SAUDADES Tourneen was founded by Thomas Stöwsand in 1983. Thomas – musician as well as journalist – had joined ECM in 1970 and was responsible for distributing and sales for a decade. It is mostly Thomas Stöwsand's merit that European audiences got to know Chick Corea, Keith Jarret and Pat Metheny in the seventies. Thomas soon developed the idea that the best marketing strategy for a record label would be to simultaneaously organize concert tours. When he started with SAUDADES, apart from ECM artists he also signed Brazilian musicians – the country and music he and his wife and business partner Anna Takats loved the most. Located in a little village next to Schwaz in Tyrol/Austria, the work of SAUDADES soon also influenced the local scene. For a long time the local club Eremitage was known for being a hot spot for the best jazz artists – mostly passing by while visiting their SAUDADES family. Over time, Thomas, Anna and their team produced countless tours for artists such as: John Abercrombie, Geri Allen, Joey Baron, Tim Berne, Steven Bernstein, Carla Bley, Paul Bley, Joao Bosco, Lester Bowie, Mike Brecker, Don Byron, Uri Caine, Betty Carter, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Scott Colley, Ravi Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Douglas, Marty Ehrlich, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Gilberto Gil, Egberto Gismonti, Charlie Haden, Jim Hall, Dave Holland, Wayne Horvitz, Elvin Jones, Dave Liebman, John McLaughlin, Marlui Miranda, Marisa Monte, Paul Motian, Oregon, Greg Osby, Hermeto Pascoal, Chris Potter, Bobby Previte, Dafnis Prieto, Kronos Quartet, Joshua Redman, Marc Ribot, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Scofield, Andy Sheppard, John Surman, Steve Swallow, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill, Ralph Towner, McCoy Tyner, Caetano Veloso, John Zorn. Speaking of Zorn: When a Jewish community of New York Downtown Jazz musicians devoted themselves to the still debatted movement of "Radical Jewish Culture" and Zorn established his label "Zadik" in the 1990ies, SAUDADES became the home of a new vibrant group of young avantgarde muscians. At the same time SAUDADES expanded and opened an office in Rio De Janeiro. It is not an urban legend that Oregon called the distance of 1000 km between two gigs "1 Stöwsand“ (see video above). Thomas' immense energy and love for music was not only inspiring but also demanding. When his body got weaker and weaker, he still kept on developing ideas. When Thomas passed away in October 2006, it was clear to his wife and business partner, Anna, that she would continue their work. A big family of musicians helped her and the SAUDADES team to keep on working. Times were changing fast in the mid 2000s – facebook, youtube, bandcamp, soundcloud etc. began to turn the musical world upside down.

When Jakob Flarer joined Anna Takats as her business partner in 2007, SAUDADES began to develop new methods and strategies to face the new media and music business while consequently sticking to our way of "family business" - life-long partnerships with our musicians. Simultaneously we worked hard to encourage and support especially young and female artists and still keep on doing so. Artists like Jaimie Branch, Joel Ross, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Samuel Blaser, Philipp Gropper, Elias Stemeseder, Peter Evans, Colin Stetson and Julian Lage joined us and formed a new generation of our family.

Creative, experimental, improvised, avantgarde, progressive, contemporary music is still.

THE MUSIC WE LOVE