Macondo Trio

Macondo Trio unsettles your sense of time. It does not rush. It builds. A pulse emerges, discreet at first, then insistent — warming the body, climbing slowly upward — until rhythm and breath become one continuous movement.

Their music weaves modal and improvised jazz with West African rhythmic traditions and fragments of childhood memory. It is not a fusion, but a conversation — between continents, between personal histories, between three musicians who listen as intensely as they play.

Beninese drummer Angelo Moustapha, Belgian saxophonist Sylvain Debaisieux, and Italian bassist Federico Stocchi form a trio grounded in trust and shared exploration. Their sound is both earthy and searching: repetition opens space, groove generates lift, improvisation reshapes the landscape in real time.

The project began when Moustapha and Debaisieux met and developed a common rhythmic language through artistic residencies in Belgium and Benin. There, improvisation became a tool for crossing borders — musical and human. With the arrival of Stocchi, the trio found its full resonance: a deep, organic foundation anchoring an ever-evolving dialogue.

Their debut EP, ‘Macondo’ (Off Records, December 2022), captured this first alchemy — where the physical energy of groove meets the openness of jazz improvisation.

In March 2025, they released ‘Morayò’ on the Dutch label Challenge Records. The album expanded their sonic territory while remaining faithful to the trio’s core: collective listening, rhythmic intensity, and generosity of sound. It was presented on tour across the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, including performances at Propulse Festival and Flagey in Brussels.

Macondo Trio proposes an open, vibrant contemporary trio music that invites us not only to listen, but to inhabit a shared space.