Viceversa Duo brings international flavor to jazz performance

Monday night, Brazil will meet Italy right here in Olympia.

Olympia Jazz Central’s weekly jazz series will host Viceversa Duo, composed of Brazilian composer/guitarist Guinga and Italian composer/pianist Stefania Tallini.

“Guinga is famous,” said Betsy Perkins, who organizes the series. “He’s known all over Brazil. It’s amazing that he’s coming into town.”

Perkins met Tallini and Guinga at California Brazil Camp, held each summer in Cazadero, California. To the musicians and dancers who attend the camp, Guinga is “a big guru,” she said.

Tallini, meanwhile, is famous and critically acclaimed throughout Europe. Perkins wanted to hear the pianist play and spoke with her about coming to the Northwest.

This is far from the first time that famous musicians have played the Monday shows, which typically draw crowds of 40-70 people.

Past players include Hot Club Sandwich, Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto and Greta Matassa, along with such local luminaries as LaVon Hardison and the Olympia Jazz Senators.

Perkins reaches out to touring musicians through social media and when she travels, and many also contact her. “They have heard about the venue and the crowd,” she said. “Olympia fans are beloved by many jazz groups because they really listen.”

This is an involved audience of jazz lovers, many of whom are themselves musicians. Fans have hosted, transported and fed traveling artists. That kind of support helps the series attract artists who typically play bigger venues in bigger markets.

The Viceversa Duo, though, is a rare treat anywhere.

Tallini and Guinga, who are a couple offstage as well as on, spend most of their time working on separate projects in separate countries. (Tallini lives in Rome and Guinga in Rio de Janeiro.)

They do short tours together just a few times a year; on this trip, they’ll also play in Austin, Texas, and Berkeley, California.

“We are in a long-distance relationship,” Tallini said in an email interview earlier this week. “We see each other every time it’s possible, in many different countries, and often play together, too.”

Before she met Guinga in Naples in 2007, she was a fan. “I met his songs before knowing him, and I loved very much his music,” she said.

They became musical partners just three years ago, when Tallini invited Guinga to play on her album, “Viceversa.”

Although they have different musical backgrounds and aren’t fluent in one another’s languages, the two connect easily through music.

“Music is all one,” she said. “When there’s a great feeling between musicians, differences only add to the richness. We share the beauty. As it is in life!”

This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 2:08 AM with the headline "Viceversa Duo brings international flavor to jazz performance."