Mário Costa is one of Portugal’s finest contemporary jazz musicians, and a highly experienced and praised drummer. Over the last few years, he has built a remarkable career, having played more than 600 concerts, in quite a few of the most prestigious venues in the world (NYC’s Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House or Berlin’s Philharmonie), as the drummer for some of Portugal’s greater music references, such as fado stars Ana Moura and António Zambujo, or the singer-songwriter Miguel Araújo.

At the same time, Mário Costa also aimed at an international career and quickly established himself as a rising talent in the European jazz scene, taking the stage with top players like John Taylor, John Beasley, Vincent Peirani, Jason Rebello, Metropole Orkest, Michael Wollny, Theo Ceccaldi, Liudas Mockunas, Dominique Pifarély, Yaron Herman, Andy Sheppard or Emile Parisien. He would then turn out to be one of Sheppard’s picks for his new quartet and would join Emile Parisien’s breakthrough supergroup Sfumato. Both Sfumato albums were greeted with high praise, collecting notable awards as the Victoires du Jazz, while building a solid name for the Portuguese musician, and additionally enabling him to perform alongside jazz legends Michel Portal, Joachim Kühn and Wynton Marsalis.

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In 2018, with the release of his debut album OXY PATINA, (CleanFeed Records), Mário Costa’s career as a band leader promptly took off and got him a well-earned reputation for his compositions. This time around he would choose as his travelling companions two of the most outstanding musicians in European jazz: Benoît Delbecq on piano and Marc Ducret on guitar. Besides the enthusiastic international reception, Oxy Patina would also be met with a five-star review by magazine Jazz.pt, that would also award him the Album of the Year and Portuguese Jazz Musician of the Year honors.

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Now, in the very beginning of 2023, it is time for Mário Costa’s sophomore take on his more personal and authorial project. The new album is titled Chromossome, named after Costa’s rigorous and custom-made writing, considering the DNA of each one of the musicians that he carefully handpicked for the project: Cuong Vu, Benoît Delbecq and Bruno Chevillon.