Mark Tonelli: Brasiliana
Artists Recording Collective

As “Brasiliana” refers to works that celebrate Brazilian culture (much as “Canadiana” and “Americana” do the same for their respective countries), it's a fitting choice of title for this deeply personal statement by American guitarist Mark Tonelli. He's physically rooted in Illinois, but his heart's seemingly in Brazil. After all, he made numerous trips to the country between 2022 and 2025, and the album he recorded there partners him with an all-Brazilian cast. He'd longed for three decades to visit the country and was finally able to do so as a Fulbright Scholar to teach music at a university.

After returning home, he visited eleven more times to fully absorb the country's culture and way of life until the thirteenth trip found him laying down Brasiliana with Raphael Ferreira (tenor and soprano saxophones), Guilherme Ribeiro (piano), Richard Metairon (bass), and Rodrigo “Digão” Braz (drums) at Faculdade Souza Lima, a college of music in São Paulo. His connection to the country and sincere love for the locale permeates every aspect of the project. While what it was specifically about the country that so completely drew him to it in the first place isn't clarified, it was likely the sultry languor of the music and the warmth of its people.

That the material sometimes plays like a fusion of American and Brazilian genres is only natural, given the personnel involved. That makes for an album that blends the best of both worlds into material that genuinely qualifies as world music. Even so, the nine tracks separate into some that are more Brazil-oriented and others reflecting Tonelli's jazzier side (a scan of the titles suggests six fall into the former camp, three the latter).

Brasiliana begins with the bossa nova-styled “Velha Alma” (meaning “old soul”), the first piece Tonelli wrote after returning from his first visit to the country. With a seductive rhythm in place from the outset, Tonelli undergirds Ferreira's gently singing soprano with chords that gradually blossom into a confident solo expression. Metairon and Braz eschew rote accompaniment for breezy, high-energy playing that's free and responsive to what the guitarist and saxophonist are doing. The album is essentially a quartet date, as Ribeiro appears on one piece only, the geometrically designed “Four-Sided Circle.” Structured in four parts, the enticing piece opens with intricately entwining parts before easing into a funk-jazz episode, the complex compositional form initially emphasizing the tightness of ensemble playing before solos appear. Up first, the pianist delivers a soulful, grandly swelling statement that sets the stage for the exuberant sweep of Tonelli's own probing turn and Ferreira's wailing tenor statement.

Titled after a letter the guitarist's Brazilian wife Luciana sent him during time apart (she lives in Brazil and thus far from her husband when he's in the United States), “Minha Felicidade É Estar Com Você” (“My happiness is being with you”) celebrates their relationship with joy as opposed to sadness. Here and elsewhere, the quartet format lends itself effectively to the material in granting all four space to move within and for the trajectory of each instrument to be monitored with clarity. On a more downtempo tip are the heartfelt ballad "A Solidão Não Tem Cura,” swoon-inducing bossa nova “Doi Mas É Bom,” evocative, rubato-styled reverie “Praça Jardim Finotti,” and soothing, set-ending ballad “End of An Era.”

March 2026