Unisphere was conceived in June of 2016 while Dave Zinno and Mike Tucker were in Rio de Janeiro. They shared a desire to create a group that reflected their roots in North American Jazz while also including the influence of Brazilian musical styles they had acquired with the immersive experience of living and playing in Brazil. The group is Zinno and Tucker on bass and tenor saxophone, Eric Benny Bloom on trumpet and flugelhorn, Leo Genovese and Tim Ray on piano and keyboards and (Rio de Janeiro native) Rafael Barata on drums. Since the group’s creation, they have performed clubs and concert halls in the northeast U.S. and Zinno, Tucker and Barata have done performances as “Unisphere South” in Rio de Janeiro. The group features a collaborative approach. All members have contributed compositions and arrangements which gives their recordings a very diverse pallet of sound and ideas. They have released three albums on Whaling City Sound records: “River of January” (WCS101 2017),”Stories Told” (WCS 113 2019) and “Fetish” (WCS 130 2021).
Unisphere continues to explore this collaboration in performance and recording.
