Rafael Chamone - Sonoluminescence (2026) [Hi-Res]

New York, NY (For Immediate Release) – Adhyâropa Records is thrilled to announce the release of Sonoluminescence (ÂR00158), the debut album from the extraordinary young Brazilian guitarist and composer Rafael Chamone. Joined by stalwarts of the New York jazz and world music community Rogério Boccato, Colin Stranahan, and Myles Sloniker and bolstered by up-and-coming talents Anthony Bolden and Arnie Sainz, Sonoluminescence heralds the arrival of a major new talent with a unique approach to his instrument and distinctive compositional voice.

“This album really is the story of my first two years in the New York music scene,” Chamone says. “Rogério, Colin, and Myles are older than me and I wanted their voice and perspective on this project, but I also wanted Anthony and Arnie, who are close contemporaries, in the mix as well. In that way, I can share a bit of the musical conversation I’m having with the musicians of my generation as well as the example and inspiration of my mentors. But tying it together is my own compositional voice, which owes a great deal to Milton Nascimento, Baden Powell de Aquino and, especially on a lot of the pieces present in Sonoluminescence, composer Leiteras Leite, from Salvador, Bahia. With him, everything was about motivic development. In his approach, Afro-Brazilian figures become repeated motifs, as if melodic instruments became drums, and over time they become like mantras. It’s an approach that forces the performers and the listeners to focus on the moment, on the now.”

Indeed, motivic development is at the core of every note of Sonoluminescence, evident right from the album’s opener ‘Sonoluminescência,’ framed by Doric columns of notes in the guitar and piano but surrounded by colorful (“luminescent”) effects created by Chamone through granular delay; the result is gorgeous in an ear-bending way, like listening to time moving forwards and backwards all at once. A stately melody enters but the columns of quarter notes are ever-present, buttresses holding up the architecture of the music even in support of Bolden and Chamone’s blistering solo features.

Another standout on this track and throughout the album is percussionist Rogério Boccato. “He’s a musician I knew I wanted on this project because I've always admired him for his depth, dynamism, musicality and his fluency in both languages. On this track (‘Sonoluminescência’), he brought a triplet feel of afro samba grooves and alongside Colin Stranahan juxtaposed it with the swing feel on different sections of the recording. This conversation between the idiomatic feel of our two countries, my birthplace and my adopted home, has been ongoing for decades and this album is my contribution to that conversation.”

“It’s also a tribute to the city of Ouro Preto. I was born close by, in Belo Horizonte, and Ouro Preto has always had a great significance to me. It’s an ancient city, a gold rush city, and a center of the slave trade. At one point it was even bigger than New York! Because of the mix of cultures (voluntary or otherwise), it has a legacy of blending different voices together which has really influenced my voice today. My Minas Gerais (southeastern Brazil) roots are evident throughout the album in the way these voices blend.”

The story of Sonoluminescence is also rooted in Chamone’s journey to New York, and the second track, ‘Sinos,’ finds Chamone speaking in cosmopolitan, New York-jazz sonorities, though his compositional voice is still strongly apparent. “‘Sinos’ is actually the only track on the album that I didn’t write in New York,” Chamone says. “Sinos means ‘bells’ in Portuguese, and it’s meant to recall the sound of the church bells I heard in my apartment every morning, transformed here into a motif and filtered through the jazz language of my adopted hometown of New York.”

Another influence on Chamone’s approach is the Brazilian bandolim genius Hamilton de Holanda, most evident in the choro-adjacent third track, ‘Sky Seresta.’ “I’ve been listening to him my whole life, and there aren’t many young Brazilian musicians who haven’t been touched by his influence in some way. He really expanded our conception of what Brazilian music could contain, what could subsume it, and where it could meet other musics as equals. I came to New York to study jazz to investigate those meeting points.”

“Rafael has assembled a great band for Sonoluminescence. The vibe is slick and tasty and the compositions have depth. ” - Ari Hoenig

As if on cue, track 4 ‘Assyrtiko’ finds Chamone back in a New York state of mind. A ruminative bass solo from Sloniker gives way to Stranahan’s propulsive drumming, which forms a perfect mounting for the insistent melody. Sainz’s searching piano performance places the music squarely among the vanguard of the young generation of New York jazz musicians, and Bolden’s incendiary tenor sax solo lifts the performance into the exosphere.

“When Brazilian musicians play with American musicians, there’s always a conversation between the Americans’ swing and the Brazilian straight 8th feel. Too frequently, that conversation is about compromises being made. I try not to see or feel it that way, and I was particularly encouraged by another of my American mentors Ari Hoenig to keep both colors on the palette at all times.” True to his word, there is not a single track on the album in which the feel and pocket of either approach seems further than arm’s reach; Chamone seems to be reaching for a recipe in which both ingredients mix with and enhance each other.

“There are many reasons why people make music, and Rafael does it for the right ones - love, community, curiosity, craft. The music on this record is full of joy, melodic, authentic, fresh, I hope this is the first of many records of a beautiful journey” - Vinicius Gomes

A particularly delicious late-album highlight is the album’s first single, ‘Ladeira,’ which begins with a spectacular showcase for Boccato. “This track is a bit of a tribute to Milton Nascimento, one of my heroes,” Chamone says. “His song ‘Cravo E Canela’ has been called samba in 3, that some actually argue comes from Congado, a type of afro-folkloric music from the rural side of Minas Gerais. Whatever its origins are, I felt like it was unexplored in instrumental improvisational settings, and I wanted to try my hand at it. The B section is in 5, which is also a reference to Bituca (Milton Nascimento's nickname in Brazil), who explored similar grooves in songs like Saídas e Bandeiras and Lília.”

“Sonoluminescence is the natural phenomenon in which sound, or vibration, creates enough energy that it gives off its own light,” Chamone says. “That’s what this album, and playing with these musicians, feels like to me. When we play together, the meeting of our voices creates a whole new frequency of its own, and that unique song gives off a light, and that light can light the world.”

Rafael Chamone - guitar
Anthony Bolden - tenor sax
Arnie Sainz - piano
Myles Sloniker - bass
Rogério Boccato - percussion
Colin Stranahan - drums