ALL ARE WELCOME TO THIS JOURNEY THROUGH THE TRADITIONAL ORIENTAL MUSIC WITH A TWIST OF JAZZ AND WORLD MUSIC

SANGHA - MANTRA JAZZ FUSION: OUR HISTORY

Through the universe and beyond until NOW!

SANGHA is composed by:
Didier Grelha - Percussion and traditional instruments / Backup Vocals
João Melro - Drums 
Marco Martins - Electric Bass
Miguel Martins - Electric Guitar
Ricardo Viegas - Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonium,  Bansuri 

This musical project was born from a group of people from diverse areas, but all conected by a great sense of friendship, a colourful and diverse background, and the ambition of creating together great creative music, honouring the ancestral traditions but at the same time, exploring new languages and establishing new musical frontiers.
The project has its foundation in 2019, but it all started with Ricardo around the year 2004, since he started to dedicate his life as a devotee of the vedic tradition, learning and teaching traditional yoga and Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual knowledge transmited at the end of Vedas in the Upanishadic texts. He learned traditional mantra, vedic prayers and sanskrit language with his teachers and swamis in the temple, and shared them along his teachings to his students. 

In the year of 2000 he used to sing in a rock band with Marco, but 2 years later the band split, and he get together with Marco almost 18 years later, to cooperate in a cultural project. In between work and conversation, they shared some music from their actual projects, and suddenly Marco sold a concert for a music festival and only after informed the musicians that now we had this brand new musical project of mantra jazz fusion, with concerts already booked. Everyone was surprised by this new, but everyone was really enthusiastic with the idea since the very first moment.

Marco Martins is a skillful bass player, music composer, and cultural developer. After living for 5 years in Paris, he returns to settle in the Algarve in the late 2017. While in Paris, he formed the group Marco Martins Quintet, and recorded his first original album titled ROADBOOK, released by Parallel Records. Presently living in Loulé, he is the co-founder of Mákina de Cena, a cultural association, and is the leader of the group Marco Martins Quartet and of the project The West Sessions. He is actually attending a master degree in Jazz Performance in Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (2018/20). Along his career he founded and participated in various projects such as Flajazzados, or Viviane, and performed in many clubs, auditoriums, and jazz or world music festivals widely known such as Macau International Music Festival 2012, Fundação Oriente (Macau), Sedajazz International Festival (Spain), Loulé Jazz, Hot Club de Portugal, Casa da Música do Porto, Centro Cultural de Belém, Festival de Jazz de Valado dos Frades, Festival Med (Loulé), and Badajoz International Jazz Festival (Spain).

Miguel Martins is an experienced jazz guitar player, and the "maestro" in deconstructing the traditional mantras and recreating them with different and inovative expressions. Miguel Martins is at the forefront of the young and creative generation of jazz musicians from Portugal, with an instantly recognizable warm and projecting tone. An Algarve-born Portuguese, Miguel was tutored by top jazz guitarist like Ben Monder, Jonathan Kreisberg, Phillipe Catherine, and Nguyen Lee and distinguished himself early on as one off the youngest band-leader in the Portuguese jazz scene with his group “PORTUJAZZ” with 19 years old in 1997.
In 2003 aged 24, Miguel moved to Lisbon, determined to immerse himself in the jazz scene and immediately attracted the notice of double bassist Carlos Barretto who offered him work with his band, touring Portugal and Spain. In 2004 Miguel Martins "Kaleidoscopio" was formed with Carlos Barretto and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari, and in 2007, publishes his first album "The newcomer" by Klimaxrecords, considered one of the best Portuguese jazz albums of 2007 by Jazz.pt magazine where Martins has composed and arranged songs with his vision.
Citing Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, John Scofield and John Mclaughlin as his main influences, Miguel went on to create and co-lead the young and hip Portuguese jazz sensation “Samadhi”, where he spent two years touring major festivals and events in Portugal and Spain.
In late 2009 he moved to Barcelona where he lived. There Martins played with musicians as Llibert Fortuny, Masa Kamaguchi, Antonio Mesa, Paulinho Lêmos, among others.
In 2010/11 he moved to Italy to the jazz city of Bologna, where he played and toured Italy with musicians and band like, Stefano Senni, Guglielmo Pagnozzi, John Serry, Andrea Rea, Emiliano Franco, Daniele Sorentino, Davide Garattoni, Bruno Farineli, Filippo Mignatti, Domenico Caliri.
In 2012, Miguel Martins moved to London and he put his new group garnering attention in UK’s jazz scene. The band is based in London, where Martins share his new music project with, Brandon Allen arguably the most exciting tenor player in Britain today, the dynamic and versatile pianist Chris Jerome who has performed and recorded with Courtney Pine, Jazz Jamaica All stars. On double ...bass the remarkable Ben Bastin, who normally perform with Sarah Gillespie and Gilad Atzmon. Portuguese powerful drummer, Pedro Segundo that at 22 years old joins the James Pearson Trio at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. In London Martins normaly plays as a freelancer with musicians like Leon Greening, Renato d'Aleio, Jonny Gee, Emiliano Franco, Christian Brewer, Andrea Trillo, Ricardo dos Santos, Nadim Teomori, Fulvio Sigurta, among others. 
In 2016 the band Miguel Martins & Javier Orti " Cuarteto Iberico", based in Seville, made their first record "VIVEK" wtih a repertoire of original songs from Martins and Orti, recorded under the prestigious label Blue Asteroid Records based in Seville. Broadcast already by Radio 3 in Discopolis a major jazz radio show in Spain and they presented their record for the first time at Teatro Central de Sevilla in the Festival Internacional de Jazz de Sevilla.
Martins has performed and recorded with a veritable who’s who of both Portuguese and international jazz artists such as Carlos Barretto, Carlos Bica, Markku Ounaskari, Jonathan Robinson, John B Arnold, Kelvin Sholar, Brandon Allen, Neil Angilley, Sebastian Merk, John Serry, Michael Lauren, Jay Phelps, Ersnt Bier, Benny Lackner, Antonio Ciaca. Miguel played in several jazz clubs, and international tours around, Portugal, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic and France. 

Main performance in several jazz festival such as:
Jazz Festival of Seville , Spain 
Punta Umbria Jazz Festival , Spain

International Jazz Festival of Loulé , PT 
Faro Internacional Jazz Festival , PT 
Festival of Vila Real Douro Jazz , PT 
Lagos Jazz Festival, PT 
Sodueste Festival ,PT
Festival Paredes de Coura , PT 
Faro national capital of culture , PT 
as guest soloist in the Jazz Orchestra of Lagos "OJL"
Portalegre Jazz Fest ,Portalegre PT 2006
TorresVedras Jazz Fest , Torres Vedras PT 2007
Jazz Fest PlenOut , Lisboa PT 2
Jazz Im Garten Goethe, Lisboa PT 
Festival of Aljustrel "Jazzmin", PT 
PortugalJazz ,Almeirim,PT 
PortugalJazz, Montijo, PT 
Festival of Gibraleon "jazzolontia " 
Festival jazz of "Dos Hermanas" Seville, spain 
Jazz Circle V Madrid Spain, 
Festival of Jazz Valado de Frades "Jazzvalado08" PT 
I Festival La Guitarra La Laguna, Tenerife , Canary Island, Spain 
V Festival de Jazz de Minde PT 
Festival "Keroxen 09 Stª Cruz, Tenerife Canary island, spain, 
Maury's jazzfest Bologna, Italy, 
JazzIberia, Badajoz Spain 
Lotajazzfest Portimão PT 
Notte dei Musei , Taverna, Italy 
Tassjazzfest Odemira, PT

Outjazzfest Lisboa ,PT

Main performace in Jazz Clubs:
Hot Club Portugal, Lisboa PT
Jamboree, Barcelona, ES
Naima, Seville, ES
Jazz Corner, Seville, ES
BFLAT, Berlin, GER
A-Train, Berlin, GER
Cantina Bentivoglio , Bologna, IT
Music Art Napoli IT
Zurzulo Teatro Live, Napoli, IT
U Malého Glena, Czech Republic

Birmingham Jazz, UK
BakerStreet Jazz Club, Swindon UK
The Norwich Jazz Club, Norwich, UK
Pizza Express, London, UK
The 606 Club, London, UK
Ronnie Scott's, London, UK

João Melro is an infectious jazz drummer. He was born in 31st of July in 1979, in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, but still in his early years, he came to live in Faro, Portugal, homeland of his parents. He attended piano and music classes in the music conservatorium, and private tutoring as well during his childhood, but then he quit the piano, and later on, he moved on to learn what would become his personal instrument, the drums. he started playing to the rock gender, but quickly he passed on to study jazz, and he played blues, reggae or jazz, among other genders, in several different projects. 

He performed at various music festivals such as Festival de Jazz de Loulé, Festival de Músicas do Mundo de Sines, Festival Med in Loulé, Festival Sudoeste in Zambujeira do Mar, Festival Jazz no Inverno in Faro, BB Blues Fest, among others.

He played, composed and recorded with musicians such as Zé Eduardo, Carlos Barreto, David Gausden, Jean Paul Rena, Miguel Martins, Hugo Alves, Tuniko Goulart, Manuela Lopes, Leon Baldesberger, among others. 

Didier Grelha has 25 years of stage technician and performance, a self taught musician and skillful percussionist that gave voice to many musical projects, mostly on traditional African percussion such as Bumboklat, and reggae such as Original Electro Groove, and runs the radio show Sonoridades, on world music and ethnic sound in RUA FM station, for the last 16 years.