The native from Valinhos, a small town 50 miles outside of São Paulo, Brazil, moved to L.A in 1998 when he received a scholarship at Los Angeles Music Academy, located in Pasadena and which its called now Los Angeles Collage of Music. “Back in Brazil I used to work as a professional musician in many cover bands, jingles and soundtrack for theater plays”, says Feliciano.
“In the beginning everything was wonderful! I remember going to see many great musicians (idols included) at a great club in Studio City called Cafe Cordiale all for free! It was a great hang out. The school was of the hook with people from all over the world, and top notch teachers”, added Sandro.
He had the opportunity to tour all over the U.S many times and played in venues and events like the Lincoln Center and Blue Note (NY), the Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Colorado), Milwaukee Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, and the world-renown L.A Jazz Club and The Baked Potato. “I had the opportunity to work with great producers/engineers such as Roy Thomas Baker (he produced Queen, Rolling Stones, Guns ‘n Roses, etc), Lamont Dozier (Motown producer Grammy winner and 76 #1 hits on the billboard), Al Schmidt ( Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, etc), Moogie Canazio (Sergio Mendes, Ivan Lins, etc), and Benny Faccone (Santana, Ricky Martin, etc). All of them Grammy award winners.
Feliciano comes from a musical family where many relatives play instruments and sing. “My Dad was a drummer/percussionist and my sister plays the piano and sings. It was a great environment growing up in Brazil!” he added. He starts playing percussion in carnival parades then he moved to the drums when he was 13. “My early influences were rock musicians like Rush, Deep Purple, The Police, etc. Latter he starts developing the taste of Brazilian music and R&B funk stuff which lead him coming here to study more of American culture.
Among the artists that have inspired him and his music was Djavan, Ivan Lins, Airto Moreira, Rafael Barata, Teo Lima, Gary Novak, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Sting, Stewart Copeland, and Brian Blad. “Right now besides my sideman gigs I am working on an original pop/rock project called “Circle the Earth”, and producing other people’s music”. Feliciano also plans to release his first solo record still in 2020 and it’s gonna be an instrumental record based on some kind of jazzy, Brazilian vibe. Stay tuned!
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