Rob Mazurek has one foot planted north in Chicago and the other south in São Paulo, and he draws from the music of both cities on the atmospheric, exuberant Skull Sessions. Beginning in the '90s, the cornetist became a guiding force in Windy City avant jazz, post-rock, and electronica with the Chicago Underground, Tortoise, and Isotope 217, and he carried his ever inquisitive sensibility to Brazil in the new millennium, forming São Paulo Underground with Mauricio Takara (drums, percussion, cavaquinho -- a Brazilian ukulele) and later Guilherme Granado (keyboards, electronics), both of whom appear on Skull Sessions. Recorded at São Paulo's Teatro do SESC Pinheiros in November 2011, Skull Sessions is a recording by the Rob Mazurek Octet, which in addition to Mazurek, Takara, and Granado features Swiss-born Brazil resident Thomas Rohrer on rabeca (a Brazilian fiddle) and Carlos Issa on guitar and electronics along with three of Mazurek's Chicago collaborators: flutist Nicole Mitchell, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, and drummer John Herndon. In a sense, one might expand -- at least in spirit -- the band to include the presence of Miles Davis, because Skull Sessions was conceived by Mazurek to be performed in São Paulo in conjunction with the traveling We Want Miles multimedia exhibition and tribute.

1		Galactic Ice Skeleton
2		Voodoo and the Petrified Forest
3		Passing Light Screams
4		Skull Caves of Alderon
5		Keeping the Light Up

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