BIRD & BECKETT CULTURAL LEGACY PROJECT
Veterans of the Bossa Nova! The late-Sunday-night house band of the famed Club Deluxe, long-time favorite of the late Jay Johnson, the Deluxe’s heart and soul… Ray Loeckle on sax and Ray Scott on guitar, Alex Baum on bass and Bob Blankenship on drums. Â Sao Paulo soul!!!
Sao Paulo born, Liza Silva toured internationally for years with Walter Wanderley–the man who helped popularize bossa nova in America and around the world in the 60’s with the hit “Summer Samba.” She has also shared the stage with such Brazilian greats as Joao Gilberto, Elsa Soares and Beth Carvalho, with Sade, Boz Skaggs and Bonnie Raitt, with Tito Puente, and with such Bay Area luminaries as Paula West, Tammy Hall, Wayne Wallace, Denise Perrier and Kim Nalley. For years, she has dedicated herself to performing the traditional music of the Brazilian repertoire and presenting them to American and international audiences — Samba, Bossa Nova, Afro-Samba, Forro, Samba-Pagode, Samba-Reggae, Lambada and Carnival styles. Liza moved to the United States to broaden her musical knowledge and present North America with the contagious rhythms of the music of Brazil. Along the way, she has lived in Japan and France, where she has sung in top venues and acted in films.
The San Francisco Bay Area is the place Liza now calls home, and where she is among the most authentic female representatives of the great variety of Brazilian musical styles. A staple of the Bay Area Brazilian music scene since the early 1990’s, Liza has performed in such venues as: The World Cup Celebration opening ceremony where she led a chorus of five hundred singers, Cirque du SoleilÂ
where she opened the festivities, the San Francisco Carnival Ball in which she was the inaugural female singer of this type of event, the San Francisco Film Festival where she was the first Brazilian woman to broaden their musical horizons with her magical voice, the Golden Gate World Festival, and the Shoreline Amphitheatre where she opened for Sade and Bonnie Raitt.
For years with these sympatico musicians. her effusive, warm and contagious energy have made the Deluxe a haven for the party people and the cognoscenti, and Bird & Beckett loves a taste of Brazil anytime they can make a stop in Glen Park!