Chorazz:  it’s a contraction of Choro and Jazz. It all began in the late 2000s during a sweltering summer. Four friends got together in the studio for the sheer joy of playing. The music would be Brazilian. Without sheet music, without planning, they played jazz standards. The sound was immediate, and  

Chorazz was born (Maxime Blésin, Osman Martins, Steve Houben, and Renato Martins).Then, time slipped away. The recordings lay dormant on hard drives as life took the musicians in different directions. In late 2022, after the passing of Osman Martins and Steve Houben’s retirement, Maxime Blésin rediscovered these forgotten sessions. The emotion was still palpable: this music had to live on. Today,  

Chorazz  is reborn, a testament to their shared heritage. Maxime takes up the cavaquinho, Pierre Gillet picks up the 7-string guitar again, Renato Martins continues to provide the rhythm section, and Greg Houben makes the trumpet sing.More than a tribute, it’s a passing of the torch. Pure, radiant, and soulful music that proves that the bonds of the heart are the most beautiful themes in jazz.

(The Choro)

Choro follows the same path as Ragtime and other movements that gave birth to Jazz in the United States, namely a reappropriation of a European classical repertoire within a popular music with African and Native American influences. What was initially played on the piano was adapted to other instruments: the pandeiro (a typically Brazilian percussion instrument of North African origin), the 7-string guitar (with an additional bass string for playing the bass), the cavaquinho (a small guitar from Madeira), and so on. Choro was born. Its meaning is “to weep” (under the influence of so much emotion and beauty!). Today, it has its own repertoire and is at the origin of all so-called urban music in Brazil (samba, pagode, etc.). It is a common vocabulary for all Brazilian musicians.

That is why he lives so intensely this music, the popular music of the Americas and its link with classical music, from his first notes played on a piano at his grandfather’s, a Chopin fan, to the classical guitar in Brazil, passing through the percussion he played during the Rio carnival parades, in which he participated 5 times, Jazz and finally, the Cavaquinho.

Maxime Blésin – cavaquinho

Pierre Gillet – guitar

Renato Martins – percussion

Greg Houben – trumpet

8:30 pm – €14 / €7 (students)

Source : Lanvert website