I met Sérgio Alves when he was playing with the Groovelvets. I immediately felt I was dealing with a special musician. It wasn’t easy to find a keyboard player that could embody the different expressions of African- American music, and its characteristicgroove in Portugal among the musicians of my generation.
Even though I had been A&R for over twenty years, I just came across with the special João Gomes, and little else. Sharing the love for the African- American sounds, straightened our relationship, and I had the privilege of having all the keyboards on my mini-LP Bonfim, played by Sérgio. I was also able to see the development of the initial demos, the raw material that was in the origin of Azar Azar, the musical adventure in which, for the first time, he fully exposes his artistic personality.
He debuted the project with an E.P., on the brand new andadmirable Jazzego, in 2020.
Although only two of the five songs, that make up the EP, are original work (the remaining three are remixes by K15, Minus + MRDolly and Esa), the record was a beautiful calling card, but it hadn't prepared me for the piece of work that was about to come to my hands.
Like other musicians of his generation, Sérgio Alves grew up in the midst of the development of Hip Hop, House, Techno, Broken Beat and many other expressions of the most modern dance music. He even has 20 years of a consistent career as a Dj. And that seems to have contributed to the way he consolidates his musical personality, allowing him to control an immensity of musical impulses.
It is true that his compositions are settled in Jazz Funk, but, throughout the eight tracks of his debut LP, we can feel the inspiration of huge figures such as Roy Ayers, George Duke or Donald Byrd that are intersected by the presence of a kaleidoscopic variety of genres that have filled dance floors, from Detroit to New York or London, in such a way that allows the creation of piece of music that can be seen as autonomous, intense, stimulating, personalized and relevant in any place of the planet.
