Hey 👋 I’m Itaiguara Brandão, professional Session Bassist at Musiversal. I’m originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I have been living in New York for the past 28 years.
I joined Musiversal at the inception in September 2020, as their first session musician, and have completed over 1,000 sessions ever since 🎉
In this blog post I’ll show you what my first year and a half has been like at Musiversal and what I’ve learnt along the way!
My music background
I started studying piano at a small music school at age 7. I was a very shy boy, so when the time came for the students’ recital at the end of the year, I felt terrified by the idea of playing by myself in front of all the other students and their parents. As soon as I saw the classroom, before entering, I asked grandma to turn around and take me out of there! I left without performing my piece, and I quit music for the time being, until age 11, when I started taking guitar lessons with an excellent teacher, and I improved really fast.
I began learning the classical guitar repertoire, the choro repertoire (a Brazilian style of music suitable for complex guitar arrangements), as well as music theory. In the meantime, my parents and some of my friends were learning simple chords on the guitar, so they could play and sing their favorite songs. A couple of months later I was checking out the songs in their notebooks and I was able to play all the chords and blaze through their repertoire with ease. I attributed that capacity to the solid music foundation I was receiving with the classical music lessons.
Since that time I've been keeping my interest in both realms, the theoretical and the intuitive, the academic and the street knowledge, and merging them into one.
I started transcribing songs by ear around age 13 and accumulating repertoire, trying to memorize as many songs as possible. That's also when I started playing the electric bass.
Playing bass had a great advantage over studying solo pieces on either piano or guitar: first, I didn’t have to be self-conscious about being the center of attention during a performance; second, I could be part of a band, and that put me at ease to develop my musicianship while acquiring live-playing experience.
Needless to say, the bass is a rich instrument in its own right, so I fell in love with the sound, the groove, the power to carry a song and to charge the harmony, etc.
A good bassist, over time, can develop a deep understanding about music arranging, since the bass has many functions: it has to be in sync with the drums, it defines the harmony, it plays a counterpoint to the melody line, and is the one responsible for the form of the song. Those aspects of playing bass give us opportunities for learning for a lifetime.
At age 15, I was good enough to play my first paying gig. I was very comfortable on stage, being behind the guitarist and the vocalist, just doing my thing.
While I was in college studying Telecommunications Engineering I kept doing a few gigs on bass, while still studying guitar. I had an interest in many styles of music: I loved the energy of rock, the groove of Brazilian music, funk, and pop, the vibe and virtuosity in flamenco, etc., and I tried to learn to play them all. I first got interested in jazz as a source of harmonic and rhythmic knowledge, as it gave me a deeper perspective in music theory, beyond what classical music had taught me thus far. But then, after feeling the African groove element of jazz, I also developed a genuine passion for the style.
I then had an opportunity to come to the US to attend Berklee College of music in Boston to study jazz on the electric bass. Shortly after, I moved to New York and started taking every gig possible: I never turned down any gig, no matter what conditions, and I was really grateful for each and every musician/bandleader who invited me to work. Because of that gratitude, I always came extremely prepared for the gigs, always on time, and with a desire to help out with whatever I could. As a result I became a highly sought-after musician in New York.
At age 40 (better late than never), I started taking upright bass lessons. Learning to play the upright bass added a great dimension to my overall bass playing, and it gave me even more opportunities to work.
So far I've done almost 7,000 gigs; some of them with world-class artists in the top of their field, like 5-time Grammy winner Dianne Reeves, 5-time Grammy winner Paquito de Rivera, outstanding Brazilian composers Ivan Lins, Marcos Valle, Carlos Lyra, and Roberto Menescal, accomplished instrumentalists Toquinho and Romero Lubambo, and amazingly talented singers Leny Andrade, Emilio Santiago, and Joyce. I even had the honor to play a gig with Paul Simon in New York.
At age 46 I finally proved to myself that I overcame my fear of the spotlight by recording my first solo album, Awakening, and playing concerts in my name, showing my own compositions, and talking with the audience about them.
With an undying passion for learning, I went back to school recently, finishing my masters degree in Jazz Composition from Queens College, NY in 2019. There, I received the Marvin Hamlisch Award for emerging composers:
Musiversal and me...
I met Vinicius Castro (Musiversal's recruiter and music producer) at a recording session in New York. He knew I had top-notch pre-amps, mics, and other recording equipment at my home studio, and a year later he invited me to do a test for Musiversal. Vinicius is extremely smart and capable, and I've learned a ton from him about recording.
From day one, I've been keeping the same professional attitude at Musiversal that I had throughout my career: grateful for the job, and therefore giving my absolute best, going above and beyond to satisfy the company’s clients.
I was the only bassist on the platform for 6 months, doing 30 sessions per week (6 sessions per day, back to back, from Monday to Friday) when I was then joined by fellow bassists Chris Bonner, Pablo Arruda, and more recently Bruno Migliari, all extremely capable and experienced musicians.
A day in the life at Musiversal
I’ve done more than 1,000 recording sessions for Musiversal and I've learned a lot.
Having instant feedback from the client is extremely valuable. I learned to play simpler, and to focus more on sound and concept. I've learned to build, on the spot, an arc for the bass line that can tell a story. By having to check out an even broader array of music genres, I've expanded my vocabulary on the instrument and now I have a wider view about the function of the bass in several styles. I have a longstanding passion for learning music, so to me that's the main benefit of being at Musiversal.
My typical day is doing 4 sessions back to back in the mornings, from 10am to 1pm. It really works for me because then I get to spend the afternoon with my son, and be available for gigs in the evenings. Musiversal is very flexible with the scheduling of musicians so, if I give them advanced notice, they will graciously change my availability on the platform to accommodate an upcoming tour I might want to take.
“From day one, I've been keeping the same professional attitude at Musiversal that I had throughout my career: grateful for the job, and therefore giving my absolute best, going above and beyond to satisfy the company’s clients.”
Musiversal’s session musicians perform and record at the highest level in the industry. Recently, drummer Adam Alesi and I recorded, from our own home studios, a couple of tracks for Ancestras, by Petrona Martinez, with producer Manuel Garcia-Orozco, a Musiversal client. The album won the 2021 Latin Grammy for best folk music album!
Musiversal’s culture
My favorite part about working with Musiversal’s core team is that I’m surrounded by really smart, competent people who are also kind humans. The Musiversal team is always asking for our feedback as musicians and I always feel heard by them. I've been treated very respectfully and cordially from day one. This type of company culture is rare out there, and it's awesome.
Recently I had the opportunity to use the platform as a "client”: I booked 10 sessions with my fellow Musiversal musicians and it was an awesome experience. Initially I had a jazz big band arrangement that I was pretty happy with, but I could only hear it in midi. As I was replacing the midi parts for real instruments and seeing the arrangement coming alive after each session with a Musiversal musician, I felt immensely grateful that a service like this exists. Keep in mind that a jazz big band is composed of 13 horns plus piano, bass, and drums, so Musiversal made possible what would otherwise be an unaffordable music project for me.
“This type of company culture is
rare out there, and it's awesome”
Frankly, the value that this platform brings to the marketplace is way higher than what the customers are being charged for. I think the way forward is to raise the price per session, and that will become easier and easier to pull off as the client base grows.