Nilza Costa at Tapadum: Brazilian Soul, African Roots, European Jazz
On 18 November 2022, Brazilian singer-songwriter Nilza Costa and her quartet brought afro-jazz and Brazilian song to Tapadum in Faenza, singing across six languages.
November 18 brought the Southern Hemisphere to Tapadum. Nilza Costa — Brazilian singer-songwriter, world and afro-jazz artist — performed at our home concert with a quartet of some of the finest musicians on the Italian jazz scene.
Fourteen people came. Thirty-six more had been thinking about it.
Nilza Costa: An Authentic and Original Artist
Nilza Costa sings and writes in six languages: Portuguese, Yoruba, Italian, English, Creole, and Zulu. That list is not a curriculum point — it is a map of the musical territories she inhabits. Her music is sacred and traditional in its roots, contemporary in its language, and deeply cross-contaminated between Brazil, Africa, and Europe. At the centre of everything is improvisation.
By the time she came to Tapadum, Nilza had released three albums and completed several European tours with her quartet and quintet. Her most recent album — Le Notti di San Patrizio, released in September 2022 on the Italian label Bruttura Moderne and distributed by Xango Music in the Netherlands — was available on all digital platforms and formed the core of the evening’s program.
The Quartet
- Nilza Costa — voice
- Daniele Santimone — electric and acoustic guitars, vocals
- Red Rossi — drums, percussion, vocals
- Maurizio Piancastelli — trumpet, effects, keyboards
The quartet reflects the same cross-cultural logic as the music itself. Daniele Santimone’s guitar work moves between acoustic warmth and electric texture. Red Rossi’s percussion brings African rhythmic frameworks into a jazz context without forcing them. Maurizio Piancastelli’s trumpet — processed through effects and layered with keyboards — adds a contemporary, atmospheric dimension that sits above the groove without leaving it.
Brazilian Popular Songs and Improvisation
The evening’s program combined Brazilian popular songs with improvisation — the two poles of Nilza’s practice held in deliberate tension. The popular songs carry the memory of the traditions she draws from: Candomblé chant, samba, baião, the sacred repertoire of the Yoruba diaspora in Brazil. The improvisation is where those memories become something present, alive, and unrepeatable.
Nilza Costa’s voice is the bridge between the two. She does not sing Brazilian music in the European sense — as exotic material observed from the outside. She sings from inside it, with the fluency and authority of someone for whom Yoruba and Portuguese are not separate languages but parts of the same breath.
Le Notti di San Patrizio
The album released just two months before the Tapadum concert brought together the strands of Nilza’s musical world into a coherent statement. The title — The Nights of Saint Patrick — carries an unexpected cultural crossover built into it: Irish patron saint, Brazilian soul, African roots, Italian release, Dutch distribution. That breadth is not a paradox. It is a description of where music actually lives when it travels freely.
Tapadum hosts concerts from across the world. Explore our handcrafted instrument collection or follow our upcoming events.
Özgür Yalçın is the founder of Tapadum and the founding member of Karagüneş. He has performed ethnic and world music across Europe for over twenty-five years and builds custom instruments from Tapadum’s workshop in Brisighella, Italy.