"Portuguese saxophonist (alto, C melody, baritone, and tenor) Rodrigo Amado specializes in free-form, composition-in-the-moment jazz, and his various projects and trios have given him an international following. Born in Lisbon in 1964, Amado began studying the sax at the age of 17, briefly at the Hot Club Music School of Lisbon and with mentors Carlos Martins, Pedro Madaleno, and Jorge Reis, among other leading Portuguese jazz artists. With diverse musical interests, he explored how improvisation is handled in other genres, although his work with his various ensembles like the Lisbon Improvisation Players and the Motion Trio (with Miguel Mira and Gabriel Ferrandini) falls clearly under the umbrella of 21st century jazz, and he has been an in-demand studio player on numerous recorded projects. He started his own label, Clean Feed, in 2001, with brothers Pedro and Carlos Costa, before leaving the imprint in 2005 to start a second label, European Echoes. Also an accomplished professional photographer, Amado continues to be a bright light on the Portuguese and international improvisational jazz scene."

"Ken Filiano performs throughout the world, playing and recording with leading artists in jazz, spontaneous improvisation, classical, world/ethnic, and interdisciplinary performance, fusing the rich traditions of the double bass with his own seemingly limitless inventiveness. Ken's solo bass CD, subvenire (NineWinds), received widespread critical praise. For this and numerous other recordings, Ken has been called a creative virtuoso, a master of technique ... a paradigm of that type of artist... who can play anything in any context and make it work, simply because he puts the music first and leaves peripheral considerations behind.

Ken composes for his quartet with Michael Attias, Tony Malaby, and Michael T.A. Thomspon; a collective with Attias and Tomas Ulrich; and for his decades-long collaborations with Steve Adams and Vinny Golia. His prolific output also includes performances and/or recordings with artists including Bonnie Barnett, Rob Blakeslee, Bobby Bradford, Taylor Ho Bynum, Roy Campbell, John Carter, Nels Cline, Alex Cline, Connie Crothers, Mark Dresser, Ted Dunbar, Marty Ehrlich, Giora Feidman, Bob Feldman, Eddie Gale, Georgian Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Gonzalez, Lou Grassi, Phil Haynes, Fred Hess, Jason Hwang, Joseph Jarman, Sheila Jordan (with the Aardvark Orchestra), Raul Juarena, Joe Labarbera, Joelle Leandre, Frank London, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Tina Marsh, Warne Marsh, Dom Minasi, Hafez Modirzadeh, Butch Morris, Barre Phillips, Don Preston, Herb Robertson, Bob Rodriguez, Roswell Rudd, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Ursel Schlicht, Paul Smoker, Chris Sullivan, Peeter Uuskyla, Fay Victor, Biggi Vinkeloe, Kenny Wessel, Andrea Wolper, Pablo Ziegler. With Tomas Ulrich, Elliott Sharp, and Carlos Zingaro, he is a member of T.E.C.K. String Quartet.

Ken has been a guest lecturer, performer, and workshop leader at institutions in the United States and Europe. He earned a MM from Rutgers University and is currently on faculty at Mansfield University."- All About Jazz

"Acácio Salero was born in Viana do Castelo in 1967. At 18 he entered in the Oporto's Jazz Scholl where he studied whit Mário Barreiro and later became a teacher. He was one of the founding menbers of the "Septet Jazz of Oporto" and The Jazz Orchestra Of Oporto. In 1988 he went to Madrid to participate in workshops whit Adam Nussbaum, John Abercrombei, Jim McNealy, Jerry Bergonzi and Maíki Richmond.

In 1990 and 1991 he also took part in workshops whit Kenny Washington, Alan Dawson, Sir Roland Hanna, Rufus Reid, Clark Terry, Hall Galper, Ira Gitler and Bill Pierce.

In 1994 he was asked to co-direct whit Bill Goodwin (drummer of the Phil Woods Quintet) in the drum program and percussion for "Artico", an organization supported by the European Union which organizes courses for professional musicians in Lisbon area.

In 1995, he recorded "which way what" of the composer and saxophone player Patrick Brenam whit the participation of the double bass player Rachim Ausar Sahu. He made several concerts whit this band and the invited soloist was the trombonist Steve Swell, one of the most important names of the world improvised music.

Founder member of "Ensemble of Improvisation whit 4 drums" - TIM TIM POR TUM TUM - Acácio Salero, Marco Franco, José Salgueiro, Alexandre Frazão. A CD was recorded in which Jim Black played.

He also participated in the "Portuguese Collective of Percursion" , 1996, which under the direction of Max Roach acted in the Jazz Festival of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Co founder of Jazz Orchestra Matosinhos, he played on the pre-inauguration of Casa da Música in 2003 (Festival Porta Aberta) directed by Carla Bley and also the participation of Gary Galent. On this year he played in BBC Jazz Festival, whit Atlantic Waves.

Commissioned by the Oporto's Jazz Festival in 2005 integrates Sextet "Perfect Paul", in the Jazz Festival of Porto ( Rivoli Theatre ) with the play "Bodhi Suite" .

In 2007 launches " Acacio Salero Secret Apache " project with his compositions. Debut that year in this project ACERT , through Cineteatro São Pedro do Sul, and in 2009 presents this project in the 7th Festival of Jazz in São Luís theater and Jazz Festival of Sines .

In 2009/2010 he became a drum´s theacher at the School of Art Sines . In 2010 Acácio Salero creates - SamuraiMagazine , a trio with drums , bass and baritone saxophone. In 2011 co-created with Paulo Gomes, Cool Jazz Trio .

He has been teaching since 2010 in Valentim de Carvalho music school, ( Porto), Orfeão da Feira ( St ª Maria da Feira ) and 7notas . In 2011 co-creates the Cool Jazz Trio with Paulo Gomes on piano and Miguel Angelo on bass .

In 2013 he records 2 Cd's with the groups MAP and Funky Bones Factory, which were launched on 2014.

In 2015 he integrates the Trio of Filipe Teixeira and the Quartet of Guitarist AP.

In the beginning of 2016 he quartet of its authorship "Salero' stamps Kapitan" that Miguel counts on the contrastock exchange operator Angelo, AP in the guitar and Zé Peter Coelho in sax Tenor.

In 2016 began his quartet of original compositions "Salero's-El Kapitan" with Acácio Salero on the drums, Miguel Ângelo on the bass, AP on the guitar and Zé Pedro Coelho on the sax Tenor."

"Steve Adams has appeared on more than fifty recordings, and has six recordings as leader or co- leader on the 9 Winds and Clean Feed labels, the latest of them being Surface Tension by the Steve Adams Trio.

Steve has performed the premieres of numerous classical compositions, including Prisoner of Love by Robert Aldridge for soprano saxophone and piano, Thomas Oboe Lee's Saxxologie... A Sextet for saxophone sextet and Louie MCMLV for saxophone quartet, and Passing Time by Jon Nelson for tenor saxo¬phone and computer-generated tape. He performed Edmund Campion's Corail for saxophone and computer generated electronics with the Berkeley Symphony and at the Ojai Music Festival. Steve has performed Darius Milhaud's Scaramouche and Pauline Oliveros' Outline for Double Bass, Flute, and Percussion at Mills College. He was a member of the 25th Anniversary performance of Terry Riley's In C, which was released on New Albion.

Steve has written more than fifty compositions for saxophone quartet, as well as many others for varied instrumentations. His piece Cage (for John Cage) was performed at the 1993 Bang on a Can festival, and his piece The Gene Pool was commissioned by Meet the Composer and performed at their festival "The Works" in Minneapolis in 2002. His composition Owed t'Don was recorded by the violin/marimba duo Marimolin on their CD Phantasmata . In recent years, Steve has begun creating graphic scores, now numbering more than 40. Steve has also written for theater, having composed scores for seven productions at the California Shakespeare Festival. He received a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2000 and a Meet the Composer grant in 1993, and teaches at Mills College. Steve is a graduate of the School of Contemporary Music in Brookline, MA and studied composition with Alan Crossman, Christopher Yavelov and Thomas Oboe Lee, saxophone with David Birkin and Indian music with Peter Row and Steve Gorn. "