welcome

photo by Donna Armstrong

from the beginning...

I was born in New York City, the son of Brazilian immigrants. We lived in New York and then New Jersey for a few years before my parents decided to go back to their hometown of São Paulo, where I was raised until I was ten years old. With the looming end of the mlitary dictatorship and Brazil's economy becoming increasingly precarious, my father once again decided to head for "the states". We then settled in Los Angeles in 1980. I have lived here ever since.

My father, an amateur accordionist in his youth, bought me my first guitar when I was twelve. I tinkered around with it for a while and eventually got an electric guitar. I spent my early teens trying to become a guitar god in the heyday of the heavy metal years. By my late teens, and with the onslaught on the "hair" bands, I quickly lost interest in metal and instead focused on blues and classical guitar. Self-taught and undisciplined, I played in friends' garages for much of those years. In my twenties, I rediscovered Brazilian music. Before long, I was consumed by the need to hear and learn from classic masters: Baden Powell, Luiz Bonfá, Tom Jobim. Later yet, as my interest in samba grew, I began to play percussion. After almost entirely giving up on the guitar I spent the next few years learning about the various Afro-Brazilian percussion instruments. My interest also expanded to Afro-Cuban percussion.

Unfortunately, as a high school graduate I was ill-prepared to enter college, even though I was a pretty good student. I began to work at various jobs, from aircraft welding to truck driving. I spent a few years going to night classes at community colleges. Eventually I finished my Associate of Arts with honors but did not transfer to a four-year college for another 6 years. Then, at the age of 30, I was accepted to UCLA. At UCLA I enrolled in the department of Spanish and Portuguese. Within my first year I transferred to Latin American Studies, where I became a Departmental Scholar and earned my BA and MA simultaneously. I then transferred to the Ethnomusicology Department as a graduate student, earning another MA and continuing to the Ph.D.