Jazz Bossa Nova

Bet.e & Stef hail from the cosmopolitan sophistication of urban Montreal. Bet.e grew up in a musical family, singing and dabbling with various musical instruments from a young age. When Bet.e made the decision to become a professional singer, it was her friend Stef who helped her in that decision by recording tapes of vocal exercises for her to do. “I became fascinated with Samba and Bossa Nova so I studied it,” says Bet.e, “I just immersed myself in the language, rhythm, and style, uncovering the beautiful intricacy of what Antônio Carlos Jobim called this ‘ocean of sounds.’ I would learn a song, and with each one I wanted to know more.” Also a born music enthusiast, Stef's teen years found him playing and singing in various jazz/rock bands and at 21, he traveled to Paris to study vocal jazz and musical arrangement. During that four-year stretch he was drawn to the city's molten Latin music scene, a veritable underground of stellar South American expatriate musicians whose repertoire of Samba and Bossa Nova stood him on his musical ear. Returning to Canada, Stef realized that his heart had moved permanently south as he had fallen in love with the works of South American Bossa Nova giants such as Antônio Carlos Jobim, guitarists Toquinho and Vinícius de Moraes and the genre’s inventor, musical genius João Gilberto. Making the musical connection with Bet.e marked the turning point, revealing whole new vistas of musical possibilities.

Bet.e & Stef’s first engagement as a duo happened when Bet.e’s sister asked them to do a couple of songs at her wedding. They went into the studio to make a demo, and when she heard it, they got the gig. Being independent artists, however, was not made up of performance alone. "I didn't really know how anything in the music business worked," says Bet.e. "I'd never had a band; nothing! I just knew I wanted to do it, and so we learned.” Between the two of them, Bet.e & Stef took on the daunting tasks of working out their own booking and marketing strategies in addition to being musicians. Through hard work and sheer willpower they worked steadily up from restaurants to lounges, then smaller clubs and ultimately larger concert venues in the Montreal-Quebec City-Ottawa corridor.

That progression also saw them increase their repertoire from a base of 30 songs to over 80, many of which are sung in original Brazilian Portuguese. Fluent in both French and English, the two of them worked long and hard to learn the mother tongue of Bossa Nova, incorporating the subtle accents and pronunciation into their delivery.

The Miles Davis dictum of “less is more” proving true yet again, they only added musicians when they felt their understanding of the genre and the material warranted it. Detailing and refining their art, they found time to self-produce and record some of their favourite titles including So Danço Samba, Boomerang Baby and One Note Samba. The response to the resultant CD titled Bet.e & Stef Jazz|Bossa Nova was overwhelming and has since sold 30,000 copies. This is an incredible number considering the completely independent nature of this project.

Through teamwork and clarity of vision, Bet.e & Stef have been able to remain true to their love of Samba and Bossa Nova. Their immediate plans are to expand their touring base and to record then release a CD of their own compositions; their fans around the world eagerly await both events. It is only fitting that what started with travel