Brazilian Beats
Friday, June 21, 9pm
Old Market Square
FREE!
Brazilian Beats was founded by Marco Castillo since his arrival from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Debuting at the Winnipeg Jazz Festival in 2008, the band quickly became popular playing a mix of originals and the best of Brazilian world class repertoire with a unique Latin jazz flavour.
Castillo’s extensive musical and rhythmic expertise spans from the gentle warm musical embrace of the romantic warm bossa nova, rustic and contagious roots rhythms of folky baião, and the festive, upbeat, exuberant samba, to the velvety sounds of smooth jazz, and alluring, infectious funky grooves. Marco was selected to represent Brazil in the 2015 Viña del Mar, one of the most important music festivals in Latin America, reaching more than 250 million people around the world. Castillo’s original song “Forró no Canada" from CD Zabelê was amongst the six finalists in the Folkloric category, with judges that included Oscar de León and Pedro Aznar.
With many nominations, world music awards, and three CDs under his belt, Marco has toured western Canada and has collaborated with an array of great artists local and abroad. Featuring the top musicians in town, Brazilian Beats is among the best bands in the genre, helping to shape and establish the Latin music scene in Winnipeg - and the Winnipeg International Jazz Festival’s annual Latin night, an audience favourite, proves it! Marco, with Brazilian Beats, is Winnipeg’s latin, Brazilian, and world music “go-to guy.”