Não confundir com (Do not confuse with) is a Portuguese free improvising trio with unconventional instrumentation that formed in 2021 and works with textural and expanded harmonic possibilities in improvised languages. The trio features three young musicians – vocal artist Nazaré da Silva, Copenhagen-based alto sax player João Gato, a former student of Peter Evans and Lotte Anker, and double bass player Zé Almeida, who has played in da Silva’s debut album, Gingko (Robalo Music, 2021), and plays in American sax player John O’Gallagher’s bands.
Cumprir qualquer propósito (Fulfilling any purpose) is the trio, recorded live at Porta Jazz and Penhasco in Lisbon in June and July 2024. The album offers seven improvisations – or seven eccentric pieces of advice about what one should not confuse with – a dry opening, a suite, a silent revenge, a sonic chorus, the 4th secret of Fatima (which had only three prophetic messages revealed by the Virgin Mary), and the last one that did not fulfil the purpose of an ending.
This trio weaves free-associative, playful textures with the singing, spiralling voices of da Silve and Gato, while Almeida anchors their flights and provides the solid rhythmic basis. The trio has developed its unique, ever-changing, and layered language, based on deep, emphatic synergy and spatial awareness, microtonal sonic explorations, and soft, timbral deviations, allowing the trio to swing between the openly emotional and sensual, lyrical, and poetic, and the experimental and even the bizarre.
Eyal Hareuveni
Nazaré da Silva (voice), João Gato (alto saxophone), Zé Almeida (double bass)
