Brian Lopes is amazing. I’d never heard of him until he was featured on the Eclectic Mix podcast a few days ago. The podcast describes his music “a high energy expedition crossing from jazz to R&B to funk and back again.” On his website, Brian Lopes lists as his influences John Coltrane, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, and Cannonball Adderly. These are some of my favorite musicians, and listening to Lopes is like listening to all of these at once.
Apparently he only recently started recording with his own group, the Brian Lopes Trio. According to the podcast, Brian Lopes has played with Chick Corea, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and other well known musicians. Finding his music is difficult, but you can buy his first CD at Blue Canoe Records. (Apparently you can’t actually buy a physical CD, but you can buy the MP3 files, sans DRM, that make up the CD.)
Image credit: Eclectic Mix podcast