Jaime Além / Jaime Alem

Award-winning arranger/producer Jaime Alem has worked for Maria Bethânia, Sueli Costa, Moreira da Silva, Dicró, and Bezerra da Silva. His international performances as an instrumentalist include venues like Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, Royal Albert Hall and Royal Drury Lane (London), Chatelet, Olympia (Paris, France), and Coliseu (Lisbon, Portugal). His compositions have been recorded by Maria Bethânia, Elba Ramalho, and Tarancón, among others. In 2001, he debuted as an instrumental artist, performing originals with a small orchestra at the SESC/Rio Arte (Rio de Janeiro).

Alem started as a professional at 16 together with Jota Morais, Jurim Moreira, and others from his region of the State of São Paulo. Having written soundtracks for theater plays (such as Pluft, O Fantasminha, staged by Maria Clara Machado), he launched in the '70s two albums with his wife, Nair Cândia, a period in which he became an active militant in the defense of independent production and of political amnesty. Alem worked with Bethânia for the first time in 1982, participating as an instrumentalist in her show Nossos Momentos. After 1985, he also became the musical director of her performances. As the arranger and producer of Bethânia's albums, Alem has in his resumé the albums Memória da Pele (gold record in 1989), Maria Bethânia 25 anos (winner of the Sharp prize), and Olho-D'Água (for which he was awarded in 1992 by the Association of Art Critics of São Paulo as the Best Arranger of the Year).