The Matosinhos Jazz Orchestra (OJM) is a non-profit organization with the goal of promoting creation, research, dissemination, and education in the field of Jazz.
With the support of the Matosinhos City Council since 1999, it combines international ambition with local responsibility, fulfilling the role of a National Jazz Orchestra and pioneering in a largely unexplored territory.
With a repertoire encompassing all aesthetic variations and eras of jazz, OJM is artistically directed by Pedro Guedes and has recorded albums in collaboration with Chris Cheek, Lee Konitz, Ohad Talmor, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Maria João, João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Rebecca Martin, and Larry Grenadier, Zé Eduardo, and Kiko Freitas and Gabi Guedes in the project Brazilian Music, Portuguese Musicians, curated by musicologist Zuza Homem de Mello.
They released their most recent albums through their own label, CARA, which also made available the website Uma Viagem Pelos Tempos Jazz, tracing the history of big bands from their beginnings to the present day. It also includes a digital archive from the defunct TOAP label and a book by Paulo Moura on the 25 years of the big band, “Tocamos O Que Nos Apetece”.
