As the founder and leader of the group Homenagem Brasileira, San Francisco-based vocalist/educator Sandy Cressman has had many opportunities over the past 20 years to forge creative partnerships with like-minded musicians from the Bay Area to Brazil. Her charming new album, “Entre Amigos,” set to be released in February by Cressman Music, marks the culmination of these relationships and is a celebration of her own deep history with music and musicians.
Although the new CD is her first new recording since “Brasil – Sempre no Coração,” from 2005, a project dedicated to definitive songs by MPB (música popular brasileira) masters, Cressman has never strayed far from music. As an educator and a central figure in a bustling creative family that includes her husband, longtime Santana trombonist and recording engineer Jeff Cressman; her eldest daughter, New York trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman; and her youngest daughter, Los Angeles dancer Julianna Cressman, she has maintained lasting musical ties with some of the region’s finest musicians. There’s nothing like being overly burdened with commitments to focus the mind, and Cressman has created a captivating set of responses to the self-questioning inquiry: “What do I really want to do with this music?”
“For a good while, I focused on exploring the treasures of the existing Brazilian music repertoire,” says Cressman. “But at a certain point, I started composing and inviting people to collaborate, and ‘Entre Amigos’ brings together many of those incredible connections.”
Among the collaborators on the new CD are rising Brazilian-American guitarist Ian Faquini (“Nossa História,” “Deixa a Amor Florescer”), pianist/composer Jovino Santos Neto (“Para Hermeto”), Brazilian jazz master Antonio Adolfo (“Eu Vou Lembrar”), and São Paulo-based samba-jazz duo Dani and Debora Gurgel (“Como Eu Quero Cantar”). Significantly, ‘Entre Amigos’ opens a new chapter for Cressman as a songwriter; she contributed lyrics, in both Portuguese and English, to all the tracks on the album, and also wrote music and lyrics for “Ela É,” recorded in Germany with Santana’s 2010 rhythm section, including Dennis Chambers, and for “Não Me Acorde Não,” which tells the story of her and her husband’s participation in the 2015 Carnival in Recife with renowned frevo composer/bandleader from Pernambuco, Spok, and his Spok Frevo Big Band.
That performance, and her return to Recife to record with Spok earlier this year, resulted in an intriguing invitation. When the music director of the Paço do Frevo (Museum of Frevo) learned of her recording project, he proposed a cultural exchange with local frevo musicians: the Cressmans will perform a concert and master classes at the Paço do Frevo the week before Carnival 2017, and then perform at Carnival with the Spok Frevo Orchestra.
Sandy continues to work with Homenagem Brasileira, as well as with Mistura Fina, a more recent Latin jazz combo led by guitarist Ray Obiedo (a longtime musical partner with whom she co-wrote “Eu Mais Você” from “Entre Amigos”). In recent months, she has collaborated with the acclaimed Electric Squeezebox Orchestra of 17 musicians led by trumpeter Erik Jekabson, performed with world jazz pioneer Jai Uttal, and celebrated the music of Guinga with Faquini and flutist Rebecca Kleinmann. Somehow, all paths seem to lead her back to Brazil.
“I’m excited that my musical horizons are expanding,” she says. “For many years, I was very centered in Rio, focused on bossa nova, samba, and Brazilian jazz. This record brings São Paulo samba jazz, Northeastern rhythms like frevo and maracatu. I keep meeting these people with different areas of expertise and knowledge, and it’s so inspiring and invigorating to be part of creating these songs.