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Europe Jazz Network
MUSICIANS
MARISA MONTE
Biography
Marisa did not need more than 18 months from her stage debut in a small Jazz Club in Rio, to her first platinum record. Marisa began studying music at the age of 14. She always loved popular Brazilian music, especially the great classical singers composers like Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Carmen Miranda and Elis Regina, amongst others.
On the other hand she was influenced, as was her generation, by the great names of Pop and Jazz International music. Marisa studied lyrical singing in Rome for 14 months. When she came back to Brazil she decided to be a pop singer. Her repertoire ranges from very old and popular traditional samba to Brazialian contemporary music as well as contemporary international music. After touring all the major cities in Brazil during 1989/90, Marisa Monte made her first international performances on the stages of the Montreux Jazz Festival (1990), Paris, Brussels, London, Berlin, Lisbon and New York. Her next step was the making of her second album entitled Mais, released worldwide and recorded partly in Brazil and partly in the USA. It was produced by Arto Lindsay with special guests like Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Zorn and Nana Vasconcelos.
The warm reception that her second album received internationally was the starting point for the extensive tours that took Marisa to the United States, Japan and Europe during the '91 and '92. She performed in 15 countries and was acclaimed both by audiences and critics, with enthusiastic reviews by major newspaper and magazine of these countries.
Biography courtesy of Monte Criação e Produção Ltda.