Before Jazz-Funk Became a Formula
There is a temptation, when discussing Azymuth, to describe the group through a sequence of familiar ingredients.
Samba.
Jazz.
Funk.
Bossa nova.
Electric keyboards.
Fusion.
Put them together and the description appears complete.
But Azymuth’s importance begins precisely where that list becomes inadequate.
The Brazilian trio did not simply combine genres. José Roberto Bertrami, Alex Malheiros and Ivan “Mamão” Conti developed a rhythmic and sonic environment in which the boundaries between those genres became increasingly difficult to locate. Samba could pass through a Fender Rhodes. A bass line could carry the physical weight of funk without surrendering its Brazilian accent. A drummer could suggest a samba school, a jazz rhythm section and something approaching a breakbeat inside the same performance.
They eventually gave the music their own name:
samba doido — crazy samba.
It was an appropriate description because Azymuth’s music did not behave politely.
The trio loved technology. They loved groove. They could improvise with the freedom of jazz musicians and construct tracks with the discipline of experienced studio professionals. At their best, they sounded simultaneously sophisticated and physical.
And unlike many fusion groups of the 1970s, Azymuth never needed to erase their country of origin in order to become international.
The more electric they became, the more unmistakably Brazilian they sounded.
Rio de Janeiro and the Education of Session Musicians
The roots of Azymuth reach into the professional recording culture of Rio de Janeiro during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti were not inexperienced musicians forming a band in a garage. They developed inside an extraordinarily active Brazilian studio ecosystem, working as accompanists and session players while absorbing bossa nova, samba, MPB, soul, jazz and the rapidly expanding possibilities of electric instrumentation.
The trio’s prehistory reaches back to work together around 1968, while by the early 1970s they were operating under different names and participating in sessions for major Brazilian artists. The Dicionário Cravo Albin documents their work as studio musicians for Phonogram and their appearances on recordings associated with figures including Raul Seixas, Rita Lee, Elis Regina and Odair José.
This background explains one of Azymuth’s greatest strengths.
They knew how to make records.
A jazz musician can think primarily about performance.
A session musician cannot.
The session player learns that a part must serve the arrangement. A bass figure might be more effective repeated than elaborated. A keyboard sound can define an entire track. A drummer capable of extraordinary technique may discover that the right hi-hat pattern matters more than a spectacular fill.
Azymuth brought that discipline into improvisational music.
It would become fundamental to their sound.
José Roberto Bertrami: The Harmonic Architect
At the center of the trio’s harmonic world was José Roberto Bertrami.
Bertrami was a pianist, keyboardist, arranger and composer with the rare ability to embrace new technology without treating technology as a substitute for musicianship.
Acoustic piano remained important.
But electric keyboards changed the possibilities.
Fender Rhodes, organ and synthesizers allowed Bertrami to create textures that connected Azymuth with the global development of jazz fusion while remaining deeply tied to Brazilian harmony.
The temptation would have been to imitate American electric jazz.
After all, the 1970s offered enormous models: Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Weather Report and the electric legacy of Miles Davis.
Bertrami listened to the same technological revolution.
But Azymuth’s rhythmic foundation changed what those instruments meant.
A synthesizer over Brazilian percussion does not occupy the same musical environment as a synthesizer over American funk.
Bertrami’s genius was understanding the difference.
Alex Malheiros: The Bass as Infrastructure
Alex Malheiros supplied another essential part of the architecture.
His bass playing could be melodic, but its greatest strength was structural. Azymuth’s music often depends upon grooves that must remain stable enough for Bertrami and Conti to create movement around them.
Malheiros understood repetition.
That may sound like a modest skill.
It is not.
The difference between a functional bass pattern and a great groove lies in microscopic details: note length, attack, placement against the kick drum, silence between phrases and the ability to repeat a figure without allowing its energy to collapse.
Malheiros could also connect Brazilian rhythmic logic with the increasingly powerful electric bass language emerging from funk and fusion.
The bass did not simply accompany samba.
It made samba heavier.
Ivan “Mamão” Conti: The Brazilian Drum Kit Reinvented
Then there was Ivan Conti, universally known as Mamão.
Conti became one of the defining drummers of Brazilian fusion because he could make the drum kit behave like a compressed percussion ensemble.
Brazilian rhythm traditionally involves multiple interlocking percussion voices. Translating that complexity onto a drum set requires more than reproducing recognizable samba patterns.
The drummer has to think orchestrally.
Mamão could distribute accents across cymbals, snare, toms and bass drum while maintaining an elastic relationship with the pulse. His playing could be intricate without losing physical momentum.
Later, he would also become fascinated by electronic percussion and rhythmic technology.
That curiosity would prove remarkably forward-looking.
Decades afterward, DJs, beatmakers and electronic musicians would hear qualities in Azymuth’s grooves that connected naturally with sample culture.
Mamão had arrived there through samba.
JazzLatitude Insight
Azymuth’s futuristic quality did not come from replacing Brazilian tradition with technology. It came from allowing Brazilian rhythm to control the technology.
Marcos Valle and the Road Toward Azymuth
One of the crucial figures in the trio’s early development was Marcos Valle.
Valle himself was undergoing an extraordinary transformation during the early 1970s. The elegant bossa nova songwriter of the previous decade was moving toward a broader language incorporating soul, rock, electronics and experimental studio production.
Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti were ideal collaborators.
The musicians worked with Valle on projects during this period, and the relationship became central to the emergence of the group that would become Azymuth. Far Out Recordings traces the band’s name directly to their work around the soundtrack for the film O Fabuloso Fittipaldi, a project celebrating Brazilian Formula One driver Emerson Fittipaldi.
One composition associated with that project carried the title “Azimuth.”
The musicians liked it.
They adopted a variant as their name.
Azymuth was born.
Why “Azymuth”?
The name seems almost too appropriate in retrospect.
An azimuth is connected with direction and navigation—the measurement of orientation across a horizon.
For a group whose music would spend decades moving between Brazil, the United States, Europe, jazz clubs, dance floors and eventually DJ culture, the metaphor is irresistible.
But the band’s direction was not immediately international.
First, they needed to define what Azymuth actually sounded like.
Azimüth: 1975
Their first major album under the group’s identity arrived in 1975, released by Som Livre and titled Azimüth.
The spelling may confuse later listeners accustomed to “Azymuth,” but the musical identity was already remarkably clear.
The record contains one of their enduring Brazilian compositions:
“Linha do Horizonte.”
Here we encounter a side of Azymuth sometimes obscured by the later international success of “Jazz Carnival.”
The group could be lyrical.
Brazilian harmonic sensitivity remained central. Electric keyboards created atmosphere rather than merely displaying technology. Bass and drums maintained grooves that felt relaxed without becoming passive.
The music existed somewhere between instrumental MPB, samba, jazz and the emerging global language of fusion.
But it did not sound like an American fusion record made in Portuguese-speaking territory.
It sounded like Rio.
That distinction would define everything that followed.
“Linha do Horizonte”
“Linha do Horizonte” became one of Azymuth’s signature Brazilian recordings.
Its importance lies partly in what it reveals about the trio’s emotional range.
International listeners encountering Azymuth through “Jazz Carnival” can easily imagine the band primarily as a high-energy jazz-funk machine.
“Linea do Horizonte” tells another story.
The groove is there.
So is the electric atmosphere.
But the track contains the kind of melodic openness associated with Brazilian songwriting—a sense of landscape, distance and motion that sits comfortably beside the rhythmic sophistication.
This combination would become central to Azymuth.
They could make dance music without abandoning harmony.
They could make sophisticated music without demanding stillness from the listener.
“Melô da Cuíca”
Another breakthrough came with “Melô da Cuíca,” which gained wide exposure through the soundtrack of the Brazilian television novela Pecado Capital.
The title itself announces the group’s willingness to place Brazilian percussion identity at the center of an electric instrumental track.
The cuíca is one of samba’s most immediately recognizable sounds, capable of producing pitches that can resemble laughter, crying or an almost human vocalization.
In Azymuth’s hands, Brazilian percussion did not function as folkloric decoration.
It belonged inside modern studio music.
This is one of the key distinctions between their approach and much internationally marketed “Brazilian fusion” of the period.
Azymuth did not add Brazil to fusion.
Brazil was the operating system.
Águia Não Come Mosca
In 1977, the group released Águia Não Come Mosca.
The title—roughly, “an eagle doesn’t eat flies”—already suggests the irreverence surrounding the musicians.
By now, the Azymuth language was becoming increasingly confident.
Electric keyboards could be lush or aggressive.
Malheiros’s bass provided funk-derived weight.
Mamão’s drumming maintained the internal movement of Brazilian rhythm.
The record also contained material that would help expand their international reputation.
That same year brought a decisive event.
Montreux.
Brazil Arrives at Montreux
Azymuth’s music attracted the attention of Claude Nobs, the founder and director of the Montreux Jazz Festival.
The trio was invited to perform there in 1977, becoming, according to Brazilian historical accounts of the band, the first Brazilian group to appear at the festival. The reception helped open the path toward touring in the United States, including work connected with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim.
This was the critical transition.
Azymuth had developed inside Brazilian studios.
Now international jazz audiences were hearing them directly.
And what those audiences encountered did not fit neatly into the dominant Brazilian export categories.
This was not simply bossa nova.
Not samba-jazz in its 1960s form.
Not American jazz-rock.
Not disco.
Yet elements of all those worlds could be heard.
The trio had found a language that traveled without requiring translation.
Milestone Records
The American connection eventually led to Milestone Records, one of the important jazz labels of the period.
Milestone’s catalog included major figures such as Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner.
Signing Azymuth placed the Brazilian trio inside an explicitly international jazz context.
In 1979, the label released Light as a Feather.
The album would change the group’s career.
It contained Brazilian rhythmic identity, electric jazz, funk, atmosphere and the increasingly sophisticated studio sensibility Azymuth had spent the decade developing.
But one track behaved differently.
It ran for roughly nine minutes.
It was instrumental.
It had no conventional pop chorus.
And somehow it became a hit.
“Jazz Carnival”
“Jazz Carnival” begins with the ingredients that made Azymuth unique and turns them into propulsion.
The groove locks.
Bertrami’s keyboards rise above it.
Mamão drives rather than decorates.
Malheiros keeps the foundation physical.
The track develops like an extended jazz performance but carries the repetitive energy of dance music.
That combination proved extraordinarily powerful.
“Jazz Carnival” became an international breakthrough, reaching the UK Top 20 in early 1980; Brazilian sources also credit the single with sales of roughly 250,000 copies in Europe.
Think about how unusual that achievement was.
A Brazilian instrumental trio.
Playing a nine-minute jazz-funk-samba hybrid.
Entering a mainstream singles chart.
Azymuth had discovered something many fusion musicians never managed.
They could be technically sophisticated without sacrificing the dance floor.
And the dance floor would become crucial to their future.
Because “Jazz Carnival” did more than establish Azymuth internationally.
It created an audience that conventional jazz institutions could not fully explain.
Jazz listeners heard improvisation.
Brazilian listeners heard rhythmic identity.
Funk listeners heard groove.
Club DJs heard something else entirely:
a record they could use.
That final relationship would eventually give Azymuth a second life decades after their original breakthrough.
But first came the 1980s.
And with Outubro, Telecommunication, synthesizers, drum machines and a remarkable run for Milestone, Azymuth would push samba even deeper into the electronic future.
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After “Jazz Carnival”: Success Without Simplification
A hit can become a trap.
After “Jazz Carnival” carried Azymuth far beyond the audience normally available to a Brazilian instrumental trio, the obvious commercial decision would have been to reproduce it. The ingredients appeared easy enough to identify: extended groove, synthesizers, funk-weighted bass, Brazilian rhythm and enough improvisation to retain jazz credibility.
But Azymuth had never developed by following formulas.
The trio’s response was Outubro, released in 1980.
Rather than delivering a simple sequel to Light as a Feather, the album pushed deeper into the atmospheric side of their music. The rhythmic identity remained unmistakable, but the balance between Brazilian harmony, electric jazz and studio texture became increasingly sophisticated.
This was the beginning of an exceptionally productive international period.
For José Roberto Bertrami, Alex Malheiros and Ivan “Mamão” Conti, success did not mean abandoning experimentation.
It financed it.
Outubro: Beyond the Dance Floor
Outubro is essential because it complicates the popular image of Azymuth as primarily a jazz-funk band.
The album breathes.
There are grooves, but also passages where harmony and atmosphere become central. Bertrami’s keyboards increasingly function as an orchestral environment rather than simply a solo instrument. Malheiros remains capable of making a repeated bass figure carry an entire composition, while Mamão’s drums preserve the internal elasticity separating Azymuth from American fusion groups working with superficially similar instrumentation.
The Brazilian component is sometimes subtle.
That subtlety matters.
Azymuth did not need to quote samba explicitly every few measures to prove where they came from. Brazilian rhythmic thinking had already entered the musicians’ reflexes.
This is one reason their international recordings aged so well.
They rarely sound like musicians trying to demonstrate fusion.
The fusion had already happened.
Telecommunication: The Future Gets Louder
Released in 1982, Telecommunication pushed the electronic dimension further.
The title itself could almost serve as a manifesto for the period.
Technology was changing music rapidly. Analog synthesizers were becoming increasingly sophisticated. Electronic keyboards offered new possibilities for bass, harmony and texture. Drum machines and electronic percussion were beginning to alter expectations of rhythm.
For some jazz musicians, these developments represented a threat.
For Bertrami, they were opportunities.
His synthesizer work never made Azymuth less Brazilian because the rhythmic foundation remained intact. Instead, electronic timbres gave him new ways to orchestrate the trio.
A keyboard could become brass.
Atmosphere.
Bass.
Percussion.
A sustained harmonic cloud.
A sharp rhythmic accent.
The conventional division between pianist and arranger began to disappear.
JazzLatitude Insight
José Roberto Bertrami understood something many fusion keyboardists missed: a new synthesizer sound is not automatically a new musical idea. Technology became meaningful only when Azymuth’s rhythmic language gave it purpose.
Mamão and the Machine
Ivan Conti approached technology from the opposite end of the trio.
Electronic rhythm might appear fundamentally incompatible with samba. Brazilian percussion depends upon interaction among multiple voices, microtiming and subtle fluctuations difficult to reproduce through rigid machines.
Mamão did not respond by rejecting electronic tools.
He explored them.
Electronic drums and programmed rhythm could coexist with acoustic percussion because he understood what the machine could not do.
This relationship became increasingly important.
A drum machine can repeat perfectly.
A Brazilian drummer understands how to make repetition breathe.
Put the two together and a third possibility appears.
Decades later, electronic producers would become fascinated by precisely this territory. Beatmakers searching for grooves that felt simultaneously mechanical and human discovered Azymuth records almost as if the trio had been anticipating sample culture.
They had not been predicting the future.
They were simply curious enough to arrive there early.
The Bass Between Samba and Funk
Throughout this technological expansion, Alex Malheiros remained the stabilizing force.
His bass prevented Azymuth’s electronic experiments from floating away into texture.
American funk had transformed the role of electric bass during the 1970s. Players such as Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham and later fusion virtuosos demonstrated how bass could become one of a track’s dominant identities.
Malheiros absorbed the physical authority of that language without surrendering Brazilian rhythmic placement.
His lines could be economical.
Sometimes almost stubbornly repetitive.
But they interacted with Mamão in ways that created constant internal motion.
This is where Azymuth’s groove becomes difficult to imitate.
The surface can sound simple.
The relationship underneath is not.
The Milestone Run
Azymuth’s association with Milestone Records became one of the longest and most productive international label relationships involving a Brazilian instrumental group.
Albums including Cascades, Rapid Transit, Flame and others extended their international presence through the 1980s.
The quantity is important.
Azymuth was not a Brazilian novelty briefly embraced by the jazz marketplace after one successful single.
They built a catalog.
They toured.
They developed an audience across Europe, North America and Japan.
Their recordings also demonstrated that Brazilian instrumental music could participate directly in the contemporary jazz market without being packaged exclusively through bossa nova nostalgia.
This distinction deserves emphasis.
International audiences had long associated Brazil with Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and the elegant revolution of bossa nova.
Azymuth offered another Brazil.
Urban.
Electric.
Funky.
Technologically curious.
Still unmistakably Brazilian.
When the 1980s Changed the Sound of Jazz
The broader jazz landscape was changing around them.
Acoustic jazz was experiencing a revival associated with younger musicians, while fusion had entered an increasingly complicated commercial phase. Digital synthesizers and heavily processed drums were becoming standard production tools.
Some records from the period now sound trapped inside their technology.
Azymuth occasionally approached that danger.
Not every experiment aged equally well.
But their strongest recordings survived because the trio’s identity existed beneath the production.
Remove the synthesizer patch.
Change the drum sound.
The rhythmic relationship remains.
That is the difference between using technology and depending upon it.
Bertrami Leaves
The most serious change came when José Roberto Bertrami left the group during the late 1980s.
For a trio with such a clearly defined internal chemistry, losing one member is not a minor personnel adjustment.
Bertrami was the principal harmonic architect.
His keyboard vocabulary had become inseparable from Azymuth’s identity.
Yet Malheiros and Mamão continued.
The group worked with other keyboardists and maintained the Azymuth name, demonstrating that the rhythmic core itself possessed enough identity to survive.
Still, something had changed.
The classic triangle was broken.
And the broader musical marketplace was moving elsewhere.
The 1990s Problem
By the beginning of the 1990s, Azymuth occupied an awkward historical position.
They were too recent to be treated as rediscovered vintage Brazilian music.
Too associated with fusion for parts of the jazz establishment.
Too instrumental for mainstream pop.
And the sound of contemporary dance music was increasingly built from samplers, drum machines and records rather than traditional bands.
Ironically, that last development would save them.
Because a new generation of DJs and collectors was searching backward.
They wanted grooves.
Breaks.
Electric keyboards.
Unusual percussion.
Long instrumental sections.
Records overlooked by mainstream rock history.
Azymuth had made exactly those records.
London Hears Something Different
The emergence of acid jazz and the rare-groove movement in Britain transformed the international reception of 1970s jazz-funk.
Young DJs were rediscovering records by musicians who had sometimes been dismissed during the previous decade as commercial fusion artists.
On a dance floor, critical categories mattered less.
Did the record groove?
Could it mix?
Did the bass move the room?
Could an extended instrumental section create momentum?
Azymuth passed every test.
“Jazz Carnival” had already demonstrated the relationship decades earlier.
Now the rest of their catalog could be heard through a new cultural filter.
The group had not changed.
The audience had.
Far Out Recordings
One person became particularly important to Azymuth’s revival: British DJ and label founder Joe Davis.
His label, Far Out Recordings, developed a deep relationship with Brazilian music, combining reissues of overlooked recordings with new projects by established and contemporary artists.
Azymuth became central to the label’s identity.
Far Out did not treat the trio merely as heritage musicians.
That was crucial.
The relationship encouraged new recording rather than simply repackaging the past.
The original trio eventually reunited, with Bertrami returning to work with Malheiros and Mamão.
The chemistry was still there.
And something remarkable had happened while they were apart.
The world had learned to hear Azymuth differently.
The Original Trio Returns
The reunion of Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti restored the classic geometry.
But they were not attempting to recreate 1979.
The electronic music revolution of the 1990s had validated instincts Azymuth had possessed decades earlier. DJs and producers understood repetition, texture and groove as compositional tools.
Suddenly, the trio could collaborate with musicians whose instruments might include samplers and turntables rather than saxophones.
Instead of sounding outdated, Azymuth could sound strangely contemporary.
This became one of the most fascinating late-career developments in Brazilian music.
A band associated with 1970s fusion had become relevant to electronic music without radically changing its principles.
Pieces of Ipanema and the Return to Recording
The renewed relationship with Far Out generated albums that reestablished Azymuth as an active creative unit.
Pieces of Ipanema revisited Brazilian musical memory without becoming a conventional tribute exercise. The title inevitably evokes Jobim and the international mythology of Ipanema, but Azymuth approached that landscape through their own electric vocabulary.
This was significant.
The group could acknowledge bossa nova without becoming imprisoned by it.
Brazilian jazz history was not a straight line from Jobim to fusion.
It was a network.
Azymuth could move through that network freely.
Before We Forget
Later projects reinforced the idea that Azymuth’s revival was not merely nostalgic.
The trio continued recording, touring and collaborating while a new generation of musicians, DJs and producers began citing them as influences.
Their grooves were sampled.
Their records were reissued.
Original pressings became desirable.
Younger listeners discovered Bertrami’s keyboard sounds without necessarily approaching them through jazz.
Others arrived through Brazilian music.
Some through house.
Some through hip-hop.
Some through broken beat.
The multiple entry points mirrored Azymuth’s music itself.
No single genre owned them.
A New Generation of Brazilian Electronics
Mamão’s later career makes the connection particularly clear.
His interest in electronic rhythm eventually brought him into projects with musicians from younger generations, including producer Daniel Maunick.
The collaboration would produce Poison Fruit in 2019, an extraordinary late-career project where Mamão’s drumming interacted directly with contemporary electronic production.
He was approaching eighty.
The music did not sound like an elder musician being artificially modernized.
It sounded like the logical continuation of questions he had been asking for decades.
What happens when Brazilian rhythm meets machines?
How much can repetition move before it stops being repetition?
Where does the drummer end and the producer begin?
These were Azymuth questions long before electronic music provided new terminology for them.
The Loss of Bertrami
The reunion could not last indefinitely.
On July 8, 2012, José Roberto Bertrami died, aged 66.
For Azymuth, the loss was enormous.
Bertrami had supplied the harmonic and technological imagination behind many of their defining recordings. His keyboard sound was one of the easiest elements of the group to recognize.
Once again, Malheiros and Mamão faced the question that had appeared decades earlier.
Could Azymuth exist without him?
Once again, they decided that it could.
But this time the continuation carried another meaning.
They were no longer protecting a successful contemporary band.
They were carrying a musical language forward after one of its architects had disappeared.
The Groove Survives
Azymuth continued with other keyboardists, most notably Kiko Continentino, whose musicianship allowed the group to honor its history without attempting to impersonate Bertrami.
The decision reflects something essential about Azymuth.
The trio had always depended upon personalities rather than interchangeable instrumental roles.
Nobody could become José Roberto Bertrami.
So the solution was not replacement.
It was continuation.
Malheiros remained.
Mamão remained.
The rhythmic conversation survived.
And during the next decade, Azymuth would discover that their influence had become larger than their own discography.
Hip-hop producers sampled them.
House DJs played them.
Brazilian musicians studied them.
Jazz listeners reassessed them.
Far Out continued excavating their archives.
Then another devastating loss arrived.
In 2023, Ivan “Mamão” Conti died at the age of 76.
The drummer who had spent half a century making samba converse with technology was gone.
Yet even that did not close the Azymuth story.
Because by then, the trio’s grooves had escaped the musicians who created them.
They were circulating through samples, reissues, dance floors and new generations of Brazilian instrumental music.
Azymuth had become something larger than a band.
They had become a rhythmic reference point.
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When the Future Finally Caught Up With Azymuth
There is a particular kind of vindication reserved for musicians who spend decades being described as futuristic and then live long enough to hear younger generations make music that resembles the future they imagined.
Azymuth experienced exactly that.
By the 2000s and 2010s, the separation between jazz, electronic music, hip-hop, house and Brazilian rhythm had become increasingly porous. DJs were treated as musicians. Producers manipulated tiny rhythmic details with the precision once associated with instrumental technique. Vintage synthesizers became desirable again. Rhodes keyboards returned. Analog recording acquired new prestige. Record collectors searched globally for forgotten grooves.
Suddenly, the musical environment sounded remarkably compatible with ideas José Roberto Bertrami, Alex Malheiros and Ivan “Mamão” Conti had explored decades earlier.
Azymuth did not need to become contemporary.
Contemporary music had moved toward Azymuth.
The Second Life of the Groove
The group’s rediscovery through Far Out Recordings was therefore more significant than a conventional catalog revival.
A younger audience was hearing Azymuth differently.
Jazz listeners could concentrate on improvisation and harmony.
Brazilian audiences understood the samba lineage.
But DJs heard structure.
They heard extended sections that could be mixed. They heard bass figures capable of functioning like loops. They heard percussion with the repetitive force of dance music but enough microscopic variation to remain alive.
Hip-hop producers heard sample material.
Electronic musicians heard texture.
This is one reason Azymuth’s catalog has proved unusually durable.
The records contain ideas that survive outside their original context.
A four-second fragment can still sound like Azymuth.
Ivan Conti Refuses to Become a Museum Piece
No member embodied this continuing curiosity more dramatically than Ivan Conti.
Mamão could easily have spent his later decades performing “Jazz Carnival” to appreciative festival audiences.
Instead, he continued investigating electronic rhythm.
His late work with producer Daniel Maunick, son of Incognito founder Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick, eventually produced Poison Fruit in 2019.
The album is one of the most revealing late-career projects associated with any member of Azymuth.
Electronic production surrounds Conti’s percussion. Beats are manipulated. Synthesizers and programmed elements coexist with the unmistakably human instability of his drumming.
Yet Poison Fruit does not sound like someone attempting to make an elderly jazz musician fashionable.
The connection is too natural.
Mamão had spent his entire career exploring exactly this tension.
Human and machine.
Samba and electronics.
Repetition and improvisation.
By 2019, technology had simply become sophisticated enough to meet him on territory he already understood.
JazzLatitude Insight
Ivan Conti’s late electronic work reveals why Azymuth aged differently from many fusion bands. Technology was never their identity. Curiosity was.
Bertrami’s Shadow
The death of José Roberto Bertrami in 2012 inevitably changed the band’s harmonic identity.
His sound had been too distinctive to reproduce honestly.
The Rhodes.
The synthesizers.
The voicings.
The arrangements.
The particular way Brazilian harmony could emerge inside electric textures without becoming decorative.
Attempting to duplicate Bertrami would have turned Azymuth into its own tribute band.
Instead, Kiko Continentino became an important collaborator in the group’s later phase, bringing his own personality to the keyboard role.
That decision preserved something more valuable than sonic imitation.
It preserved the principle of interaction.
Azymuth had always depended upon musicians responding to one another in real time. The specific vocabulary could evolve as long as that conversation remained alive.
Fênix
The title of Azymuth’s 2016 album Fênix could hardly have been more appropriate.
Phoenix.
Rebirth.
Recorded after Bertrami’s death, the album demonstrated that Malheiros and Conti could continue the Azymuth concept without pretending nothing had changed.
There is maturity in the music.
The trio no longer needs to establish its virtuosity.
Grooves can unfold patiently.
The electric language remains, but the weight of history is audible without becoming oppressive.
This is one of the achievements of Azymuth’s later catalog.
The musicians did not attempt to recreate 1979.
They continued asking what Azymuth could mean now.
Mamão’s Final Years
Conti remained remarkably active into his seventies.
His work reached audiences that might never have approached him through Brazilian jazz history. Electronic producers, beatmakers and DJs recognized something in his playing that conventional jazz vocabulary could not fully explain.
His timing was particularly important.
Quantized electronic music creates mathematical precision.
Mamão created something else.
His groove could move around the grid without losing the pulse.
For producers accustomed to manipulating timing digitally, hearing a drummer create those tensions physically was revelatory.
It is the same quality that made drummers such as Clyde Stubblefield, Bernard Purdie and Jabo Starks endlessly fascinating to hip-hop producers.
The groove contains information no notation captures completely.
Mamão’s version carried Brazilian rhythmic DNA.
The Death of Ivan Conti
Ivan “Mamão” Conti died on April 17, 2023.
For Brazilian instrumental music, the loss was enormous.
For Azymuth, it represented the disappearance of the second member of the classic trio after Bertrami.
Only Alex Malheiros remained from the defining lineup.
Yet the history did not suddenly stop.
By this stage, Azymuth’s influence had become decentralized.
It existed in records.
Samples.
Reissues.
DJ sets.
Brazilian instrumental groups.
Electronic production.
Musicians who had never met Bertrami or Conti but had absorbed their vocabulary.
This is what happens when a band becomes a language.
The original speakers eventually disappear.
The language continues.
Alex Malheiros and Continuity
Malheiros’s role in this story deserves particular attention because bass players can disappear inside narratives dominated by keyboard innovators and charismatic drummers.
But remove Malheiros from classic Azymuth and the architecture changes immediately.
His bass provided the center around which Bertrami and Conti could take risks.
He understood when to move.
More importantly, he understood when not to.
That discipline is fundamental to groove-based music.
Malheiros’s continuation of the Azymuth legacy therefore represents more than institutional survival. He carries one of the original rhythmic perspectives that made the group identifiable.
The bass remains the horizon.
Everything else can move around it.
Why Producers Love Azymuth
Azymuth occupies an unusual position in sample culture because their recordings already contain qualities producers often try to manufacture.
Strong isolated grooves.
Distinctive keyboard textures.
Percussive detail.
Bass lines with immediate identity.
Atmospheric introductions.
Sections that develop through layering rather than conventional song structure.
Their music can be sampled because it was already constructed with exceptional awareness of sonic space.
This returns us to their origins as session musicians.
Bertrami, Malheiros and Conti understood recording.
They knew how instruments occupy frequency.
They knew how arrangements breathe.
They knew that a track needs room.
Those skills became unexpectedly valuable decades later when producers began cutting records into fragments.
From Jazz-Funk to Broken Beat
The relationship becomes especially clear in broken beat, the London-rooted movement that developed around musicians and producers combining jazz, funk, soul, house and complex syncopated rhythms.
Azymuth sounds almost ancestral in that environment.
The emphasis on rhythmic displacement.
Electric keyboards.
Bass-centered grooves.
Brazilian percussion.
Improvisational freedom inside dance-oriented structures.
The connections are obvious even when no direct quotation occurs.
The same applies to contemporary jazz scenes in London and elsewhere, where the old division between jazz club and dance floor has weakened dramatically.
Azymuth had solved that problem decades earlier.
They never accepted the division in the first place.
The Brazilian Identity That Never Disappeared
This may be the most important point.
Azymuth became international without becoming generic.
Their records could absorb American funk.
Electric jazz.
Disco.
Synthesizers.
Electronic percussion.
Studio processing.
Later, remix culture.
Yet the rhythmic logic remained Brazilian.
This distinguishes them from countless fusion projects where combining genres gradually erased local identity.
With Azymuth, hybridity intensified identity.
They did not become less Brazilian by embracing technology.
They demonstrated that Brazilian music itself could be technologically adventurous.
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Essential Albums
Azimüth — 1975
The foundational statement. “Linha do Horizonte” reveals the lyrical, atmospheric side of the group while establishing the electric Brazilian language that would define their career.
Águia Não Come Mosca — 1977
A crucial early document showing the trio becoming more confident rhythmically and sonically just before its major international breakthrough.
Light as a Feather — 1979
The essential international entry point. Home to “Jazz Carnival,” the recording that transformed Azymuth into a global jazz-funk phenomenon.
Outubro — 1980
A deeper and more atmospheric continuation of the Milestone period, demonstrating that the band had far more to offer than its breakthrough single.
Telecommunication — 1982
A key document of Azymuth’s fascination with synthesizers, electronic textures and the increasingly technological landscape of 1980s jazz.
Fênix — 2016
An important late-period statement recorded after Bertrami’s death, demonstrating the resilience of the Azymuth concept.
Technical Profile
Formed: Early 1970s
Origin: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Classic Lineup: José Roberto Bertrami, Alex Malheiros, Ivan “Mamão” Conti
Primary Instruments: Keyboards, electric bass, drums and percussion
Primary Styles: Brazilian Jazz, Samba-Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Fusion, MPB and Electronic Jazz
Signature Concept: Samba doido
Key Labels: Som Livre, Milestone Records and Far Out Recordings
Signature Recordings: “Linha do Horizonte,” “Melô da Cuíca” and “Jazz Carnival”
Key Characteristics: Brazilian rhythmic architecture, electric keyboards, bass-driven grooves, percussion complexity, improvisation and early adoption of electronic technology.
Five Lesser-Known Facts About Azymuth
1. The members were experienced studio musicians before international fame
Their years accompanying Brazilian artists gave Azymuth an unusually sophisticated understanding of arranging and recording long before “Jazz Carnival.”
2. Their name came from a film project
The name developed from their work around the soundtrack to O Fabuloso Fittipaldi, associated with a composition titled “Azimuth.”
3. “Jazz Carnival” was a genuine chart success
Despite being an extended instrumental jazz-funk performance by a Brazilian trio, the track reached the British Top 20—an extraordinary crossover achievement.
4. Mamão embraced electronic music late in life
Rather than rejecting contemporary production, Ivan Conti continued experimenting with machines and electronic beats, culminating in projects including Poison Fruit.
5. “Samba doido” may describe them better than “jazz-funk”
The musicians’ own concept—essentially “crazy samba”—captures something conventional genre labels miss: samba remained the foundation even when everything around it changed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are Azymuth?
Azymuth is a Brazilian instrumental group formed around keyboardist José Roberto Bertrami, bassist Alex Malheiros and drummer Ivan “Mamão” Conti. They became internationally influential by combining Brazilian rhythm with jazz, funk and electronic instrumentation.
What is Azymuth’s most famous song?
“Jazz Carnival” is their best-known international recording. Released on Light as a Feather, it became a major club favorite and reached the UK singles chart.
What does “samba doido” mean?
Literally, “crazy samba.” Azymuth used the phrase to describe their distinctive approach to combining samba with jazz improvisation, funk, electronics and experimental ideas.
Which Azymuth album should I hear first?
Start with Light as a Feather for the international jazz-funk sound. Then hear Azimüth for their Brazilian origins and Outubro for a deeper picture of their mature early period.
Who was José Roberto Bertrami?
Bertrami was Azymuth’s keyboardist, composer and principal harmonic architect. His use of Rhodes, synthesizers and sophisticated Brazilian harmony became central to the group’s identity.
Who was Ivan “Mamão” Conti?
Conti was Azymuth’s drummer and one of Brazil’s most distinctive rhythmic innovators. His combination of samba-derived drumming, improvisation and electronic experimentation influenced musicians and producers far beyond jazz.
JazzLatitude Rating
| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Group Identity | ★★★★★ |
| Rhythm & Groove | ★★★★★ |
| Improvisation | ★★★★½ |
| Composition | ★★★★½ |
| Keyboard Innovation | ★★★★★ |
| Rhythm Section | ★★★★★ |
| Brazilian Identity | ★★★★★ |
| Electronic Innovation | ★★★★★ |
| International Influence | ★★★★★ |
| JazzLatitude Essential | ★★★★★ |
Final Thoughts
Azymuth spent more than half a century demonstrating that Brazilian music did not have to choose between tradition and the future.
That may be their greatest achievement.
When Bertrami reached for a synthesizer, samba did not disappear.
When Malheiros absorbed the weight of funk bass, Brazil did not disappear.
When Mamão experimented with electronic percussion, Brazilian rhythm did not become mechanical.
Instead, every new element entered a musical system strong enough to transform it.
This is why describing Azymuth simply as Brazilian jazz-funk has always felt insufficient.
Jazz-funk describes part of the sound.
It does not explain the logic.
The logic was samba.
Not samba as museum tradition.
Not samba as an exotic marker designed for international listeners.
Samba as rhythmic intelligence.
From that foundation, almost anything became possible.
A Fender Rhodes could enter.
A synthesizer could enter.
American funk could enter.
Jazz improvisation could enter.
A drum machine could enter.
Decades later, DJs, samplers and electronic producers could enter too.
The foundation survived.
That is why “samba doido” remains such a perfect phrase.
It refuses academic precision.
It sounds playful.
Almost unserious.
Yet it captures Azymuth better than the categories critics constructed around them.
The samba is there.
Everything else is allowed to go crazy.
Their international breakthrough with “Jazz Carnival” could have reduced them to a moment. Instead, it opened a career that moved through Milestone Records, Montreux, synthesizer-heavy 1980s fusion, difficult personnel changes, rediscovery through London’s DJ culture, Far Out Recordings and an extraordinary late period in which younger electronic musicians finally recognized how modern the trio had always been.
Bertrami did not live to see the entire legacy unfold.
Mamão continued pushing rhythm toward machines almost until the end of his life.
Malheiros became the surviving link to the original triangle.
But Azymuth’s real continuation is no longer dependent upon personnel.
Listen to contemporary Brazilian instrumental music.
Listen to broken beat.
Listen to jazz-informed house.
Listen to producers searching old Brazilian records for a four-bar loop.
Eventually, the road leads back to Rio.
Back to three session musicians.
Back to electric keyboards, bass and drums.
Back to the moment when Brazilian jazz decided that technology was not something to fear.
Azymuth did not predict the future.
They simply kept moving toward it until the future recognized them.