Marcos Resende

Brazilian keyboardist and songwriter (Cachoeiro do Itapemirim - ES, 1947/ Lisboa - Portugal, 2020). A prodigious child, Marcos Resende learned to play the accordion at the age of two, and taught himself the piano at six. In spite of his immense potential to become a musician he travelled to Lisbon in the 60s to study medicine, though he continued to explore his musical passion on the side, forming a trio which ended up opening for Dexter Gordon at the Cascais Jazz Festival in 1971. From here he formed the electronic oriented prog-jazz group Status, who opened shows for the likes of Elton John, Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, but in spite of their relative live success they have no known recordings.

Now established as a highly regarded keyboardist, composer, and innovative electronic musician, Resende returned home to Brazil following Portugal’s Revolução dos Cravos in 1974. Inspired and invigorated by US jazz and British progressive rock he’d experienced while residing in Europe, Resende went all out acquiring a keyboard arsenal to be reckoned with, which included the Prophet 5, Yamaha CP-708 and Mini Moog. Determined to integrate his newfound inspirations with Brazilian rhythms and jazz traditions, he formed a new quartet with Rubão Sabino (bass), Claudio Caribé (drums) and the late great Oberdan Magalhães, of Banda Black Rio and Cry Babies fame, and recorded their self-titled debut at Sonoviso Studios with the legendary sound engineer Toninho Barbosa.

Though he wasn’t short of offers to release the album, Resende felt record companies were de-valuing the time and effort he spent absorbing his influences while establishing a career in Europe, and perfecting his sound with his Brazilian bandmates, as well as the magnitude of the recording they achieved. The album would only be released in 2021 by Far Out, only a matter of weeks after Marcos' sad death (by stomach cancer, on 12th November 2020, at the age of 73). Marcos Resede & Index finally debuted on disc with the mythical album Festa Para Um Novo Rei - home to the classic jazz-funk classic 'Vidigal' and released in the now iconic Philips Popular Brazilian Contemporary series (MPBC), but then without much repercussion. In As time passed, Resende become one of the most revered session keyboardists in Brazil, and played on records by Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Carlos Dafé and Gal Costa, among many others; as a result his career as a bandleader took a backseat, and these remarkable Index recordings remained below the surface.