Caixa Cubo

Brazil's Caixa Cubo ("magic cube") are a renowned jazz fusion trio. Their modernist take weds traditional Brazilian styles -- samba, choro, and baiao -- to contemporary urban grooves, ambitious improvisation, and jazz-funk. Their first two albums, 2012, an acoustic piano trio, and 2013's Quartzo, with electric piano, were recorded by drummer Joao Fideles and pianist Henrique Gomide with alternate bassists. The live Canil debuted permanent bassist Noa Stroeter. 2014's Misturada juxtaposed originals with samba covers. 2018's Enigma: A Música de Garoto was followed by the funky fusion set Saturno later that year, and the six-track fusion EP Angela (featuring vocalist Zé Leônidas on "Palavras") appeared in 2021. 2023's Agôra offered collaborations with a host of vocalists including Eduardo Camargo and Xenia França. 2024's Modo Avião explored the history of Brazilian instrumental music. Joao Fideles, Henrique Gomide, and Noa Stroeter met during their individual music studies at University of Sao Paolo in 2007. All three were deeply influenced by Brazilian fusion trio Azymuth's "samba doido" (crazy samba), composer/arranger Moacir Santos, Hermeto Pascoal, and others. Further, they found great inspiration in the American fusion sounds and songs of Herbie Hancock and Roy Ayers. in 2011, Fideles and Gomide formed Caixa Cubo and began playing live using alternating bassists. Gaining a following among musicians as well as club-goers, they stayed away from the music industry and crowdfunded their debut album, 2012, a vanguard, acoustically rendered set of modernist compositions and improvs. It won positive reviews from Brazilian and European critics, enabling the band to tour. They followed the same financial blueprint for three more albums beginning with the studio effort Quartzo in 2013, an electronically rendered experimental offering freely juxtaposing fusion, free improv, and samba with guest bassists. They followed with Canil later that year, a live album titled for the venue, with Stroeter as a full member of the lineup. A longstanding concert and performance hall located on the University of Sao Paulo campus; all three men had cut their performing teeth playing there. The raucous, wildly experimental fusion concert was the last hosted by the venue -- it was torn down in 2014. By this time, the trio was being celebrated across Europe as well as Brazil, and played the jazz festival circuit on tour. Caixa Cubo shifted gears again for 2014's Misturada, their fourth and final crowdfunded effort. The set consists of tribute covers to great masters of Brazilian music including Hermeto Pascoal, Moacir Santos, Edu Lobo, and Dorival Caymmi juxtaposed with original compositions. It included guest spots by saxophonist/clarinetist Nailor Proveta and saxophonist Teco Cardoso. In support, the group toured for nearly two solid years, playing every major jazz festival in Europe, Brazil, and the rest of South America. Released in February 2018, Enigma: A Música de Garoto, arrived on Pau Brasil. The 15-track set offered a moving, wildly sophisticated tribute to composer and guitarist Aníbal Augusto Sardinha (aka Garoto, 1915-1955), one of Brazil's greatest composers. Playing it (mostly) straight, Caixa Cubo offered extended, swinging interplay and canny improvisation. In August they issued Saturno. Recorded at the end of 2015 at Sambatá Studio, the sweet, grooving set revealed the trio's debut to Azymuth by flexing its melodic fusion muscle across a dozen deeply accessible yet visionary tracks that won over hordes of British and German DJs who spun their recordings on the air and in the best clubs. During a tour break just before the year ended, they committed another seven tracks to tape and returned to the road. In 2021, in the aftermath of the pandemic quarantine, Caixa Cubo returned to touring and in September released Angela, an EP drawn from the fusion tracks cut in 2018. The Angela EP, released by Heavenly Sweetness, put the trio on the map in North America. Its liner notes claimed a dialogue between themselves, electric Brazilian sounds from the '70s, and contemporary beats by Yussef Kamaal and others. Angela also included their first vocal cut in "Palavras," intimately sung by Zé Leônidas. Further, the band covered Egberto Gismonti's "Baião Malandro" and "Dark Prince," jazz pianist/composer Geri Allen's Miles Davis homage. They toured behind the date across 2022, playing to sold-out houses in Europe, South America, and at jazz festivals. The ever-ambitious Caixa Cubo released Agôra on Jazz & Milk in March 2023 while they were on tour. In many ways a culmination of the musical terrains they'd visited, it differed from the rest of their catalog due to the appearance of singers on each track. While their preoccupation with fusion remained, the soulful, spectral lyric melodies reflected influences such as Roy Ayers and Norman Connors. The set's vocalists included Leônidas, Eric Owusu (Jembaa Groove), Bongani Givethanks, and Mpho Nkuzo, Matthias Schriefl, Rebecca Zeigler, and Eduardo Camargo. Caixa Cubo signed with England's Far Out Recordings in late 2023 and re-entered the studio. In November 2024 they emerged with Modo Avião, an album that reflected the tradition of non-vocal Brazilian music from the late 1960s to the 2000s, while extending its rhythmic and harmonic possibilities further into the 21st century. Their collective understanding of their country's history, and Brazilian rhythm in particular, led to their exploration fusing carnival marches, frevo, and baião with jazz, MPB, and funk.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo