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Luís Lopes

Averse to any linearity, the Idiosyncratic Luís Lopes, a musician connected to Jazz, improvised and experimental music, has been building his career, a simple and singular story, characterised by a unique voice, free of corsets, formal ties or constraints and mannerisms regarding strict stilistical implications. He is an unfollower… experiments himself through paradoxes. Invokes teachings by following standards of subversion to any possibility of pre-established idea. Eminent self-subversion… Introspective timeless trance.

Running Multi-international groups, especially his Humanization 4tet (with Portuguese Rodrigo Amado and Texan’s Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez), Lisbon Berlin Trio (with Germans Christian Lillinger, Robert Landfermann), and his “Noise” or “Love Song(s)” Solos, plus his highly recommended records he is growing as an international artist, playing at important Festivals and venues not just in Portugal but in Europe and U.S.

Coming from a rock/punk and blues background, while studying at local classic and rock schools, he began studying Jazz at Hot Club Portugal School and then was finalist at Escola de Jazz do Barreiro/Lisbon. Then did studies with Saxophonist Joe Giardullo who opened for him the doors of modern jazz harmony complexity through the George Russell’s “Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”, plunging Lopes into the world of improvised and experimental music, without disregard for his fascination with distorion and guitar feedbacks, expressed in different incursions into noise music, while also canalizes energys towards projects where he can develop his composing abilities.

In more recent times, Lopes has played and / or recorded with different artists connected to jazz and improvised music, such as Noel Akchoté, Christian Lillinger, Robert Landfermann, Marco Von Orelly, Marc Unternahrer, Adam Lane, Igal Foni, Floros Floridis, Joe Giardulo, Harvey Sorgen, Benjamin Duboc, Phill Niblock, Ernesto Rodrigues, Paulo Curado, Sei Miguel, Rodrigo Amado, Hernâni Faustino, Gabriel Ferrandini, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Miguel Mira, Aaron Gonzalez, Stefan Gonzalez, Dennis Gonzalez, Elliot Levin, Alfred Hart, Daniel Levin, Reuben Radding, Daniel Carter, Jeb Bishop, Josh Abrams, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Samuel Blaser, Boris Hauf, Evan Parker, Olivier Benoit, Fred Lomberg-holm, Valentin Ceccaldi, Gonçalo Almeida, among many others. Source: Luis Lopes

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2
Album Review

Luís Lopes: Believe, Believe

Read "Believe, Believe" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo aver debuttato dodici anni fa con la Clean Feed (Humanization 4tet) e inciso due dischi con la francese Ayler Records (Electricity del 2010 e Live in Madison del 2013) il gruppo texano-portoghese torna a pubblicare con l'etichetta di Pedro Costa, riproponendo la vibrante e infuocata miscela di free jazz storico con sonorità heavy metal, noise e appassionanti riferimenti al blues e al funk. L'ensemble è tra i protagonisti di quella nicchia che tiene alta la bandiera dell'improvvisazione ...

9
Album Review

Luis Lopes Humanization 4tet: Believe, Believe

Read "Believe, Believe" reviewed by John Sharpe


For a multinational unit to persist, it must offer sufficient justifications to outweigh the logistical challenges. For Portuguese guitarist Luís Lopes, his Humanization Quartet clearly earns its existence. Believe, Believe is the outfit's fourth album since the recording of its debut in 2007, even though it is some years since the third Live In Madison (Ayler, 2013). While fellow countryman tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado completes the front line, the rhythm section comprises two Texas-based brothers, bassist Aaron Gonzalez and drummer ...

4
Album Review

Luís Lopes: Love Song: Post-Ruins

Read "Love Song: Post-Ruins" reviewed by Mark Corroto


You may be familiar with the Robert Frost poem “Acquainted with the Night" from your high school literature class. Back then, what did you know of melancholy? Sure there was the darkness of adolescence, but also the possibilities. The poem, in 14 short lines, follows the same terza rima rhyme scheme as Dante's Divine Comedy ("In the midst of life's journey I found myself in a dark wood, for the right path was lost"), and also the same anguish. Guitarist ...

5
Album Review

Luís Lopes: Guillotine

Read "Guillotine" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Many people know the opening lines of Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." But how many remember the author goes on to report on an age of wisdom/foolishness, an epoch of belief/incredulity, a season of light/darkness and the spring of hope/winter of despair? He certainly could be writing about recycling/climate warming, diversity/white supremacists and tolerance/religious extremists. Revolution is a suitable topic for Portuguese guitarist Luís ...

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Album Review

Parrinha / Lopes / Jacinto: Garden

Read "Garden" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


On a global basis, Portuguese guitarist Luis Lopes may be the more recognizable artist of the trio due to his longtime affiliation with Clean Feed Records via its worldly outreach. But his fellow countrymen, reedman Bruno Parrinha and cellist / electronics ace Ricardo Jacinto have been in the thick of things amid the newer horizons approach to jazz and improvisation on the European front. Garden is a sojourn into an alien musical world, as the band seemingly derives ...

3
Album Review

Luís Lopes: Love Song

Read "Love Song" reviewed by Mark Corroto


I would never arbitrarily dictate the when and how one should consume a particular recording. But, may I suggest that you only listen to the recording Love Song by Portuguese guitarist Luís Lopes</em> late at night and with the lights off (at least for the first time)?. This is not the celebratory {{m: Frank Sinatra music Songs For Swingin' Lovers (Capitol, 1956) sessions, but more like the In the Wee Small Hours (Capitol, 1955) heartbroken lover. That is, if the ...

2
Album Review

Luís Lopes: Noise Solo At ZDB Lisbon

Read "Noise Solo At ZDB Lisbon" reviewed by Mark Corroto


If the feedback and heavy distortion segments of Jimi Hendrix's performance of “The Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock 1969 were your favorite parts, you might be a noise connoisseur. The art of noise first described by the Italian futurists blossomed in the 1960s and was drawn heavily upon for the DIY and punk revolutions of the 1980s. Today, noise operates as its own separate genre but it is drawn upon by jazz musicians from the Brotzmanns (Peter and Caspar) to ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Believe, Believe

Clean Feed Records
2020

buy

Garden

Clean Feed Records
2016

buy

Noise Solo At ZDB...

Self Produced
2014

buy

Live in Madison

Ayler Records
2013

buy

Humanization 4tet

Clean Feed Records
2008

buy

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