The best label devoted to Brazilian Jazz, headed by legendary producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro.
Voted one of the world's top 10 labels by DownBeat magazine from 2001 to 2006.
JSR-LA
9930 Liebe Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90210
JSR-NY
PO Box 1338
Radio City Station
New York, NY 10003
Please do no send unsolicited CDs, DVDs or any kind of promo material to these addresses.
Any unsolicited packets will be returned unopened.
Please send me a private message with a press release first. Thanks!
Biography by Alex Henderson from www.allmusic.com (All Music Guide)
In Brazilian jazz circles, Arnaldo DeSouteiro commands the sort of respect and admiration that Orrin Keepnews and Quincy Jones enjoy in the United States — he is a heavyweight producer who has worked with his share of major Brazilian artists, just as Keepnews and Jones are famous for the American artists they've worked with. The list of Brazilian stars DeSouteiro has produced includes João Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, Dom Um Romao, Ithamara Koorax, Thiago de Mello, Dexter Payne, Mario Castro-Neves, Jorge Pescara, Paula Faour, Fabio Fonseca, Marcelo Salazar, Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Yana Purim, Claudio Roditi, Palmyra & Levita, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Eumir Deodato and João Donato, among many others.
Comparisons to Keepnews and Jones are valid not only because of DeSouteiro's work as producer, but also because of the historic perspective he brings to the table; DeSouteiro is a musicologist/historian who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Brazilian music (both jazz and pop) as well as non-Brazilian jazz and the European classical tradition. DeSouteiro could spend hours talking about the many styles of music that have come from Brazil, and he is knowledgeable of everything from bossa nova, samba, and tropicalismo (also known as tropicalia) to choro, forro, baião, and lambada. He is well-versed in Rio de Janeiro styles as well as the Afro-Brazilian music that comes from Bahia and other parts of Northeastern Brazil.
However, DeSouteiro isn't as old as either Jones or Keepnews; both of them are old enough to be his father. DeSouteiro (who is fluent in both Portuguese and English) was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 28, 1963. His mother is veteran classical pianist Delza Agricola, who did a lot to encourage her son's interest in music. By the time DeSouteiro was 15 in 1979, he was freelancing as a music journalist and was writing a weekly column for Tribuna da Imprensa (one of Rio's daily newspapers). He went on to freelance for a variety of other publications (including Keyboard magazine-USA and Spain's Cuadernos de Jazz), and it was in the '80s that he started making a name for himself as a producer.
By the time he was in his late thirties, the carioca had already produced more than 50 albums — now, in 2009, his discography includes over 250 items. That is in addition to producing specials for Brazilian television (for Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Tony Bennett, Dizzy Gillespie, Chuck Mangione, Airto Moreira & Flora Purim) and providing liner notes for countless CDs by such artists as Bill Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Toots Thielemans, Stan Getz, Jeff Linsky, Eliane Elias and Paulo Bellinati. In the '90s and early 2000s, he had an ongoing relationship with RCA/BMG's Brazilian division and was overseeing quite a few of their jazz and pop reissues (many of which he wrote liner notes for) featuring Flora Purim, Raul de Souza, Sergio Mendes, Sivuca, Rosinha de Valença, Carlos Lyra, Ivan Lins, João Donato, Trio 3D, Deodato, Tamba Trio, Miucha and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Besides producing such best-selling compilations as the "Trip to Brazil" series (up to now 5 volumes released from 1998 to 2006 by Verve/Universal), "Brazilian Horizons" (Milestone/Fantasy) and "CTI Acid Jazz Grooves" (CTI/King), he has also supervised many reissues for the CTI and KUDU labels in Japan, including albums by Ron Carter, Johnny Hammond, Hank Crawford, Joe Beck, David Matthews, Deodato, Jobim, Phil Upchurch, Idris Muhammad, Esther Phillips, Lonnie Smith, and Grant Green.
Mr. DeSouteiros - Brazil's leading jazz producer, music journalist, publicist, radio DJ, and educator - is the founder and President of JSR (Jazz Station Records), a voting member of NARAS, the only Brazilian member of the JJA-NY (Jazz Jornalists Association), and since 1991 he conducts clinics and seminars all over the world as an Associate Member of the IAJE (International Association for Jazz Education, previously known as International Association of Jazz Educators). In 2007, he has produced 26 albums, including three recent compilations for the Verve label: "Summer in the City - The Soul Jazz Grooves of Quincy Jones", "Do It Again - The Fantastic Jazz-Funk of Eumir Deodato", and "Bossa Nova Singers, featuring João Gilberto."
