The Great Silence Carlos Bica & João Barradas

• 1 Closeness 05:18
• 2 Tríplice 04:33
• 3 Kyrie 07:48
• 4 Entre Passos 03:44
• 5 Matriz 03:13
• 6 Sassetti 03:07
• 7 Backyard 04:03
• 8 Sol na Galé 04:22
• 9 O Profeta II 04:28
• 10 Not a Valse 00:46
• 11 The Great Silence 05:57
• 12 Distância 01:41
• Total Runtime 49:00

Info zu The Great Silence

Bassist Carlos Bica and accordionist João Barradas—an “unlikely” duo—have come together on *The Great Silence*, an album of “chamber music, where improvisation is often part of the composition,” says Carlos Bica.

Carlos Bica emphasized that the album is the result of both their musical tastes, which happen to be quite different: "I’m very fond of contrasts in music. Sometimes, in a piece, you’re left wondering whether it’s light or darkness—because we play music without captions, and it’s good for it to spark various interpretations in the listener."

Bica was responsible for the album’s tracklist—a task he considers "very important"—though he did seek input from those involved in the project, most notably the album’s producer, João Silva.

"The goal, when defining the order of an album, is always to include an element of surprise for the listener," he stated. That is why he believes the sequence is "crucial; I spend a great deal of time deciding the order of the tracks, because I believe it’s of vital importance to the person listening."

"We move from one surprise to the next—or, at the very least, we’re enticed to keep going to the following track," he noted, adding: "First and foremost, there’s the surprise. I always like to be surprised. That’s what I love about music—surprise plays a leading role."

Regarding the choice of the title, "The Great Silence"—which also happens to be the name of one of the tracks, composed by Bica—he explained: "My way of playing places immense importance on silence and the spaces between the notes. We all know the old saying, 'silence is golden,' but in reality, what matters isn’t just the notes that are played, but the notes that remain present. It’s within the silent space between the notes that music truly comes to life, isn’t it? That’s the absolute truth!" “We need silence—even just to be able to perceive musical notes, right?”

Carlos Bica, double bass
João Barradas, accordion

Carlos Bica
Double bass player and composer Carlos Bica is one of the most prolific and innovative Portuguese sound artists and has been a consistent presence on the European Jazz scene. Known for his lyrical tone on the double bass, Bica has the rare ability to write melodies that essentially are songs without words, haunting and unforgettable. Among the several musical projects he leads along with various theatre, film and dance projects, his trio AZUL with Frank Möbus and Jim Black become his showcase as a bass player and composer. For more than twenty years Carlos Bica’s AZUL has fascinated its listeners.

Alongside the ongoing work with AZUL, other projects were born and released on CD, such as: Diz, Single, Matéria-Prima, I Am The Escaped One, Playing with Beethoven and the most recent 11:11 with his new Portuguese quartet featuring some of the most talented and creative musicians from a new generation of Portuguese musicians. The album 11:11 (Clean Feed Records) was nominated for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics’ Award) and was awarded “Best Portuguese Jazz Album 2024”.

“The music of Carlos Bica is exciting, modern, and contagious. Bica is an attentive listener of the outside world – from which his modernity derives- and an innate songwriter. He interprets the world and plays it in melodies that we can hum or sing. In his compositions we find fragments of things that only our subconscious recognizes, but expressed in such a form that they come to light in an absolutely natural and obvious way. Nothing has to do with any form of pastiche or is a result of copy/ paste process; instead it is an evident form of story telling made of daily experiences that in a strange way we recognize.” – AllJazz

Carlos Bica has performed at many of the major music festivals in Europe, Canada, and Asia and has collaborated with musicians Ray Anderson, Kenny Wheeler, Aki Takase, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Zorn, Maria João, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Lee Konitz, Mário Laginha, Mathias Schubert, Claudio Puntin, João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Gebhard Ullmann, David Friedman, John Ruocco, Daniel Erdmann, DJ Illvibe among others. Among important and inspiring authorities of the Portuguese musical tradition with whom Carlos Bica has performed and recorded rank such names as – Carlos do Carmo, José Mário Branco, Camané, Pedro Caldeira Cabral, Cristina Branco and Janita Salomé.

“Bica writes hauntingly beautiful, starkly simple melodies filled with melancholy and sweet nostalgia. That moment when the group improvisation turns into a simple unison melody of piano, bass clarinet and bass is magic, a ravishing folk like tune rises from the abstraction and lifts the whole piece to a new emotional level. This in microcosm is the way the whole of ESSENCIA works. The mood and feel Bica’s compositions, indeed of his musical personality, seems to have taken over these recording sessions and created a unity that is rare in „free“ music. The final result is a magical recording, different than most anything I’ve heard before, and once again bringing the secret of melodic beauty back to free improvisation. Hearing ESSENCIA is like discovering Charlie Haden for the first time.” – Cadence Magazine, Phillip McNally

João Barradas
is one of the most renowned and recognized accordionists in Europe, and his fascinating musicality is capable of embracing the most different musical languages. He has won some of the most prestigious international competitions, including the World Accordion Trophy, which he won twice, the Coupe Mondale de Acordeão, the Castelfidardo International Competition and the Okud Istra International Competition. In the field of jazz, he has collaborated with international musicians such as Greg Osby, Gil Goldstein, Fabrizio Cassol, Mark Colenburg, Philip Harper, Bobby Sanabria, Tommy Campbell, Carlos Bica and Pedro Carneiro, among many others.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet