Sussex-based Splash Point Music has signed Brazilian jazz musician Ricardo Herz for a representation, distribution, and publishing deal, and plan to release Aqui é o meu lá, the violinist’s first album for the label, his fourth in all, on 5 August. This album marks Herz’s return to Brazil after a long spell living in Paris where he studied with the great Didier Lockwood. Herz is joined on the album by Pedro Ito on drums and Michi Ruzitschka, seven-string guitar, in a set that encompasses the north-east Brazilian folk dance style forrós, ballads, and chamamés, a southern Brazilian style also heard in Argentina. Splashpoint, best known for its albums by singers Ian Shaw and Liane Carroll, make the move after label head Neal Richardson heard Herz at the JazzAhead expo in Germany in the spring. Richardson enthuses: “When I saw Ricardo’s trio light up the hall at Bremen, I felt he was the perfect ambassador to take Brazil's priceless musical culture and fuse it with a modern jazz approach.”
Ricardo Herz above. Photo: Alê Gonçalves