Jazz, soul & blues
Séu Jorge
Séu Jorge, born Jorge Mário da Silva (8 June 1970 in Belford Roxo, near Rio), is one of the warmest voices of new Brazilian music, between samba, soul and funk. Revealed by cinema (“City of God”, then Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic”, where he covers David Bowie in Portuguese), he has made his mark on stages around the world. Montreux welcomed him in 2005.
Séu Jorge: from the red beanie to the Lake Stage
From the favela to the screen
Born Jorge Mário da Silva on 8 June 1970 in Belford Roxo, in Rio’s industrial outskirts, he left home very young, slept rough, and learned music in the dance halls and samba schools of his neighbourhood. Theatre and the clarinettist Paulo Moura opened a first door; he made a name with the madcap band Farofa Carioca, then in cinema. In 2002, Fernando Meirelles’s “City of God” revealed him as Mané Galinha, the tragic kingpin of a 1970s favela. His voice, with a crooner’s gravity, did the rest.
Singing Bowie in a red beanie
In 2004, Wes Anderson gave him, in “The Life Aquatic”, the role of Pelé dos Santos, a red-beanied deckhand who, between scenes, covers the 1970s David Bowie alone on guitar. Séu Jorge barely knew the work at the time: he drew from it free, poetic Portuguese versions of “Life on Mars?”, “Starman”, “Ziggy Stardust” and “Rebel Rebel”, gathered separately as “The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions”.
On hearing them, Bowie said he had discovered the secret beauty of his own songs. The two men never met; it was on Bowie’s death, on 10 January 2016, that Séu Jorge took to the road again with this repertoire, as a tribute (Le Temps).
2005: the Brazilian Riviera
The spring of 2005 was that of his album “Cru”, one of the best-selling world-music records of the year. On 9 April he set the Cully Jazz Festival marquee, in Lavaux, dancing; a few weeks later he stepped for the first time onto the Montreux Jazz Festival stage, with his band, bass and percussion, and unfurled the songs of “Cru”. The concert would appear as “Live in Montreux 2005”.
Returns to Montreux, in 2015 and 2025
Séu Jorge returned to the Auditorium Stravinski in Montreux on 2 October 2015, for the Jam Session Festival, a Brazilian event that has since disappeared. The support acts were Mariene de Castro, Quabales and Marivaldo Du Stomp.
Ten years later, in July 2025, Séu Jorge was back at the Montreux Jazz Festival, on the Casino stage, for a Brazilian night shared with the new generation of MPB.
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