Album Notes

The only son of a classical pianist father and Brazilian mother, from birth Andy Villas-Bôas was surrounded with wonderfully diverse music from opera to samba. Upon taking up the guitar at age thirteen, he began to experience music as a means of access to the river of unconscious-supernatural potential present in all phenomenon. Andy Villas-Bôas has worked extensively in the San Diego Area bringing his unique Brazilian sensibility to audiences through a variety of popular and world music styles. Although known as a songwriter, instrumentalist, interpreter and improviser, Villas-Bôas uses his passionate yet smooth voice as the primary vehicle of expressing the hidden dimensions within him to listeners.


Andy Villas-Bôas's expansive vocal range has taken flight in locales from coffee houses, weddings and restaurants to jazz clubs and festival stages. Villas-Bôas began playing bass in several reggae and rock groups during his high-school years in North San Diego County. At the University of Oregon in Eugene, he continued writing and playing bass in reggae and pop groups, while studying voice and classical guitar techniques. After working abroad in Spain and South Korea, in 1994 Villas-Bôas returned to Southern California where he joined the Super Sonic Samba School, a non-profit grass-roots cultural organization dedicated to spreading a message of social justice through the power and joy of Brazilian music and dance. Since then, he has continued to pursue an array of musical activities. He has sang with several local jazz artists including Peter Sprague, played bass in an afro-beat house orchestra as well as being involved in many other improvisatory situations. At the present time, Andy Villas-Bôas is involved with several projects. Middle Earth Ensemble is a group playing "Gypsy-World-Fusion" music whose members take inspiration from traditions of the Middle-East and Mediterranean. Other groups include the Brazilian forró group Banda Braza, and the alternative-textural grooves of Starline Theorie.

In 2001 Andy Villas-Bôas released two CDs. "Aire", is a sensual tapestry of soaring Brazilian jazz with original songs in Portuguese and English, featuring the lush production and guitar work of local jazz hero Peter Sprague. The second release is "The Super Sonic Samba School Invites Andy Villas-Bôas to Swirl". Again with original songs in English and Portuguese, this recording highlights Villas-Boas's songwriting and vocal stylings while showcasing the pulsating carnaval rhythms of Brazil. Several tracks from "Swirl" have landed on compilations of local artists, while "Aire" has received air-play on KSDS and spinner.com. "Sacanagem Total", a track from Aire, appears on National Geographic's "Focus on Brazil" compilation CD, alongside such names as Caetano and MorenoVeloso and Sergio Mendes.