Jorge Continentino: (Saxophone & Flute player, composer and arranger)
Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Jorge comes from a musical family. His
parents, both musicians themselves, introduced their children to music at an early age, in an environment where Jazz and Bossa-Nova were played live or on the stereo all day long. He began working as a professional musician at the age of 15, and has recorded and performed onstage with many of Brazils most respected musicians, such as Milton Nascimento, Durval Ferreira, Marisa Monte, Ramiro Musotto, Bebel Gilberto, Zeca Balero, Edu Lobo, Skank, Marina Machado,
Sandra de Sa, and Telo Borges.
In 2000 he put a band together with his brothers, Kiko and Alberto Continentino, keyboardist and bassist respectively, called the
ContinenTrio. Together they have played in numerous jazz festivals and recorded two specials for the Rede Minas television network in Brazil.
In 2003 they released an album self-entitled ContinenTrio, with all original compositions and arrangements. Later the same year, Jorge recorded his solo album, Jorge Continentino-Portrait, made up of his own compositions, and three by his brother, Alberto. Jorge has also a not released album with a percussionist and producer from Argentina, Ramiro Musotto, where he plays different kinds of wood flutes, called Pifanos, a type of flute used in the northeast of Brazil. This album brings together his own compositions and other well known songs like Asa Branca and O Baiao by Luiz Gonzaga, and have Moraes Moreira as a guest. This is a project that he wishes to release some day, a very special album that brought up to him the desire of explore the wooden flutes and the music from northeast of Brasil.
In August of 2004 Jorge moved to NYC.
In 2005 he joined Bebel Gilberto's band and worked with her for 2 years.
Here are some of the people that Jorge performed or/and recorded with: Brazilian Girls, Guilherme Monteiro, Duduka da Fonseca, Bebel Gilberto, David Byrne, Jason Lindner, Baba Israel, Davi Vieira, Miho Nobuzane, Carlos Darci, Vanderlei Pereira, Red-Hot + Rio, Juini Booth, Leonardo Cioglia, Chiara Civello, Steve Earle, Slide Hampton, Edmar Castaneda, Ze' Luis, Valtinho Anastacio, Miho Hatori, Ilhan Ershahin, Wax Poetics, Maracatu New York and the Nation Beat, Cyro Baptista, Gilmar Gomes, among others.
On the first month in NYC he joined the Forro in the Dark, witch was a project already going on at Nublu started by Mauro Refosco two years before. With his Pifanos (wooden flute from Brazil) he fit so well on the project and the so far called "project" became the band "Forro in the Dark", with Davi Vieira, Guilherme Monteiro, Mauro Refosco, Smokey Hormel and Jorge Continentino. They recorded the album "Bonfires of Sao Joao" in 2006 for Nublu Records with David Byrne, Bebel Gilberto and Miho Hatori as guests. After a while Smokey got out of the band. The four other guys, Mauro, Davi, Guilherme and Jorge recorded then the EP entitled "Dia de Roda" in 2008, still with Nublu Records. Forro in the Dark is finishing a new album soon to be released in this year of 2009.
Jorge also has his jazz group going on every Wednesday at Nublu,
playing before Forro in the Dark. He uses it to explore, test, develop new sounds and plays with lots of different great jazz musicians in town. When Guilherme Monteiro is in town they share the compositions and lead together the quartet. Some of the cats you can
catch playing with him: Anthony Pinccioti, Ferenc Nemeth, Alexis
Cuadrado, Jochen Ruckert, Jason Lindner, Omer Klein, Yotam Silberstein, Leonardo Cioglia, Daniel Freedman, Adriano Santos, Itaiguara Brandao, Leco Reis, Helio Alves, to name a few.
Check out Jorge's cds at: www.cdbaby.com/continentino and
www.cdbaby.com/continentrio
