What’s All the Noise About?
Vintage Noise is a Bay Area jazz and bossa nova ensemble rooted in the conversational spirit Frank Sinatra explored in his recordings with Antônio Carlos Jobim in the late 1960s. Those sessions revealed a quieter kind of strength — music built on patience and the subtle connection between voice and band. Vintage Noise approaches that repertoire from the same place: not as revival or impersonation, but as music that still carries weight when it’s allowed to unfold naturally.
Vocalist Michael Carter leads with restraint — his phrasing shaped as much by listening as by singing. Guitarist and vocalist Ed Johnson brings decades of Brazilian and jazz experience to the arrangements, hearing the harmony from the inside out. Pianist Franz J. Díaz moves the music forward without pushing it. Bassist Mike Hallesy holds the foundation so naturally you feel it more than hear it. Together they've developed the kind of ease that can't be rehearsed into a band — it just accumulates over time.
Vintage Noise has appeared at Yoshi’s San Francisco, San Jose Jazz programming at the Fairmont San Jose, Wente Vineyards, Hotel De Anza’s historic Hedley Club, and Levi’s Stadium. The band also maintains a long-running weekly residency at The GrandView in San Jose and performs regularly at wineries and private estates from Healdsburg to Carmel.
Beyond clubs and concert venues, Vintage Noise performs regularly for nonprofit and community organizations, including Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, Humane Society Silicon Valley, and the Gavilan College Educational Foundation, as well as retirement communities throughout the Bay Area.
Vintage Noise is a sound out of time — and right on time.
