Two colorful local Brazilian bands team up in “Brazilian Rhythms for the River,” a concert and silent auction to benefit InforAmazon, a nonprofit environmental organization that empowers riverside dwellers in the Amazon to stop pollution and improve waste management systems.

Boca do Rio makes its Ashkenaz debut playing original Brazilian-based dance music. The San Francisco band takes its name from the Portuguese for “mouth of the river” – the place where myriad streams and sources converge into one powerful, flowing, physical energy. Inspired by the countless Brazilian musicians who came before, Boca do Rio explains its music as “the African diaspora alive through rhythms and pulses – it is the commonality that binds humans to the air we breathe, the food from which we nourish, the water we imbibe, and the love through which we flourish.” Kevin Welch is Boca’s leader, composer, guitarist, and vocalist. He has lived in the Amazon and became fluent in Portuguese as well as immersed in – and transformed by – samba. In the mid-1990s he started the group Vivendo de Pão, which became a mainstay on San Francisco’s club scene. Welch calls his style música orgânica, music that is explicitly influenced by his connection to Brazil but filtered through the sensibilities of his California base, which he shares with his versatile accompanists and musical partners. Along with Welch, Boca do Rio is Alex Calatayud on pandeiro, bassist John Evans, drummer Scott Johnson, and saxophonist Larry De La Cruz.

Z’Amico serves up irresistible Afro-Brazilian-Caribbean sounds that smoothly blend reggae, Afrobeat, funk, soul, tropical, Brazilian, and Caribbean. Along with the grooves, Z’Amico’s songs are about unity, relationships, human emotion, and soul connection. “There’s a little something for everyone in our music,” says Z’Amico bass player Alex Riddle. If there’s a connection among such artists as Desmond Dekker, Jorge Ben, Bob Marley, and Os Mutantes, Z’Amico delivers it. Z’Amico is singer-guitarist Andrew McKleroy, bassist Riddle, drummer Dave Eagle, saxophone and flute player Sean Norris, and lead guitarist Kevin Glaz. The band of friends (“amico” means friend in Italian) plays music in hopes of generating wider social interaction and change in the Bay Area community.