Describing the musical partnership of Natalie Cressman and Ian Faquini as a duo is accurate, but their collaboration contains multitudes. She’s a trombonist, vocalist and songwriter from San Francisco. He’s a composer, guitarist, and singer from Brasilia. Together they’ve honed a singularly expansive creative communion encompassing their love of the Brazilian songbook, jazz, Impressionism and sophisticated pop songcraft.

Their original material features lyrics in Portuguese, French and English set to music drawing from a vast stylistic spectrum. With sumptuous two-part vocal harmonies hugging Brazilian-accented Portuguese accompanied by trombone and acoustic guitar, Cressman and Faquini’s richly orchestrated sound seems to emanate from a much larger ensemble.

Their third album, Guinga (released on GroundUP Music on April 12, 2024) is a tribute to the legendary Brazilian composer, guitarist and vocalist, who has mentored Faquini for more than a decade. Guinga himself performs on five tracks (joining the duo on three songs and Cressman alone on two). Focusing on his lesser known tunes, the project also includes three newer songs featuring Guinga’s lyrics set to music by Faquini. The album is dedicated to Cressman’s dear friend and horn section mate in the Trey Anastasio Band, saxophonist James Casey, who died on the first day of the Guinga recording, “and inevitably all the feelings of grief and loss poured into session,” Cressman says.

The duo’s first two albums together have fueled the rapidly growing recognition of their gorgeous sound, including a finalist nomination for “Duo of The Year” by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2023. Both 2019’s Setting Rays of Summer and 2022’s Auburn Whisper received critical praise and topped many “best of” lists in their respective years. Together Cressman and Faquini have played their music across the US in venues ranging from intimate house concerts to performing arts halls and jazz festival stages such as the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Jazz Aspen Snowmass. They’ve also toured internationally in Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
 

Possessing a voice as cool and crystalline as an Alpine stream, Natalie Cressman draws inspiration from a vast array of musical currents. A prodigiously talented trombonist, she’s spent the last 14 years touring as a horn player and vocalist with Phish's Trey Anastasio, while also performing around NYC with jazz greats Wycliffe Gordon, Nicholas Payton, Anat Cohen, Dave Douglas, and Peter Apfelbaum.

Deeply versed in Latin jazz, post-bop, pop, and Brazilian music, Cressman has released three albums under her own name as well as three acclaimed duo albums with Brazilian-born guitarist Ian Faquini, her primary musical partner for the past decade. Together they’ve honed a singularly expansive creative communion encompassing their love of the Brazilian songbook, jazz, Impressionism and sophisticated pop songcraft. Focusing on their original songs, the duo’s recordings include 2019’s Setting Rays of Summer, 2022’s Auburn Whisper, and 2024's GUINGA, a tribute to the revered Brazilian composer and guitarist.

Cressman’s trombone prowess has earned her widespread recognition. In both 2019 and 2023 Downbeat awarded her “Rising Star Trombone” honors in the magazine’s annual critics’ poll.

Drawing on her love of groove, cool R&B and jazz, Cressman released the solo albums, Unfolding (2012) and Turn the Sea (2014), followed by  Etchings in Amber (2016), a gorgeous duo album with guitarist Mike Bono that introduced Cressman as a formidable musical force without her horn. She released The Traces EP in 2017, which expanded her creative reach into post-production with meticulously crafted soundscaped tracks inspired by R&B and indie pop.

Her passion for groove music hasn’t diluted her love of jazz. In 2016 SFJAZZ commissioned her to develop music for a concert celebrating the legacy of jazz trombonist/arranger Melba Liston. When she’s not performing her own music, Cressman can be found collaborating with some of the most illustrious figures in rock, funk, jazz and beyond such as Carlos Santana, Phish, Big Gigantic, Escort, Phil Lesh, Oteil Burbridge, The Motet, and Umphrey's McGee.

​Her mother, Sandy Cressman, is a jazz vocalist who immersed herself deeply in Brazilian music, collaborating with many of the country’s most respected musicians. Her father, Jeff Cressman, is a recording engineer and trombonist who recently concluded a two-decade run with Santana. Natalie quite naturally began studying trombone with her father, but set out to be a dancer rather than a musician. An aspiring ballerina until her junior year of high school, she changed courses when an injury sidelined her dance aspirations.

Her parents provided entrée to a number of enviable opportunities, but Cressman's own prodigious gifts continued to merit her presence in any number of high-profile settings. She soon found herself playing salsa with Uruguayan percussionist Edgardo Cambon e Orquesta Candela, Latin jazz with Pete Escovedo's Latin Jazz Orchestra, world music with Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra, and globally-inspired avant-garde jazz with multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum, a close family friend. Cressman traveled east in 2009 to study at the Manhattan School of Music, and the following year jam band pioneer Trey Anastasio recruited her for his touring band. He met Cressman at 18, and “was instantly floored by how melodically and naturally she played and sang,” Anastasio says. “Natalie is the rarest of musicians. Born into a musical family and raised in a home filled with the sounds of Brazilian music, jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms, musicality is in her DNA." These days, she’s blazing new musical trails with Faquini, creating sumptuous songs where jazz and the Brazilian songbook intermingle.

​Natalie is endorsed by King Trombones.

                                                             - Paul de Barros, Seattle Times

Ian Faquini writes exquisitely sophisticated Brazilian pop music in the omnivorous tradition known as MPB (música popular brasileira), which has often been deeply influenced by jazz. Born in Brasília and raised in Berkeley, Faquini is a protégé of Guinga, the revered Brazilian guitarist and songwriter whose tunes have been recorded by dozens of MPB stars.

In 2014, Faquini released his debut album with flautist Rebecca Kleinmann, Brasiliense, which features his original compositions reflecting his love of jazz and Impressionism and his growing mastery of Brazilian musical forms. He followed up with 2016’s Metal na Madeira, a collaboration with acclaimed vocalist Paula Santoro, who hails from Minas Gerais. Conjuring the physical and cultural landscape of Brazil’s northeast with maracatu, frevo, baião, xote, and toada rhythms, the project features an all-star cast of collaborators, including Brazilian saxophone great Spok (leader of Recife’s Spok Frevo Orquestra), Bay Area multi-reedist Harvey Wainapel, trombonist Jeff Cressman, keyboardist and accordion player Vitor Gonçalves, bassist Scott Thompson, drummer/percussionist Rafael Barata, and pandeiro master Sergio Krakowski.

​Since then, Faquini has focused on his partnership with trombonist, vocalist, and lyricist Natalie Cressman, with whom he was a finalist for duo of the year in 2023’s Jazz Journalists Critics Poll. They’ve recorded three albums, 2019’s Setting Rays of Summer, 2022’s Auburn Whisper, and the soon-to-be released Guinga, a tribute that features the maestro on five tracks.

With a singular set of skills, highly personal compositional style, and lush harmonic palette, Faquini is one of the most respected guitar players in the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s also a brilliant accompanist, which has made him an in-demand collaborator with vocalists around the U.S. and Brazil. Beyond his work with Guinga, he has performed with some of the most illustrious figures in jazz and Brazilian music, including Fleurine, Spok, Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau, and many others. Faquini has performed throughout Europe, Japan, Brazil and the United States, including Montreux Jazz Festival, Enjoy Jazz Festival, Bimhuis (Amsterdam), Birdland (NYC), and The A Trane (Berlin).

After spending his early years in Brazil, Faquini moved to Berkeley at the age of eight. A member of the renowned Berkeley High School Jazz program before going on to study at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley, he joined the CJC faculty immediately after graduating. He is also on the faculty at California Brazil Camp, working alongside musical legends including Guinga, Hermeto Pascoal, Joyce and Ivan Lins.