Ivan Santos

THE GRAMMY

On 3 November 2005 the song “Ninguém faz idéia“ – a cooperation of Ivan Santos and Lenine – won the prize of “best Brazilian song in Portuguese language” at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. That day many people, for the first time, read Ivan Santos’ name in several Brazilian and some US-American newspapers. But already before this certainly surprising success, Ivan Santos had enjoyed a long career, started in his native state of Paraíba in North East Brazil.

THE LIFE

Ivan Santos was born in Paraíba, where folk culture developed its characteristics from the centuries-old amalgamation of Indigenous, African, Portuguese and Arabian elements. In this region, Ivan Santos started to make music, before he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he lived for 13 years as a professional musician and songwriter. During that time, he wrote music for television programmes and theatre, and the songs for a musical by the artist Claudia Raia. Since then, many renowned Brazilian artists like Ney Matogrosso, Paula Toller, Erasmo Carlos and Pedro Luís e a Parede have recorded his songs.

Ivan has been living for more than ten years in Frankfurt, but during that time he has always been present in the Brazilian musical scene. In 2005 two of his compositions in collaboration with his former partner Lenine were very successful: As mentioned beforehand, “Ninguém faz idéia” won a Grammy, and “Do It” was nominated “best song” at “Prêmio Tim” 2005.

SONGS FROM NOWHERE - THE CD

“Songs From Nowhere” is the CD of a songwriter contemplating his country from a distance and reflecting on his first ten years in Europe in a positive way. The album was produced almost exclusively in Frankfurt but completed in Rio de Janeiro, with the special collaboration of various Brazilian artists like the already mentioned Lenine. With his work, Ivan Santos follows Brazilian songwriter traditions. In his compositions, he blends traditional Brazilian tunes with modern and urban world music, showing that the “feelings of his village” are universal.

Therefore his music is never unfamiliar to his audience, whether in Brazil or in Europe. Everyone who listens closely can identify oneself easily with the different facets of the compositions, because they include elements of the pop music of the seventies, the blues of the thirties and the grooves of the year zero and the new millennium. Africa, the Caribbean, both Americas and Europe are present. Ivan Santos expresses his feelings in a very special way. The way he makes his music is still relatively unknown in Europe, but also quite unique for Brazil. It is fascinatingly simple music, yet full of surprises in its arrangements and interpretation.
THE SHOW

Humorous entertainment and innovation are the major ingredients of his concerts. The band presents the songs of the CD, without ever copying them one to one, and plays other compositions by Santos and several cover versions of traditional music. Baião and Coco, traditional rhythms of North East Brazil, are almost always part of the concert, but there is much more to discover. Funk, reggae and rock grooves are blended naturally and almost as a matter of course with Brazilian rhythms. In doing so, his band not only develops “its own sound” but even “many own sounds”. On stage the musicians take turns at playing the various instruments, carrying the audience off into the most varied atmospheres of sound. In its concerts almost all over Germany and in countries like France, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, Croatia etc., the band thus presents an incredible richness of rhythms and sounds. .