Mario Bakuna Quartet @EFG London Jazz Festival 2026

After sold-out nights in the UK, Portugal, France and the Netherlands, Mario Bakuna is delighted to perform this concert at The Bulls Head and invites the audience to celebrate one of the greatest Brazilian musicians of all times.

João Gilberto, the great pioneer and father of Bossa Nova in Brazil in the late fifties, is the focus of this special concert performed on guitar and vocals by Mario Bakuna. Featuring reinterpretations and Mario’s own compositions, the audience will be treated to traditional elements of samba, syncopated rhythms of plucked chords, along with more contemporary jazz.

About Mario Bakuna

Mario Bakuna is a London-based Brazilian composer, arranger, singer and guitar player, with twenty years of professional experience. Since settling in London Mario has become one the most prominent names and a reference in Brazilian Music in England, with a music repertoire inspired by the greats of Afro-Brazilian Music, Samba, Jazz and Bossa Nova.

Mario widely performs in Europe at distinguished stages together with the finest musicians. With sold-out shows and great feedback, his previous album 'Where Rio de Janeiro Meets Bahia' and his new album 'Brazilian Landscapes' toured 16 countries in Europe, Brazil, and Madagascar.

“Mario Bakuna, a sparkling guitarist, plays with palpable feeling - his virtuosic fluency on the fretboard is controlled and flourishes are perfectly placed. His voice has a texture like heavy cloth”. (Songlines Magazine)

“Mario Bakuna, a man who exudes music. (…) ‘vocals’ doesn’t begin to do him justice: his expressive range and the precision with which he was able to deploy it was truly the band’s fifth instrument. (…) And he did this while playing guitar with precision and finesse. (…) his solos were a further source of amazement, his technique somewhere between finger-picking style and classical. His solo introduction to a Baden Powell number made a hash of any attempt at a definition.” (The Whitman Review, Wakefield Jazz)