Boca Do Rio

Shaped as an offshoot from the seven-piece Vivendo de Pao, San Francisco-based Boca Perform Rio (the name is certainly Portuguese for “mouth area from the river”) mixes jazz improvisation with Brazilian root base music, neatly merging two musical cultures in seamless integration. Vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Kevin Welch may be the head of both ensembles. Welch got an extended stay static in Brazil in the first ’90s and discovered himself fascinated and immersed within the samba music of the spot, and time for California, he shaped the samba-infused Vivendo de Pao, which spun off into Boca Perform Rio. The group contains Welch (under his stage name Gogo) on electric guitar and lead vocals, Jacob Elijah Aginsky (who also has within the Bay region group Subnautic) on piano, Larry De La Cruz on saxophone, Jon Evans on bass, Dan Foltz on drums, and support vocalist Tika Morgan and percussionist Alex Calatayud. The group released the self-titled Boca Perform Rio on Welch’s personal Vagabundo Information in 2006.