motion Trio, with cellist Miguel Mira and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini, Amado has been performing in innumerable Festivals and venues all over the world, namely Snug Harbor in New Orleans, Hideout in Chicago, The Stone in New York, Bimhuis in Amsterdam, DOM in Moscow, Jazz House in Copenhagen, Cafe Oto in London, Pardon To Tu in Warsaw, De Singer in Antwerp, Manufaktur in Stuttgart or the State Philharmony Hall in Oradea. His music has been object of hundreds of reviews in magazines, newspapers and blogs all over the world, and his work critically acclaimed in leading publications like The Wire magazine, El País and Folha de São Paulo newspapers, or the Bandcamp Daily online.

 

With a discography of 21 albums under his own name and participation in more than 30 others, he is unanimously considered one of the key players in European Jazz. As North-American critic Stuart Broomer writes in his liner notes for „This Is Our Language”, „Amado is an emerging master of a great tradition, more apparent with each new recording or performance.” And he goes on, about Amado’s sound: “There’s a rhythmic impetus, a bite in his sound, part grain, part beat, and it drives his lines forward, a sound and an impulse that are part him and part history, a fundamental impress on the world that tenor saxophonists like Coleman Hawkins, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Sonny Rollins, and Archie Shepp have been making for generations.”

 

 

Stefan Gonzalez

Stefan Gonzalez is a drummer, percussionist, and vocalist from Dallas, TX.  He is most known for his work with his family bands Yells at Eels( with brother Aaron Gonzalez and father Dennis Gonzalez) and Akkolyte(again with his brother) but also performs regularly in Europe with Ingebrigt Haker Flaten’s super group The Young Mothers featuring Texas based musicians Jonathan Horne, Jawwaad Taylor, Jason Jackson and Amsterdam based drummer Frank Rosaly.  He currently performs solo under the moniker Orgullo Primitivo and also plays with the Dallas industrial noise trio Mother II.  Gonzalez aims to constantly push musical boundaries and blur the lines of genre through dabbling in many extreme genres and sub genres of music ranging from hardcore punk, industrial, black metal, and grindcore to improvisational music, jazz, and ambient music.  He frequently performs at the Ochre House Theater in Dallas, often providing live soundtrack for plays and musicals.  Past groups, collaborators, and recording projects include Unconscious Collective, Asukubus, Jandek, Mike Watt, Luis Lopes Humanization 4tet, Curtis Clark Trio, Ariel Pink With Added Pizzazz, Renegade Spirits Ensemble featuring Famoudou Don Moye, Aram Shelton, Damon Smith, Tom Carter, Louis Moholo-Moholo, German Bringas, Remi Alvarez, Arturo Baez, Cojoba and many more.

 

 

Aaron Gonzalez 

Aaron Gonzalez was born in 1980, in Dallas, TX, the son of avant-jazz trumpeter, visual artist and educator Dennis Gonzalez. At the age of 10, he began studying double bass in the classical tradition, joining his elementary school’s orchestra. He subsequently attended the local arts middle and high schools, attaining the highest levels in his section in their respective orchestras. His attendance at the Arts Magnet high school in Dallas also afforded him the chance to study music theory, sound engineering and recording, composition, and electronic music, and also perform solo and in chamber ensembles. During this time, he also studied privately with Young Strings, a program which offered music lessons from members of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to gifted young musicians in the Dallas area. In middle and high school he also took up bass guitar, taught to him by his orchestra teacher, who wanted the orchestra to perform some rock numbers. This led to him joining local indie rock bands and beginning to gig on the Dallas rock circuit. He also moonlighted as a substitute bass and guitarrón player for his father’s high school mariachi group; the latter instrument being hastily taught to him just before gigs. He subsequently joined his father’s accordion-driven Tejano group Trio Brujos. In his last year of high school, he formed two bands with family members that have lasted into the entirety of his adult life: Akkolyte, an extreme, raw, and increasingly experimental grindcore duo with his brother Stefan that had begun life as a series of solo recording experiments by the younger Gonzalez; and Yells At Eels, an eclectic and energetic free jazz trio (often augmented by other players) led by father Dennis and also with Stefan on drums. Akkolyte released a series of EPs and split releases with other heavy d.i.y. punk artists through the years, eventually releasing their sole full-length LP Clues In The Chaospile in 2010. Yells At Eels has released numerous CDs over the last 20 years, including releases on Ayler Records, and Dennis’s own imprint, daagnim. Yells At Eels has collaborated with (and spawned offshoot groups with) a number of notable jazz players, including Tim Green, Louis Moholo-Moholo, Alvin Fielder, Famoudou Don Moye, Wojtek Mazolewski, Ingebrigt Håker-’Flaten, and Rodrigo Amado. The latter association led to the formation of the half Texan/half Portuguese group Humanization 4tet. Featuring Amado on sax, the rhythm section of both Gonzalez brothers, and led by guitarist Luis Lopes. With his brother Stefan were in Unconscious Collective, a group that combined a heavy/stripped down approach to progressive and psychedelic rock with aspects of jazz improvisation, and a theatrical, ritualistic and physically immersive stage show. They have two double LPs out on Tofu Carnage Records, the latter of which, Pleistocene Moon, was particularly critically acclaimed. All three Gonzalez’s have recorded with popular indie artist Ariel Pink; Dennis and Aaron on his album under the name Shits And Giggles, and Dennis, Aaron, and Stefan on the Ariel Pink With Added Pizzazz EP. Aaron has also been associated with Dadaist avant music collective MFM, extreme noise act Aphonic Curtains, and psychedelic industrial band Festive Death. In recent years, he has also developed his experimental vocal performance skills, performing solo under the name Deflowered Electric Flesh Bride, leading the large scale electo-acoustic improv ensemble Age Of Disinformation, and performing as one of many voices in the queer/feminist performance collective Asukubus. He has recently been in various productions by Dallas based alternative theater company The Ochre House; performing in the live music ensembles that accompany their productions. As an educator, he has been an instructor for La Rondalla, a community-based after school program offering free music lessons to children in the Dallas area. He continues to also perform extensively as a free improviser, using both bass and voice, performing with a number of local and international musicians