Brazilian drummer Adriano Santos has released 'In Session,' his first album as a leader. On the recording, Santos pays tribute to several of his favorite Brazilian songwriters and drummers, including Toninho Horta, Airto Moreira, Milton Nascimento, Victor Assis Brasil and Moacir Santos. The CD, on Kingjazzad Music, is available via a link on Santos' website.

Joining Adriano Santos on the album are David Binney (saxophones), Helio Alves (piano), David Ambrosio (bass) and Dende (percussion), Raul Mascarenhas, Airto Moreira, Toninho Horta, J.T. Meirelles and Moacir Santos.

Originally from São Paulo, where he attended the Zimbo Trio Music School, Santos relocated to the U.S. in 1988, attending the Berklee College of Music. He moved to the New York City area, where he still resides, in 1996. He has contributed to recordings by Claudio Roditi, John Pizzarelli, Astrud Gilberto, Gal Costa, Eumir Deodato and many others.

Brazilian drummer/percussionist Duduka Da Fonseca and pianist Helio Alves will lead 'Samba Jazz & The Music Of Jobim' at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in New York, part of the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex. The show runs from April 27-May 2. Also participating will be vocalist Maucha Adnet, trumpeter Claudio Roditi, guitarist/vocalist Toninho Horta and bassist Marc Johnson. The band will play two sets a night, Wednesday through Sunday at 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM, as well as an 11:30 PM set on Friday and Saturday. The cover charge is $30-35, and student tickets are available for $15 for select sets with a valid student ID.

Reservations can be made online.

Roberto Carlos, said to be the biggest-selling Latin American artist of all-time, wrapped up a yearlong celebration of his 50th anniversary in the music business last weekend with a pair of shows at New York's Radio City Music Hall. Carlos, 69, is known as "the Frank Sinatra of Latin America" and has reportedly sold over 120 million recordings since he began singing professionally.

Currently residing in Rio De Janeiro, the singer was born Roberto Carlos Braga in 1941 in Cachoeiro do Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, a small town in Brazil. Originally influenced by American rock and roll, he became a leader in Brazil's Jovem Guarda (Young Guard) movement. He began achieving success in the early '60s, also starring in several films. His popularity grew as he switched to a more adult contemporary sound. In the '80s, he began recording in English and French as well as Portuguese. He won a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album in 1989. In July 2009 he performed in front of 70,000 fans at Rio's Maracanã Stadium.

Grammy-winning Brazilian composer and guitarist Mario Adnet and his ensemble Ouro Negro will perform in 'Journey to Brazil' at Jazz at Lincoln Center, May 28th and 29th, at 8pm. The group will honor the music of Brazilian composer Moacir Santos (1924-2006), whose six decades of innovative music influenced Antonio Carlos Jobim, Milton Nascimento and many others.

The group will perform a selection of Santos' best work and pieces from Adnet's 'Ouro Negro' CD, on which Santos appeared. The performance will take place at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York. Tickets can be purchased through jalc.org, or at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Box Office.

Brazilian-born vocalist Kenia follows up her critically acclaimed 2008 album 'Simply Kenia' with 'Kenia Celebrates Dorival Caymmi,' a tribute to the influential composer and singer who died two years ago. The album is being released April 27 on Kenia's own label, Mooka Records.

For the 15-track session, Kenia tackles the legacy of Caymmi, who, during his seven-decade career, wrote such Brazilian standards as 'Samba da Minha Terra,' 'Doralice' and 'Voce Ja Foi a Bahia.'

"Dorival's music lies just between the two major movements in MPB (Música Popular Brasileira, or Brazilian Popular Music)," Kenia explained, "the samba of the 1920s and '30s and the bossa nova of the late 1950s and '60s. Caymmi's music served as a kind of a smooth transition between these two styles. And, although he had two very distinct lines of composition, the link between these two movements is characterized by his firm foundation of samba, sprinkled with some Bahian spices."

Kenia is accompanied on the album by pianist Fernando Merlino, bassist Leo Traversa and percussionist Airto Moreira. The band also features guitarists Eric Susoeff and Marty Ashby, the singer's percussionist son Lucas, and trombonist Jay Ashby.

Kenia was born Kenia Acioly. She relocated to the U.S. in 1980 and released recordings on the MCA and Denon labels between 1987 and 1991. In 1997, Kenia launched Mooka Records.

Biographies of John Perry Barlow always mention that the 62-year-old Wyoming native is a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and an oft-published essayist on a variety of topics, notably issues related to the freedom of speech as it applies to the Internet. If one digs deep enough, there's also usually some brief mention of Barlow's involvement with the superstar Brazilian musician-songwriter Gilberto Gil in a daunting project that could take many years and many obstacles to complete: making available all of Brazil's recorded music on the Internet, for free, ready for download.

The two met and began collaborating on the project, says Barlow, calling from Mill Valley, Calif., "because I wrote a piece for 'Wired' magazine years ago about the difficulties of maintaining copyright law in a digital environment and how it was eventually going to be directly countervailing to the necessities of freedom of expression that you can't own free speech, especially in that kind of environment. You can't own somebody else's culture. That was particularly poignant to him."

Continue reading after the jump.

Sandro Albert, the Brazilian-born jazz guitarist who currently resides in New York, will release 'Vertical,' his fourth album as a band-leader, June 15th on Daywood Drive Records. Albert is accompanied on the recording by flutist Rodrigo Ursala, bassist Michael O'Brien and drummer Richie Barshay. In a press release, Albert explained that he originally planned 'Vertical' as a solo guitar album, but then he became enamored of the concept of counterpoint in music and decided to engage the other musicians to illustrate the technique. "When I wrote 'Vertical,'" Albert says, "it was originally intended to be a solo guitar record. Then, as I listened, I heard that I could put a different instrument on top, like flute, which we did end up doing. I was still reluctant to open it up for solos, though, until we started experimenting with short improvisations that complement the counterpoint style. We don't get caught up in the blowing. It's more about the melody and counterpoint."

Albert became a guitarist at age 14 and eventually worked with many of Brazil's greats, including Milton Nascimento. At 28 he moved to Los Angeles and three months later was recruited by the soul-rock band War, with whom he stayed for a year. Albert's popularity rose continually during the decade he spent in L.A., and he ultimately collaborated with dozens of top artists ranging from Dionne Warwick to Kenny Garrett to Rod Stewart. He sold out performances but decided to move to New York in 2007 to further his career.