Luizcostalimaneto Traditionandpostmodernity Hermeto Pascoal

7/24/2019 Luizcostalimaneto Traditionandpostmodernity Hermeto Pascoal

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LUIZ COSTA-LIMA NETO _______________________________________________

FROM THE HOUSE OF TIA CIATA TO THE HOUSE OF THE HERMETO PASCOAL FAMILY

IN JABOUR:TRADITION AND POST-MODERNITY IN THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF A POPULAR

EXPERIMENTAL COMPOSER IN BRAZIL1

.

ABSTRACT

This article describes the process of creation, rehearsal and arranging of themulti-instrumentalist, arranger and composer from Alagoas, Hermeto Pascoal, and ofthe Group which accompanied him during the period 1981-1993, when the composerand the quintet of musicians constituted a community joined by ties of neighborhoodand kinship centered around the Alagoan musicians house, situated in theneighborhood of Jabour, a suburban district in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In addition tomusic recorded in the period specified, we analyze compositions from other phases ofthe musicians career in order to illustrate more thoroughly complementary aspectshaving to do with Hermetos personality and experimental musical system. Finally, the

professional career of the composer is related to several important artistic movementsand musical genres of the twentieth century for example, bossa nova, jazz, nationalistmodernism, MPB, the jovem guarda, the tropicalist avant-garde, etc. demonstratingthe innovative role played by Hermeto Pascoal in the history of contemporary popularmusic in Brazil.

1INTRODUCTIONMasters of this House,

by your leave, here I come, here I come."(Opening verse of praise of the Folia de Reis/Public domain)

In the present article on Hermeto Pascoal, the multi-instrumentalist, arranger and

composer from Alagoas (born in Olho Dgua da Canoa, June 22, 1936), I will try to

outline his singular importance to the panorama of popular instrumental music in Brazil.

The music referred to in the article will be described in a manner accessible to the non-specialist reader, avoiding whenever possible specifically musical terminology. In order

1 This article is based on my masters' thesis titled: A msica experimental de Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo(1981-1993): concepo e linguagem, defended in April 1999 at the master's program in BrazilianMusicology at UNIRIO, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Martha Tupinamb de Ulha, whom I thankprofusely. The present articlee, however, broaden the historical period which I studied for the masters', inlooking at musical examples from other phases of the career of Hermeto Pascoal, as well as addressingaspects not considered in my thesis, such as, for example, the way in which esthetic experience andreligious experience are interconnected in Hermeto's musical system. See also, COSTA-LIMA NETO,Luiz. The experimental music of Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo (1981-93): a musical system in the making.

In: REILY, Suzel Ana (org.). British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 9/i, Brazilian Musics, Brazilianidentities. British Forum for Ethnomusicology, 2000. This article it has been translated into English byProf. Dr. Tom Moore.


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to provide a sample of Hermeto's musical system I will refer to about fifty examples

composed and/or recorded by him, beginning with the LP Hermeto Pascoal: Brazilian

Adventure (1972*).2

I make use of the term biombo cultural (cultural divider) coined by MunizSodr, originally used by him in order to describe the way in which the dichotomy of

choro-street/samba - yard at the house of Tia Ciata symbolized the differing positions of

resistance of the black community of Rio de Janeiro in facing the elites after Abolition.3

I use the notion of cultural divider in order to symbolically move through the

principal spaces in Hermeto's house in the neighborhood of Jabour, in the West Zone of

Rio de Janeiro. In this house, Hermeto and the Group, made up of Itiber Zwarg (1950),

Jovino Santos Neto (1954), Mrcio Bahia (1958), Carlos Malta (1960) and Antonio

Luis Santana, known as Pernambuco (1942[1940?]),4rehearsed daily, from 2 to 8 PM,

over the course of twelve years, between 1981 and 1993. Movement through the spaces

in the house, such as the kitchen, the pool, the hidden room where Hermeto would

compose, and the rehearsal room for the Group on the second floor, as well as the habits

of the residents - such as the feijoada on Satudays - and the participation of pets in the

recorded music, shows how the process of composition, arrangement and rehearsal for

Hermeto and Group took place in the period mentioned, as well as demonstrating inter-related aspects of the personality, biography, personal cosmology and musical system of

Hermeto Pascoal. When the musical examples analyzed in the article were recorded in

other phases of the musician's career, the dates referring to these examples will be

followed by an asterisk.

In the final part of this article, I contextualize the professional trajectory of

Hermeto, relating it to the history of popular music in Brazil in the twentieth and early

twenty-first centuries. I show how Hermeto Pascoal's innovative musical system blends

2 Record label - Buddah Records/Cobblestone. I note that some sources indicate 1970, 1971, 1972 oreven 1973, as being the date of issue of this first disc under Hermeto's name. Confusion can also be notedin relation to the correct spelling of Hermeto's surnname: Pascoal ou Paschoal'? I believe that the dateof issue is 1972, according to information in SANTOS NETO, Jovino. Tudo som: the music of HermetoPascoal. USA: Universal Edition, 2001, p. 9. The correct spelling is Pascoal, in accordance with theautograph manuscript photocopied for Calendrio do som, in which Hermeto himself signs his name. SeePASCOAL, 2000. Op. cit., p. 17. I note that the names of Tia Ciata and Pixinguinha were also written invarious ways: Siata, Aciata, Assiata or Asseata, and Pizindim or Pizinguim. See the bibliography.

3 See SODR, Muniz. Samba, o dono do corpo. Editora Mauad, 2007, 2. Edio, [1979], p. 9-18.

4 According to Jovino Santos Neto the year of birth of the percussionist Pernambuco was 1942 orperhaps 1940, on Sept. 15. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate the percussionist to confirm his exactdate of birth. In 1988, Hermetos son Fabio Pascoal joined the Group.


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tradition, modernity and contemporaneity, and evaluate, in conclusion, the strategic role

of the Internet as a form of post-modern cultural resistance.

2 FIRST PARTE - TWO HOUSES IN THE HISTORY OF POPULAR VOCAL AND

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN BRAZIL

2.1-AMODERN POPULAR HOUSE,PA.ONZE,1916

Jammed into Praa Onze, together with other houses belonging to families of Bahian

origin headed by women responsible for the cult of the orixs (the famous Tias), the

house of the mulataHilria Batista de Almeida, known as Tia Ciata,5 is considered by

researchers to be the "mother church" of popular urban music in Rio de Janeiro, where

one of the first recorded sambas, Pelo telefone (Donga, 1916), was born.6

Muniz Sodridentifies particular cultural dividers in Tia Ciata's house separating the rooms, the

spaces of the house, and the musical genres cultivated there: in the salon next to the street,

choroand dances for partners (polkas, waltzes, lundus etc.); and, in the backyard at the

rear of the house, partido-alto samba or samba-raiado and the rhythmic patterns of

Candombl. The polarized separation of the cultural dividersat the house of the

respected babala-mirim Tia Ciata, symbolized, according to Sodr, the strategy of

musical resistence to the curtain of marginalization raised against the Negro followingAbolition" (Sodr, 2007[1979], p. 15). Thus, continues Sodr, at the front of the house -

close, therefore, to the eyes of the white elite - there was the instrumental music of choro

and the more "respectable" dances, while in the back, hidden from the authorities and the

police, was samba, with the "black elite of swing and dance", and the batucada of the

older people "where the religious element was present". (idem)

The house of Tia Ciata is considered by the researcher to be a microcosm of the

Brazilian socieity of the time, exemplifying racial prejudice and the marginalization of theNegro and his culture by the white elite. Musicians such as Pixinguinha (1897-1973),

Donga (1889-1974), Sinh (1888-1930), Joo da Bahiana (1887-1974) and Heitor dos

Prazeres (1898-1966) were constantly crossing the subtly permeable frontiers between the

terrain of choro and dances with European influence, on one side, and the terrain of the

5 Born in Salvador, on 23/4/1854, having arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1876. See NAPOLITANO, Marcos,A sncope das idias: a questo da tradio na msica popular brasileira. So Paulo: Fundao PerseuAbramo, 2007, p. 18.

6 Nelson Fernandes, cited by NAPOLITANO, Marcos, ibidem, states that before Pelo telefone at leasttwo other sambas had been recorded.


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partido-alto samba and African Candombl on the other. In crossing these frontiers or

'biombos', these musicians re-elaborated elements from African cultural tradition, making

possible new forms of affirming black ethnicity in Brazilian urban life, affirmations

represented by, in chronological order of their appearance, choro7and samba.

2.2-APOST-MODERN POPULAR HOUSE,JABOUR,19828

There is sound in these walls...

(Comment made by Jovino Santos Neto and by Mauro BrandoWermelinger during a recent visit to the house of the Hermeto Pascoal

Family in the neighborhood of Jabour)9

Originally a one-story house, Hermeto's residence in Jabour, a neighborhood in the West

Zone of the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, was enlarged when, after an international tour with

the Group, Hermeto began the construction of the second floor. Thus, unlike Tia Ciata's

house, where the musicians and guests traveled on the same horizontal plane in order to

cross the successive cultural dividers which symbolically linked Europe (choro and

social dances in the salon next to the street), to Brazil and Africa (samba and Candombl in

the backyard), Hermeto Pascoal's house in Jabour was laid out vertically, with two stories.

Hermeto would compose silently on the first floor, without instruments, writing in

score and seated on the sofa of a room hidden from the eyes of visitors, while the

musicians of the Group (Itiber Zwarg - contrabass, electric piano, baritone horn and tuba;

Jovino Santos Neto - electric piano, keyboards, clavinet and flutes; Antnio Luis

Santana/Pernambuco - percussion; Mrcio Bahia - drums and percussion; and Carlos

Malta - winds), would rehearse on the second floor. All the musicians came to live close

7 A genre which appeared in the later decades of the nineteenth century, initially as a syncopated sytle inwhich popular musicians played European dances such as the waltz, polka, mazurka, schottisch etc. Thechoro was consolidated by Pixinguinha and other musicians at the beginning of the twentieth century. SeeKAURISMAKI, Mika, Brasileirinho: grandes encontros do choro contemporneo. DVD, Robdigital/Studio Uno, and also, CAZES, Henrique. Choro, do quintal ao Municipal. So Paulo: Edit. 34,1998.

8 Hermeto settled in the neighborhood of Jabour em 1977, according to information posted in the blog:http://www.miscelaneavanguardiosa.com

9 I thank the teacher and musician Mauro Brando Wermelinger for the interviews which he granted meon 24/01/2008 and 17/02/2008 and for the rich information with respect to the architecture of Hermeto'shouse in Jabour. Mauro W. was a privileged observer, since he daily frequented - over nine consecutiveyears - from 1984 to 1993 - the house where Hermeto and Group would rehearse every day.

Approximately the same age as the members of the group, Mauro was also adopted by the Pascoal family.He eventually produced shows by the Group, and participated in various of Dona Ilza's feijoadas onSaturdays.


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by so as not to waste time traveling daily from their residences to the distant neighborhood

of Jabour.

A visitor little-used to the streets of the West Zone neighborhood, having to ask the

neighbors several times how to get to the house of the illustrious resident of Jabour,wouldonly be certain that he had finally arrived at the right address when he heard, from outside

the house, the sound of the music played by the Group. After identifying himself by the

intercom, answered by the lady of the house, the visitor would enter through the service

entrace letting on to the kitchen. Before entering the kitchen he would see, on the right, in

an area next to the exterior gate, birds in their cages, the parrot Floriano and possibly the

doges running back and forth, as well as glimpsing part of a small swimming pool.

Continuing into the house proper, directed by the strains of the ever-louder music, the

visitor would cross the kitchen of Dona Ilza da Silva from Pernambuco10

and pass through

a small ante-room (the L-shaped floor plan of which hid from the visitor the "secret" room

where Hermeto would compose), until going up the stairs which led to the second floor.

Arriving on the second floor of the house, the visitor would then identify two

spaces: a little rest area with a refrigerator, chairs, and a nearby bathroom, and the large

room with the instruments of the Group: piano, keyboards, percussion instruments, winds,

electric bass, as well as other objects that would make sound when struck, and piles and

piles of manscript scores. In order to provide acoustic isolation, straw mats bought cheaply

at stores selling materials for Umbanda were glued to the walls of the rehearsal room,

giving the space the appearance of a rustic hut. Finally, through the windows could be seen

the houses in the neighborhood, and above them, the unlimited space of the sunny blue sky

which made its presence known through the almost unbearable heat, which heat the

cement slab in the hot days.

The architecture of the little house was thus made up of two principal cultural

dividers: the private space on the first floor of the house, where Hermeto would

compose "secretly", without being seen or heard by anyone, and the second floor, more

accessible, occupied by the musicians during their daily rehearsals. The second

biombo allowed a glimpse of the third space, external to the house, filled in turn by the

houses of the neighborhood with the sky above. The windows made an exchange

possible: the music played by the Group leaked out into the neighborhood, while the

10 Whom Hermeto married, in Pernambuco, in 1954. They lived together for 48 years and had sixchildren. Unfortunately, Dona Ilza died several years ago. See SANTOS NETO, op. cit.


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sounds of the landscape - birds, dogs, parrot, cicadas etc. invaded the house and came to

permanently inhabit some of the music recorded during this period.

The characters in the house included the owners Hermeto Pascoal e Dona Ilza,

the sons and daughters of the couple, the boys in the Group (as Hermeto paternally

called the musicians who accompanied him), as well as the factotum Mauro Brando

Wermelinger and, finally, the birds in their cages, Floriano the parrot, and the dogs

Spock, Bolo and Princesa.

The spaces of the house and characters mentioned above appear in particular

songs included in the six LPs recorded by Hermeto and Group in the period 1981 to

1993, whether in the titles, in the sound referernces or in the home-made recordings

which ended up being included on the records. For example: Ilza na feijoada (1984), a

modal tune with Northeastern rhythm, a piece which we should note in passing was a

true hit in the shows of the period, in which we hear the voices of the members of the

Group and a laugh from Dona Ilza; and Aula de natao (1992), a msica da aura,

that is, an atonal piece of music which had as its melody the dialogue between

Hermeto's daughter, Fabola - a swimming teacher with the children in the swimming

pool of the house. Other examples, in chronological order, are: Cores (1981), in

which is included the high-pitched call of a cicada recorded in the tree in front of

Hermeto's house, and tuned to the instruments of the Group; Spockna escada (1984),

a forr in which were included the syncopated barks of Hermeto's dog; and Papagaio

alegre (1984), in which the parrot Floriano is soloist.11

Other examples of the musical

use of animal sounds (not recorded at the house in Jabour) are, to mention only two

composition: Arapu (1986), in which the instrumental timbres, textures and

dissonant harmonies simulate the sound of the Arapu bee, with its low buzz; and

Quando as aves se encontram nasce o som (1992), a track where various bird-songs

are used as rhythmic-melodic phrases which are harmonized and arranged by Hermeto

for the instruments of the Group.12

Making a comparison with the public and private spaces of Tia Ciata's house, the

first floor of Hermeto's house - where the musician would compose far from the eyes of

11 Hear, also, Caminho do sol, Tributo ao papagaio Floriano (1999*), a song the instrumentation ofwhich is made up of a whistling section, zabumba and prato de choque, simulating aNortheastern banda de pfanos [group of flutes with percussion].

12 See COSTA-LIMA NETO, Luiz, op. cit., 1999, for a more complete list of the songs by Hermeto inwhich animal songs are included, as well as other forms of utilizing animal sounds in Hermeto'smusical system.


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the others living in the house and of the visitors - would correspond to the backyard of

Tia Ciata's house, the place where samba and the batuques of Candombl took place

secretly, while the second floor of Hermeto's house, a space with open windows and the

sound produced by the Group spilling out, would be associated with the salon close to

the street, where Pixinguinha and the other choro musicians at Tia Ciata's house would

play their polkas, waltzes, lundus, schottisches, and choros.

The basic arrangement (front - back - exterior) of the cultural dividers of Tia

Ciata's house, thus has a correspondence with Hermeto's house, and will be used to

show how the process of composition, arrangement and rehearsal would take place for

Hermeto and Group, as well as addressing aspects of the personality, biography,

cosmology and musical system of Hermeto.

3ATHICK DESCRIPTION13

3.1-HERMETO E GRUPO

From the room where he composed, Hermeto could easily hear the musicians. Thus,

when he finished writing the score with the melodic-harmonic sketch of a new

composition, Hermeto would go upstairs, put the score under the door to the second

floor, and go back downstairs to his spot. As Hermeto's writing was doubly difficult,due to dissonant chords difficult to analyze in terms of traditional harmony, and to a

hand that left doubts to the exact placement of the notes on the staff - due to Hermeto's

visual deficiency - generally the musicians of the Group would re-write the manuscript

parts left by the Champion. This was the nickname given to Hermeto by the "boys in the

Group", although it is worth nothing that the hierarchy was frequently inverted, since

the "boys in the Group" were also called Championsby Hermeto. After the musicians

finished making clean copies of the manuscript parts, they would play them on theirinstruments, and at this point, Hermeto, on the first floor, would hear everything with

his perfect pitch, and correct their transcriptions from down below: "Jovino, it's not G

with a major seventh, it's minor!"14

Immediately thereafter, the composer would once

more go upstairs in order to resolve technical details of performance and do the

13 Thick description is a type of ethnographic description which seeks not only to narrate the facts asthey superficially present themselves to the eyes of an observer, but to interpret what these factssignify in a particular context, in accordance with codes socially established by the natives of aspecific cultural group. See GEERTZ, Clifford.A interpretao das Culturas, 1989, p. 13-41.

14 According to the statement of Mauro B. Wermelinger, in the interview already cited.


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arrangement. The creative process functioned according to these stages, and sometimes

a song was "finished" rapidly, in only three hours of work.

A brief parenthesis. The list of visitors and musicians who were at the rehearsals

in Jabour

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is long, and includes names such as Chester Thompson, Alphonso Johnson,Pat Metheny, Ernie Watts, sections from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mauro

Senise, Mrcio Montarroyos, Zeca Assumpo, Nivaldo Ornellas, Paulo Moura, etc. In

addition to these top musicians, a true stream of Brazilian and international students

made the pilgrimage to Jabour in order to be present at the rehearsals of Hermeto and

Group.16

There were popular musicians, classical musicians, choro musicians, jazz

musicians, musicians from the Brazilian popular music avant-garde, fusion musicians,

etc. If it is not posible to fit all these visitors into a single musical genre, I believe thatthey all shared a common point of view: Hermeto's house represented a redoubt, far

from the South Zone of Rio and the popular genres of vocal music which dominated the

scene during the eighties, such asBRock, for example.17

A dispute in the press, between

the journalist Arthur Dapieve and the cartoonist Angelli, provides a good view of the

musical scene at the time. Dapieve was defending the Rio bandBlitzfrom an accusation

of plagiarism made by Angelli, who had accused Blitz of copying Arrigo Barnab

(1951-). The collision between those on the side of BRock, supported by Rio journalists

and large record labels, on the one hand, and the independent artists from a university

milieu linked to the So Paulo avant-garde, on the other, exemplifies the opposing

forces which polarized the musical scene at the time. Hermeto's music, in turn, had

nothing to do with either the So Paulo avant-garde (influenced by tropicalismo), nor

with the rock and roll ofBlitz.18

It should be said that the medium which Hermeto has chosen to work in is

neither the classical nor popular avant-garde. Tropiclia, an example of the avant-garde

in Brazilian popular music, was a movement with which Hermeto had few links, as the

15 The Friday rehearsals were open to the public.

15 I went to four rehearsals in Jabour between 1987-1992. In 1998-1999, during my master's, I went tothe house several times to interview Hermeto.

17 See DAPIEVE, Arthur,BRock: o rock brasileiro dos anos 80. So Paulo, Editora 34. (5 edio), 2000[1995], p. 55.

18 However, I note that in spite of the marked musical differences, Hermeto and Group, on one side, and

the artists and groups of the So Paulo Avant-Garde, on the other, shared some common territory, asfor example, the independent So Paulo recording company Som da Gente, used both by Hermeto andGroup and by So Paulo avant-garde artists linked to the Lira Paulistana theatre.


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reader will realize in reading this article. The avant-garde, in spite of "facing serious

difficulties in seeing its work realized", which sometimes "may not take place"

generally is absorbed by tradition and its conventional channels. This is because "non-

conformists came from an artistic world, were trained in it, and to a considerable degree

continue to face in its direction". (BECKER, 1977, p. 15)19

This is not the case for

Hermeto, a self-taught musician, who came from the rural environment, and was always

battling with any kind of institution, for example with the transnational record

companies, and the conventional communications media. For this reason, elsewhere

(Costa-Lima Neto, 1999), I preferred to state that Hermeto was an experimentalpopular

musician, even though the composer himself does not include himself in any existing

current, artistic movment or label.

20

In reality, in addition to the unmistakable style of the music created by Hermeto,

other details made his house in Jabour a really unique place for all the musicians,

famous or anonymous, who frequented it. Indeed, there came to be a certain "mystique"

around Hermeto, comparable to that which surround various classical composers. I do

not intend here to lend support to the cult of the composer's "eccentricities", which have

already been the subject of sensationalism in the press, but simply to highlight various

musical skills which he possesses to a high degree. Firstly, his infallible perfect pitchand the rapidity with which Hermeto would compose without instruments, using only

his internal ear to imagine the sounds which he noted in the score. In addition to this,

Hermeto is a multi-instrumentalist and at the same time a virtuoso improviser. On the

LPHermeto Pascoal ao vivo em Montreux(1979*), for example, he demonstrates that

in a single solo he can alternate between instruments such as electric piano, electronic

keyboards, wind instruments and percussion, sometime using two instruments

simultaneously, and voice as well. Mauro Wermelinger

21

reports that anotheruncommon characterist for Hermeto was that he would write down the score, and

already begin to play it as if he had known the newly-created music for a long time. In

addition, Hermeto would compose in the most unlikely situations, such as during the

television broadcast of a soccer game,22

(a sport which he adores), or mentally, during

19 In VELHO, Gilberto (org.). Arte e sociedade ensaios de sociologia da arte. Rio de Janeiro: JorgeZahar, 1977, p. 9-25.

20 See NYMAN, Michael.Experimental music: Cage and beyond. London: Studio Vista, 1974.

21 In the interview already cited.

22 Mauro's information is confirmed by the footnote written by Hermeto in Calendrio do som (for


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an interview, or finally, immediately after lunch. For this reason he always used to walk

around the house with a blank piece of score paper folded in his pocket.

In addition to the fact that Hermeto referred to classical musical forms in the

titles of his compositions, as for example, the Sinfonia em quadrinhos and the SutePixitotinha

23(neither recorded commercially), the Sute Norte, Sul, Leste, Oeste and

Suite paulistana (1979*) and also the Sute Mundo Grande (1987), associations

between Hermeto and classical music also include the great importance of written music

in the process of creation, interpreation and arranging during the period 1981 to 1993.

With the exception of the percussionist Pernambuco, the other members of the Group

passed through classical music and abandoned it to dedicate themselves to popular

music. Thus, this ensemble had characteristics resembling those of a chamber music

ensemble, and at the same time those of a popular band. Hermeto used to teach them:

You have to compose and write as if it were improvised and play as it were written.24

In reality, in spite of the fact that it is indubitably influenced by jazz (especialy with

respect to harmony), improvisation as practiced by Hermeto goes beyond the model of

some American schools of jazz, based on melodic unfoldings of harmonic structures.

For Hermeto, improvisation is existential. More than the capacity to create phrases

based on harmonic schemesx, y orz,improvisation is the permanent search for the new,

present both in improvisation and in written composition.25

The daily rehearsals of the group, from Monday through Friday, from 2 to 8

PM, preceded by daily practice in the mornings, when the musicians practed the

more difficult passage of their individual parts - as well as the rapid creative

process for Hermeto and Group - made possible something unheard of in Brazilian

those celebrating birthdays on August 2 ): Msica feita vendo o jogo molenga de nossa seleo. See

PASCOAL, Hermeto, 2000*. Calendrio do Som. Editora SENAC, p. 63. I note that Hermeto seemsto have the same capacity that Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) had, according to reports by observerswho stated that the classical composer would write and compose music with no concern for the noiseof radio, TV, children playing nearby, people talking, etc.

23 See also the Sinfonia do Alto da Ribeira andhttp://www.hermetopascoal.com.br/orquestra/audio.asp

24 According to the report by Jovino Santos Neto, in my interview with him in 1997.

25 I note that particular improvisational models of folk origin are also used by Hermeto, as, for example,the embolada, a poetic-musical genre in which the difficulties of diction transform the song into agame of vocal dexterity which moves the attention of the listener from the semantic content to the"sound value" of the words". See TRAVASSOS, Elizabeth. O avio brasileiro: anlise de umaembolada. Rio de Janeiro: 7 Letras, 2001, p. 91. In this respect, hear the vocal improvisation

embolada by Hermeto in Remelexo (1979*) as well as Viva Jackson do Pandeiro (2002*). SeeCOSTA-LIMA NETO, Luiz, op. cit., 1999, chapter III, for a more detailed explanation of the conceptof improvisation in Hermeto Pascoal.


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instrumental music: the keeping-up of a repertoire of hundreds of songs to which

more compositions were constantly added. Thus, independently of new

compositions, composed daily, Hermeto and Group had a fixed repertoire with

"cards up their sleeve" for show, that is, around 200 songs, which they always

rehearsed. When they got to the show itself, they would play only a small part of

this total, since the songs, played live, grew in proportions due to the

improvisations, (much) larger than in the rehearsals. Thus, each show lasted for at

least two hours, but depending on the locale, it might last for three or four hours or

longer. The record took place in Pendotiba (in Niteri / RJ), during the opening of

a nightclub specializing in jazz, when Hermeto and Group played for five and a half

hours. Before the end of the performance all of the paying audience had already

left, with only the sleepy waiters remaining to listen. Precisely because of this vast

repertoire every show was completely different from the next. As Jovino Santos

Neto said in an interview: "We rehearse a lot because the repertoire is very large

and always new. In twelve years of playing with him, I never played two shows that

were the same". (Rodrigues, 1990, p. 03)

The source seemed to be inexhaustible, and the effort as well.

Mauro Wermelinger reported that the musician's work was really exhausting,

and that Hermeto didn't spare them: Mauro, today they are going to die, today I am

going to get there and they will be stretched out on the floor...They are not going to be

able to play this because I think that even I am not going to be able to play what I

wrote!", Hermeto would say. Agreeing with what Mauro reported, the drummer in the

Group, Mrcio Bahia, told me in an interview that sometimes, during the individual

morning rehearsals at the house, he would suffer from migraine and would have to lie

down to rest after "breaking his head" studying the extremely difficult parts written by

Hermeto. In fact, these songs - I note that Frank Zappa (1940-1993) also had arepertoire which he called humanly impossible are identified as such sometimes by

their own titles: "He ran so much that he disappeared" (1980*), Unplayable (1987),

Difficult, but not impossible (not recorded), among others.26

In reality, independent of

title, various songs by Hermeto can be viewed as etudes: Arapu (1986), for example,

is an etude for baritone sax, in which none of the other members of the Group is spared

technically; Srie de Arco (1982), was written initially for piano, and manifests a high

26 Hear also the humanly impossible finales of the songs Chorinho para ele (1977*) andparticularly Aluxan (2002*).


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degree of technical difficulty; finally, the track Irmos Latinos (1992) has an

extremely difficult line for electric bass, a present from Hermeto to his friend and

musician Itiber, at a delicate moment in the bassist's life.

3.2THREE PERSONAS AND ONE HOUSE

As well as the dynamic of exchange between Hermeto and the Group, the cultural

dividers of Hermeto's house illustrate how his biography is related to his musical

system, a system which, tracking the three stages of his professional career and his

personal cosmology, blends regional, Brazilian, international and universal elements.

3.2.1-THE FIRST FLOOR (1936-1950)

On the first floor of the house, we find Hermeto the individual, a composer, linked to

rural folk roots from the Northeast from his childhood in Lagoa da Canoa, Municpio de

Arapiraca, Alagoas (where he was born and lived from 1936 to 1950). In the heart of the

fertile tobacco-planting interior of Northeastern Brazil, Lagoa da Canoa gave Hermeto

the bases for his experimental musical idiom, since he does his experimentation

departing from the rural traditions of his childhood. There, unable to play in the sun

with the other children, and following in the Northeastern tradition of musicians with

special needs in the area of vision (Cego Aderaldo, Cego Oliveira, Sivuca, Luiz

Gonzaga, among others), Hermeto made music his favorite toy/game, whether through

composing little tunes created by striking pieces of iron stolen from the junk of his

grandfathers blacksmiths workshop, or making flute duets with birds and frogs, or

playing the eight-bass accordeon p-de-bode (literally, goats hoof), together with his

brother and father at local social dances and wedding parties.27

Since Lagoa da Canoa Hermeto has followed a paradigm, that is, a fundamental

musical model, which he would broaden over the course of his career. According to this

precociosly experimental paradigm, Hermeto as a boy blended, in an improvised way,

sounds from nature, animals, from unconventional sound sources (such as the pieces of

iron mentioned above) and the melodies of speech (which he would later call "music of

aura"), with "conventional" musical styles and pitched sounds from instruments such as

the accordeon p-de-bodeand the flute. The presence of birds, of Floriano the parrot,

27 Hear Forr em Santo Andr and Forr Brasil (1979*), Arrasta p alagoano (1980*) and Otocador quer beber (1986).


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and of the dogs by the pool, at the house in Jabour, show that Hermeto retains part of

the sonorous landscape and geography of his childhood. As he affirmed in an interview:

"Until age fourteen I was in Lagoa da Canoa, my land, in contact with nature.

Everybody thinks that nature is only this. It's not. nature can be in a car on Avenida

Brasil, at rush hour, or during a storm. For me nature is everything you see. It is daily

life".28

Continuing to pass through the first floor on the house in Jabour - the space

which would correspond to the terreirofor Candombl at the house of Tia Ciata - we

can note another important characteristic for Hermeto: his cosmology or personal vision

of the cosmos, related to his religiosity and spirituality, which certainly contributed to

his public image as a shaman (bruxo), wizard or magician of sound.The cultural dividerwill be useful to us once more. The room where Hermeto

composed was reached only after the visitor had passed through Dona Ilza's kitchen and

a somewhat labyrinthic stretch thereafter. I believe that this trajectory is symbolic as

well. Dona Ilza da Silva, from Pernambuco, whose Saturday feijoadas would bring

together all those living at the house - as well as invited guests and neighbors - was, like

Tia Ciata, an adept of Afro-Brazilian religions, and guarded, from the kitchen, the

entrance to the house and the rooms where Hermeto composed and the Group rehearsed.As I reported above, she was the first person that the visitor contacted, by intercom,

even before entering the house.

Apparently Hermeto and Ilza shared some common religious beliefs, and,

according to information gleaned from interviews with members of the group, the title

of the song Magimani Sagei (1982) refers to the name of a Caboclo(a), that is, an

indigenous entity to whom the adepts of Umbanda attribute a very elevated spiritual

degree. In this music, rhythm predominates. Hermeto uses the drumset as a melodic

instrument, constructing seven rhytmic-melodic phrases which, double by the electric

bass, serve as a base for the theme played by flute, piccolo and cavaquinho, and for free

improvisation on bamboo flutes, bass flute, and ocarinas. As the music was being

recorded, the studio technician Z Luiz invented, at Hermeto's request, words which

sounded like Tupi (oir, ogorecotara, tanajura), while, during the instrumental breaks,

the musicians spoke disconnected words, blew whistles, and shouted. The barking of the

28 See GONALVES E EDUARDO, Vivendo msica. Rio de Janeiro:Revista Backstage. 1998, 39:46-57.


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dogs Spock, Bolo and Princesa thickened the texture, while the tempo accelerated to

the freely improvised finale. Magimani Sagei suggests a tribal dances, and has deep

roots in the imagination of Hermeto and his childhood in Lagoa da Canoa, near the city

of Palmeira dos ndios, a settlement of the Xucuru-Cariri Indians.

29

Other discographic, musical and bibliographic references will help to broad the

pictures with additional relevant aspects concerning the spirituality and religion of

Hermeto. On the LPBrasil Universo(1985), for example, a ballad in binary meter,

with a long introduction for solo piano, titled Mentalizando a cruz, was

composed by Hermeto and dedicated to the musician Paulo Cesar Wilcox. Hermeto

seemed to be convinced that the dedicatee, who had recently passed away, had

"whispered" this music into his ears, as a sort of psychography.

30

On the LPZabumb-bum-(1979*)

31, as well, the songs So Jorge

32and Santo Antnio

33

are named for Christian saints, and include the participation of Hermeto's parents:

Vergelina Eullia de Oliveira e Pascoal Jos da Costa, about to whom the two

compositions are dedicated. The two tracks refer to Northeastern folk music and to

popular festivities having to do with the Catholic liturgical calendar. Santo

Antnio, for example, begins and ends with Hermeto's mother's voice describing

the procession for this saint's day (June 13), accompanied by modal religiouschants from the Northeast, and by Zabel and Pernambuco imitating the voices of

children asking for alms for the church-sponsored festival in honour of the Saint

Anthony.

Another musical example which alludes to the religious universe of popular

syncretism is the Missa dos escravos, recorded on the disc by the same name

(Slaves Mass,1977*).34

This music is quite varied in rhythm, with a strong Afro-

29 Hear also Dana da selva na cidade grande (1980*), a song the sound of which is quite

experimental and "indigenous", in which the spoken voice is combined with percussion andimprovisation on bamboo flute.

30 According to the report of Mauro W., in the interview cited. Hear also the song Cannon (1977*),dedicated spiritually to the alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Cannon is a long slow flutesolo by Hermeto, accompanied by the sounds of birds and by Hermeto's own voice, as if he werepraying.

31 At the time of this excellent disc, the Group which accompanied Hermeto was made up of Nen,Zabel, Cacau, Jovino, Pernambuco and Itiber. the disc also included the participation of AntonioCelso on electric guitar.

32 I note that in popular Afro-Brazilian syncretism this saint corresponds to the Orix Ogum.

33 Popularly Santo Antnio is considered to be the "marrying" saint.

34 The Group formed by Hermeto at this time was made up of : Ron Carter, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim,


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Brazilian influence. After alternating measures with seven and five beats, Missa

dos escravos comes to a climax, repeating the same cycle of fourteen beats,

assymetrically divided into groups of 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 and 2 pulses. The sung phrase

Chama Zabel pra poder te conhecer is hypnotically intoned in a crescendo, on a

single continuous low note, as in a recitative (recto tono) from a medieval Catholic

mass, accompanied by a dissonant flute section, and having as a basis the dancing

rhythms of the toms from the drumset. At the end, a duo of grunting pigs dialogs

with the vocal solo of laughs, crying and shouting of Flora Purim, superimposed

on a slow melody played on the transverse flute in unison with the singing voice,

apparently inspired by the chants of praying women and the folkloric chants of

popular Northeastern catholicism.

Marac-maracatu-maracj-Mar! In the lyrics for Mestre Mar (1979*) -

a song rich in non-conventional vocal resources, such as whispers, hissing,

glissandos, glottal attacks, coughing, shouting, etc - Hermeto uses words with

similar sonorities (alliterations), a technique very commonly found in the

Northeastern embolada, in order to associate the Afro-Brazilian rhythm of

maracatu, with the indigenous instrument known as marac, as well as the

forest-cat maracaj and finally the name of the master Mar. In this song, the

melody sung by Hermeto is heard at a slow tempo, while the chorus exploring

unconventional vocal techniques is at another, quicker tempo. The unusual

superposition of two tempi in Mestre Mar indicates the presence of two

simultaneous dimensions. In fact, in addition to Umbanda, spiritism, and musical

traditions related to the popular catholicism of the Northeast, in this music

Hermeto reveals another facet of his spirituality in singing: O Master, I received

your message, it was with great happiness that I set your image to music". The

"master" in questions seems to be related to another figure which Hermeto labeled

"The gift",35

and which in 1996, gave him the "devotional" task of composing one

piece of music per day, throughout an entire year, paying homage to all those

celebrating birthdays on the planet with a Calendrio do som.36

It contains 366

Raul de Souza, Chester Thompson, David Amaro, Hugo Fatoruso and Alphonso Johnson.

35 According to Mauro W., in the interview cited. See also the back cover of the 1982 LP, whereHermeto states: "The gift for me is an image, a picture. My teacher was my gift. The musician is a

magical person, with different energy, which communicates with people through music. When he canpass this energy, and receive the same way, it achieves the greatest success."

36 See PASCOAL, Hermeto, 2000, op. cit., p. 16-9. Hear Itiber Orquestra Famlia, 2005. double CD,


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scores, including leap-years.

Taken together, aspects having to do with Hermeto's religiosity and

spirituality revealed his particular cosmological vision, the roots of which are

strongly based in popular syncretism. Music is a transcendental vehicle which

unites him to nature and animals, to other human beings and to being from spiritual

hierarchies. In this sense, for Hermeto the wizard, music is a ritual. Through

musical ritual, spiritual experience and esthetic experience are interconnected, in

an inseparable way. Thus, going up and going down the stair that unites the two

floors of the house, Hermeto constructs and simultaneously participates in the

harmonious order of the sacred,37

which he offers with devotion to all human

beings, in the form of music.

I also believe that a certain profane celebration was an important part of the

calendar of the house in Jabour: Dona Ilza's feijoada on Saturdays, when the Pascoal

family and the families of the musicians, as well as other guests, would join to

confraternize and rebuild the energies spent during the week. The instruments (Fender

Rhodes piano, drums, winds, etc.) were transported from the second to the first floor, to

the open area where the feijoada took place, and then Hermeto and the musicians of the

Group would alternate eating, drinking and playing, surrounded by family members and

guests, always numerous. The money which Hermeto earned with shows in Brazil and

international tours was only for this: to eat well, pay the bills, and dress reasonably well.

They lived with just the basics. Their thingwas playing". (WERMELINGER, 2008a)

The feijoada, one of the symbols of Brazilian cuisine, is a dish linked directly to the

presence of blacks in Brazil, and is the result of the mixture of European customs of

cuisine with the creativity of the African slave. Dona Ilza's feijoada is related

symbolically to the duo of solo pigs and to the "pagan liturgy" of the Missa dos

escravos (1977*), mentioned above.38 In fact, music and cooking are two

interconnected areas in the imagination and music of Hermeto Pascoal, as the following

declaration reveals: I cook up a meal, this music that I call universal. (...). It is the

world all mixed up together, but Brazil predominates. Nobody in the world eats like one

Calendrio do Som,on the Maritaca label.

37 On the relation between ritual, experience and music see REILY, Suzel Ana. Voices of the Magi:Enchanted Journeys in Southeast Brazil. Chicago University Press, 2005, p. 11-17.

38 Hear as well the slow and atonal song Religiosidade (1980*), the experimental Velrio (1972*)and also Santa Catarina (1984), as well as Tacho (Mixing Pot) (1977*).


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eats in Brazil, with the mixtures that you have in Brazil. (FRANA, 2004, p. 13)

3.2.2-THE SECOND FLOOR (1950A 1970)

Continuing our route, and entering the second floor of the house in Jabour, we haveHermeto in society, the arranger and performer in contact with the Group and with the

urban and international popular music of his adolescence and youth on the radio and in

the clubs in Recife, Caruaru, Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo, cities where he lived

between 1950 and 1970.

After Lagoa da Canoa, in 1950 the Pascoal family moved to Recife (PE). With

his brother, Jos Neto, Hermeto played on a local radio station, Rdio Tamandar, and

later, on Rdio Jornal do Comrcio. Over the course of 15 years, Hermeto learned, self-taught, to read and write music, to play the 32 and 80 bass accordeon, as well as piano,

flute, saxophone, bass, guitar, percussion, and other instruments.

He began his professional career as a practical musician, playing choro, frevo,

baio and seresta in regionalgroups on the radio. He also played in dance bands or in

night-clubs in Recife, Rio de Janeiro (1958) and So Paulo (1961) and jazz trios and

quartets (SambrasaTrio39

and SomQuatro).

His broadened perception, the intense instrumental work in a varied repertoireand his observation of singers, instrumentalists, arrangers and conductors of radio at

work - such as Clvis Pereira dos Santos (1932), Csar Guerra Peixe (1914-1993) and

Radams Gnatalli (1906-1988),40

allowed Hermeto to gradually learn the art of

instrumentation and arrangement. The Festivals of Song, in which he participated as an

instrumentalist and arranger between 1967 and 1970, consolidated his abilities in

reading and writing music, and at the same time allowed him to develop as an arranger.

In 1966, Hermeto joined the Trio Novo, which then came to be called theQuarteto Novo.

41This group represented the mid-point of Hermeto's career, marking the

transition between the instrumentalist hired by radio stations and nightspots, and the

39 With which it had one of its first recorded compositions in record, the soundtrack Coalhada, in theLP of 1966. See http://www.miscelaniavanguardiosa.com

40 Hermeto dedicated to him the song Mestre Radams (1984). In addition to the rich and variedarrangement of this song, hear, in particular, the extremely difficult rhythms of the drumset played byMrcio Bahia.

41 I thank the gentleman researcher of Brazilian music, Prof. Dr. Sean Stroud, for having given me

copies of rare discs by Hermeto, prior to the record by the Quarteto Novo. I note that these recordswere found in stores in London, England (!) It's not only recently that some foreigners seem to valueBrazilian music more than many Brazilians do.


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arranger and composer known internationally. In addition to Hermeto Pascoal (flute,

piano and guitar), the Quarteto Novo included Heraldo do Monte42 ([1935], viola

caipiraand electric guitar), Theo de Barros (guitar and bass) and Airto Moreira ([1941],

drums and percussion).

After having recorded a disc in 1967, for Odeon, the group dissolved in 1969.

Hermeto told me in an interview that one of the reasons for the short lifespan of the

Quarteto Novowas the nationalist mission of Geraldo Vandr: When I would play a

very modern chord, people would be critical: "you can't play jazz chords". But they

weren't jazz chords, it was what my head wanted. Music belongs to the world. Wanting

Brazilian music to be only of Brazil is like putting the wind in a bag, and no one can put

sound in a bag.43

Inspired by the nationalist modernism of Mrio de Andrade (1893-1945),

Geraldo Vandr (1935) proposed the creation of an "authentic", "pure" Brazilian music,

based on rural folklore, and avoiding any form of external influence. During the years of

the military dictatorship anything that might serve as an icon of the culture of the

colonizing power - such as jazz, electric guitars, rock and roll, the i-i-iof the Jovem

Guarda and tropicalismo could be furiously bombarded by the intellectuals, students

and artists of the urban left, for which Vandr was an ardent militant,

44

as his "songs forthe barricades" show. (NAPOLITANO, 2007, p. 125) However, for Hermeto, who grew

up in a rural area, folk culture did not have the same "authentically nationalist"

associations that it did for Vandr. If for the artists of the urban middle class the search

for the "national" signified the discovery and preservation of "distant" rural culture, for

Hermeto, such a project meant confinement and repetition: folk music was not

something that needed to be discovered, reinvented or artificially produced.

But Hermeto did not only reject the nationalist "purism" of Vandr. He alsorefused the other alternative path which opened during the period of the Festivals of

Song, Tropiclia, lead by Caetano Veloso (1942) and Gilberto Gil (1942). The

tropicalists invoked the anthropophagic cannibalism of Oswald de Andrade (1890-

1954), blending songs disseminated by radio, television and cinema with samba, rumba,

42 In 1964, in LP Os Cinco-pados, from Heraldo do Monte, Hermeto would have recorded his firstcomposition, the track "Sete contos." Thank researcher Ricardo S Reston for the information.43 In an interview with me in March 1999.

44 See CALADO, Carlos. Tropiclia: a histria de uma revoluo musical. So Paulo: Edit. 34, 1997, p.106-13 and also NAPOLITANO, Marcos, op. cit, 2007, p.114-29.


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baio, rhythms from macumba, bolero and rock45

, and also added musical information

from the classical avant-garde and the concrete poets from So Paulo. In 1967, the

Quarteto Novowas invited by Gilberto Gil to accompany him in the song Domingo no

parque, which was competing in the Festival of Song on TV Record.

46

Inspired by therecent model of the Beatles' Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (EMI, 1967), Gil

wanted to combine the basic rhythm of the song, an afox of capoeira, with the

Northeastern sound of the Quarteto, as well as an orchestra and an electric guitar. The

project was vehemently rejected by the Quarteto, demonstrating the group's disdain for

i-i-iand for rock. Hermeto's objections to Tropiclia, however, were owing more to

characteristics of the movement such as the carnivalized celebration of modernity and

commercial popular music, than to the use of foreign musical elements.Neither nationalist modernism, nor anthropophagic cosmopolitanism. Hermeto's

conflict with the urban intelligentsia represented by Geraldo Vandr, on the one hand,

and with the avant-garde of popular music represented by Gilberto Gil on the other,

marked out the personal path which Hermeto would choose to follow.

3.2.3-THE SPACE OUTSIDE THE HOUSE (1970-1979)

In 1970, Hermeto traveled to the USA, going with the couple Airto and Flora Purim (1942),in order to arrange the songs on LPs Natural Feelingsand Seeds on the ground (Buddah

Records, 1970* and 1971*). On the latter disc, Hermeto records and arranges a song created

by his parents in approximately 1941, in Alagoas, while they were working on the harvest.

The experimental O Galho da roseira (parts I and II) was considered to be one of the best

songs of the year by the English critics.47

In fact, the trip meant that Hermeto, literally, got out of the house, in going beyond

intercontinental frontiers, crossing the musical boundaries of Northeastern folklore (firstfloor) and urban popular music (second floor). The journey represented an important

turning point for Hermeto, since in the USA he gained international recognition as an

arranger in writing for orchestras and big bands in his first disc under his own name in

1972* (Hermeto Pascoal: Brazilian adventure) and got to know important jazzmen (Ron

45 See FAVARETTO, Celso. Tropiclia, alegoria, alegria. So Paulo: Ateli Editorial, 1996, p. 106.

46 See CALADO, Carlos. O jazz como espetculo. So Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1990, p. 121-2.

47 See MARCONDES, Marcos Antnio (org.).Enciclopdia da Msica Brasileira erudita, folclrica epopular. So Paulo: PubliFolha, 1998, p. 606-607.


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Carter, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, among

others), rapidly making a place for himself in American and European jazz circles through

his virtuoso improvisations on the piano, flute and saxophone, as well as through his

arrangements and original compositions. It was his heterogeneous mixture of jazz and free

jazz with the folk music of Northeastern Brazil, together with his virtuosity as a performer

and the compositions and arrangements which combined viola caipira, percussion, big band

and an orchestra of tuned bottles,48

which reserved Hermeto a special place outside Brazil.

This mixture is present, for example, in the LP Montreux Jazz Festival(1979*), in which

Hermeto and his Grupo of the period49

were given an ovation by the audience. The title

track Montreux, a slow and very beautiful ballad, composed by Hermeto at the hotel

shortly before the show, became a necessary part of the sound track of the life of many ofhis fans.

50

In conclusion, Hermeto did not get a free ride with any of the labels created by the

culture industry, but created his own, an anti-label, which, like a revolver, did not respect

limits of genre nor style in his experimental project. Thus, Free Music and above all,

Universal Music are some of the "native" categories which Hermeto uses to define his

musical system.

3.3RITORNELLO (1980-...)

In 1980, at age 44, after various international journeys (during which he recorded the

LPS mentioned above), Hermeto returned to Brazil and finally formed a fixed group of

musicians which accompanied him for 12 years, from the end of 1981 to 1993, a period

after which this formation broke up. Jovino Santos and Carlos Malta were replaced by,

respectively, Andr Marques (keyboard) and Vinicius Dorin ([1962], winds), with

whom Hermeto recorded - after the solo CD Eu e eles(1999*) - the CD Mundo Verde

Esperana(2002*), a CD which also included the special participation of the Orquestra

Itiber Famlia, an excellent ensemble lead by the bassist, arranger and composer

48 On the track Velrio, (1972*), in addition to this song, Hermeto uses 52 tuned bottles in Crianas,cuida de l (1985).

49 Nen, Cacau, Itiber Zwarg, Jovino Santos, Pernambuco, Zabel and Nivaldo Ornellas,.

50 On the disc, Hermeto tells the audience, live, that he composed Montreux in his "usual" way, that is,

using only his inner hearing, without the aid of an instrument. Someone in the audience must havedoubted this, to which Hermeto answered, "It's no joke, I am serious!" Confirm this by hearing foryourself.


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Itiber Zwarg.51

Hermeto continued to develop and broaden the same sonoro-musical paradigm

from his childhood in Lagoa da Canoa, in combining the instruments which he learned

to play and in blending the musical styles which he got to know over the course of hiscareer. Thus, in his musical system, a coco, a frevo, a maracatu, a baio could be

vertiginously mixed with choro, samba, jazz, free jazz, or classical music, in the same

way that a noise could be employed as a pitch, or vice-versa.

Symbolically traversing the biombos culturais in his house, Hermeto went

beyond the barriers between Northeastern modalism, the tonality of popular music, and

finally, contemporary atonality, noise as music, and experimentalism. In this way, he

created an original musical system, unique in the world, which problematizes theseparations between the popular and the classical, and also between the national and

cosmopolitan, since Hermeto "blends regional, national, international and universal

elements in order to create de-territorialized music which refuses to deny its roots".

(REILY, 2000, p. 08)

4SECOND PART:AHOUSE CALLED BRAZIL UNIVERSE

A recurring question which is the object of debate between various researchers inpopular music in Brazil is: how did a marginalized genre like samba come to be one of

the most representative musical symbols of Brazilianity? In other words, how did samba

leave the backyard in order to enter the salon of all Brazilians?52

It is not my place, in this article, to answer this complex question, nor to discuss

the different hypotheses formulated by specalists. I will only address here that which is

most directly connected to my theme: during the twentieth century, samba and choro,

popular vocal music and popular instrumental music, traded places in the "house".Samba and the popular vocal genres that came after it during the century - as for

example, bossa nova, baio, jovem guarda, MPB, BRock, sertanejo, sertanejo

romntico, funk, etc. - were, to a greater or lesser degree, massified by the

51 For the sake of completeness, I note that in 1989* Hermeto recorded for Som da Gentethe piano soloLP Por diferentes caminhosand in 2006*, the independent CD Chimarro com rapadura, with thesinger Aline Morena, Hermeto's present companion.

52 In addition to the work already cited by Muniz Sodr, see, for example: SQUEFF, Enio and WISNIK,

Jos Miguel. O Nacional e o Popular na Cultura brasileira.1982. VIANNA, Hermano, O mistrio dosamba, 1995. SANDRONI, Carlos, O Feitio decente, 2001. NUNES, Santuza Cambraia. O violoazul, 1998. See bibliography.


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communications media and came to dominate the Brazilian musical scene. At the same

time, choro and other genres of popular instrumental music moved gradually to the

"back of the house, and, although objects of passionate attention by a growing number,

are frequently invisible to the eyes of the larger public.

The following declaration by Hermeto exemplifies the present panorama of

popular music in Brazil:

[Instrumental] musicians without personality, whounfortunately are the majority, do whatever the singerswant. If you have personality you have to say to them: Iwill accompany you, but I want to take solos (...). Wehave piano, bass and drums, and we will only accompanyyou, if there are at least two solos in each show.(FRANA, 2004, p. 12)

In this sense, Hermeto's house, like that of Tia Ciata, was a redoubt of

musicians and a symbol of resistance for popular instrumental music in the 1980s

and early 1990s, a period when MPB, BRock, sertanejo, and foreign disco

prevailed, along with other genres. In his own way, Hermeto is linked with the

tradition of choro and popular instrumental music in general (including frevo and

various types of wind bands, including military bands, symphonic bands, the

bandas de pfanos, etc.),

53

a tradition for which Pixinguinha is central and thehouse of Tia Ciata a vital symbolic locus. In addition to sharing with Pixinguinha

a taste for jazz and for big bands54

(see Os Oito Batutas), Hermeto has various

choros in his repertory55

, dedicated compositions to important choro musicians56

and on the first LP under his name released in Brazil, titled: A msica livre de

Hermeto Pascoal(1973*), Hermeto made an arrangement for orchestra based on

the song Carinhoso (Pixinguinha/Joo de Barro), considered by some

musicians to be the true Brazilian National Anthem. Hermeto and Group, likesambistas and choro musicians (and American jazzmen from New Orleans) from

the beginning of the past century, were pioneers in the way in which they re-

53 Hear, for example, Frevo (1971*), Frevo em Macei (1984), Briguinha de msicos malucos no

coreto (1982) and Parquinho do Passado, Presente e Futuro dedicado s crianas e aos parques(2002*).

54 Hear the recordings of compositions by Hermeto for big band athttp://www.hermetopascoal.com.br/bigband/audio.asp

55 Hear, for example, Chorinho para ele (1977*), Chorinho MEC (1999*) and Choro rabe (?) athttp://www.hermetopascoal.com.br/bigband/audio.asp.

56 Hear, for example, Salve Copinha (1985), as well as Mestre Radams (1984).


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elaborated rural, urban and international musical elements in order to invent new

musical genres. These musicians resisted and used music, each in his own way, in

order to affirm themselves in the Brazilian and international cultural mosaic.

However, if there are similarities between Hermeto and the choromusicians of the beginning of the twentieth century, there are also differences

which should be noted. In a recent interview, Hermeto stated:

There are lots of people who are 18 years old playing old,square things. These people who play chorinho, regionalmusic, MPB, begin playing like old guys, and seem likeold guys. Someone who is born today needs to be well-informed. The guy is born and listens to Pixinguinha. Themusic is pretty, and has that square chordal way that it is

dressed. If someone is born today and they don't tell himthat this is old music, it's the same thing as him seeing anold building without knowing that it's old. Not that old is

bad. But the young are born so old. (YODA, 2006)57

The differences I mention demonstrate the contrasts between two different

historical contexts: the modern, in the case of the dwelling of Tia Ciata, and the

contemporary, in the case of Hermeto's house in Jabour. Thus, unlike the house of Tia

Ciata, where the musicians who crossed biombos culturais were members of the

same social class, of the same black ethnic group, and participated in musical genres

which, in spite of their particularities, had a common denominator in the syncopated

rhythms of Candombl, at Hermeto's house, however, he and the musicians in the

Group had geographic and social origins which were quite distinct, and the movement

through the vertical biombos culturais of the house in Jabour crossed frontiers

between musical genres which were much more heterogeneous. In fact, the musical

practices used by Hermeto are related to a contemporary context which presents

various melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, timbristic and formal ruptures in relation to

traditional choro. This did not prevent Hermeto, however, from composing choros,

and innovating with respect to harmony, through introducing dissonant chords and

unexpected progressions, as the recent interview cited indicates. Thus, to use a

culinary metaphor, so much to Hermeto's taste: the two houses, separated by an

interval of about 70 years, had a dish in common (feijoada), though the receipt was

57 Seehttp://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=10980&tid=2489510022838154349&kw=entrevista


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post-modernized at Hermeto's house in Jabour, and although some ingredients were no

longer present, others were, and still others were modified or added to.

As I observed in an earlier article (Costa-Lima Neto, 2000, p. 119-42), the

uniqueness of Hermeto's musical system lies in the uncommon capacity of Hermeto tocombine the "conventional" with the "natural", that is, to establish a dialogue between,

on the one hand, the vocabulary and instruments of "conventional" ethnic (indigenous

and Afro-Brazilian), Brazilian (urban popular music: choro, frevo, bands, etc.) and

international (jazz, classical music) styles and on the other, atonal and non-harmonic

"universal" sonorities found in "nature" (animal sounds, human speech) and in

unconventional every-day sound objects (pieces of iron, pans, wooden shoes, flasks

for oral hygine, etc. ). "Nature is the day-to-day", states Hermeto

58

. This is, in myopinion, the key to understanding Hermeto's singular musical system. In combining

the "conventional" with the "natural", the composer creates a third substance, which is

no longer either nature nor day-to-day, but the fusion of the two.

From choro to jazz, from classical music to Northeastern coco. The singular recipe

for Hermeto's contemporary "musical feijoada" does not seem to have gone together well

with the modernist ideologies of Mrio de Andrade (1893-1945) and Oswald de Andrade

(1890-1954), as those ideologies were reinterpreted by particular popular musicians duringthe second half of the twentieth century. As I already mentioned, the modernist ideas of

Mrio e Oswald influenced, respectively, the nationalist project of Geraldo Vandr at the

time of the Quarteto Novo -during the Festivals of Song in the 1960s and 1970s - and the

anthropophagic tropicalist esthetic of Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, which served as

inspiration, in turn for artists of the So Paulo avant-garde, such as Arrigo Barnab, in the

1980s.59

In my opinion the music of Hermeto Pascoal should alert researchers that

Tropiclia does not hold a monopoly on innovation in Brazilian popular music.

60

In fact,Hermeto is modern without being modernist, is Brazilian without being nacionalist and

practices, in his own way, anthropophagy, without ever having been tropicalist, nor even

having read theManifesto Antropofgico(1928) of Oswald de Andrade.

58 In the interview already cited.

59 NAPOLITANO, Marcos, op. cit., relativizes the influence of Oswald de Andrade on thetropicalistas and notes that, in spite of differences, there are points in common between thenationalists and the avant-gardists.

60 According to the important observation by Prof. Dr. TREECE, David. Journal of Latin AmricaStudies no. 35 (reviews). London: Kings College, 2003, p. 207-13.


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Hermeto Pascoal's uniqueness must be correctly understood in order that

associations not obfuscate characteristics instrinsic to Hermeto, but rather reveal,

through comparison, what is unique about these characteristics. The differences between

Hermeto and the artists and movements cited above were not solely musical. Because

while in Modernism "artists coming from the elites and the bourgeoisie were trying to

establish a new way of relating to the cultures of the people" (TRAVASSOS, 2000, p.

08), Hermeto, in contrast, followed the opposite path, that is, he left the first floor,

"below", left the less-economically-advantaged classes of the Northeast, in order to then

go beyond geographic and class barriers in order to migrate to the large cities. Thus,

unlike the rationally oriented, civilized, scientific, theoretical and literate vision of the

cosmos of urban intellectuals and artists, for Hermeto the emphasis seems to fall on the

opposite pole, on the sensitive, nature, intuition, religion or spirituality, practice and

improvisation. Like Pixinguinha, who learned the codes of cultivated music, the self-

taught Hermeto uses and dominates musical notation, even if it is never the point of

departure in his creative process. In addition to this, Hermeto's search for the unusual is

joyful, and does not spend much time rationalizing the process of experimentation,

unlike some musical currents of the avant-garde.

In the following quote, Hermeto explains:

Music for the musician, without experiences nor vanguards, onlyfelt music, note for note, forming arrangements in which theinstruments, in one only time, coexist and are individuallyexplored. Listen. (HERMETO, 1979)

In this way, blending tradition, modernity and contemporaneity without belong

to any school or movement, the esthetic territory traced by Hermeto Pascoal acquires

intentionally shifting fronties. In avoiding any identification with commercial labels

and artistic movements he frees himself professionally and esthetically. Considering,

however, that Hermeto is present in the context of the contemporary culture industry,

it is necessary to verify, what the strategies of resistance and survival are which he

adopted over the course of his career, while he was trying to maintain the authenticity

of his singular musical system in the commercial arena.

This rather utopian path was not easily traveled.

Migrating from Lagoa da Canoa to the great cities of Brazil and the world,

Hermeto experienced the era of radio in the 1940s and 1950s, the expansion of TV in


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the 1960s, and its boom in the 1970s, the monopoly of the great multi-national

recording companies61

accentuated by the majors, the appearance of the CD, the

movement to indy labels and independent musicians in the 1990s,62

until the arrival of

the age of the Internet.

In the 1940s and 1950s radio was the most important mass communication

medium in Brazil, and the majority of the music broadcast was played live by regional

ensembles, bands, singers and orchestras. The consolidation of samba as the musical

symbol of national identity was possible thanks to dynamics and broad cultural

exchanges between agents and shapers of opinion in various sectors of society. The

nationalization of this musical genre is strongly linked to the history of radio and the

way in which the Estado Novo (1937-1945) of Getlio Vargas (1982-1954) utilizedthis medium of communication in order to co-opt the sambistas and promote "national

integration" and "racial democracy" through sambas exalting civic values. In the

1950s, recalled in history as the "golden years" of the government of Juscelino

Kubitschek (1902-1976), the bossa nova, a genre which maintained the traditional

melodic emphasis of Brazilian music, used more dissonant harmonies than those of

the traditional samba. The guitar becomes more percussive, in dialogue with

sophisticated orchestral arrangements and a type of vocal production which waswhispered and cool, quite different from the operatic mannerisms of the popular

singers of the previous generations. Bossa nova was the fruit of the desire of the artists

from the middle class to artistically and technologically "modernize" popular music in

Brazil, passing from the "agricultural phase to the industrial phase".63

In the 1950s, the

radio stations became an excellent vocational school for Hermeto, and at the same

time an important source of support for the adolescent musician, recently-arrived from

the countryside. Even fifty years later, Hermeto still finds important professionalopportunities in radio, recording for the label of the state radio station, MEC, in 1999*

and in 2002*.

61 Hermeto recorded for the following multinational companies: EMI (1967*); Polygram (1973* e1992); WEA (de 1977* a 1980*). The last disastrous attempt was on the CD Festa dos Deuses(PolyGram, 1992), when Hermeto broke the contract soon after the commercial launch of the CD.

62 As for example, the label Som da Gente, already mentioned, with which Hermeto and Group recordedsix of the seven discs made during the period 1981-1993 (one of the discs was not issued).

63 Tom Jobim citado por NAPOLITANO, op. cit., p. 69.


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In the 1960s, when the military dictatorship (1964-1985) took power and

while Hermeto was progressing through work in clubs, on the radio and in the

instrumental ensembles already mentioned - musical programs on television,

theater, the Festivals of Song and the record industry, with an eye on the new

demands of the market, went after the public from the universities. Thus MPB

appeared, which made it possible for middle class artists to connect, even if

provisorily, esthetics, ideology, and market. However, the commercial explosion of

the jovem guarda (i-i-i), with its success among lower middle class youth,

outsold MPB in 1965 (with the homonymous disc by Roberto Carlos)64

and upset

the balance, presaging the brega, msica sertaneja and msica romntica of the

following two decades. In this sense, the jovem guardawas the vanguard for music

for the masses in Brazil.65

Since he did not belong to the old guard of samba, or

bossa nova, or politicized MPB, or to the tropicalist avant-garde, nor to i-i-i,

Hermeto had to seek other commercial spaces for his instrumental music, traveling

outside Brazil in 1970, with his friends Airto and Flora Purim, as the interview

quoted below exemplifies:

I went to the USA with my way of working and thedesire to change the habit that obliged Brazilians to go

there to learn with American musicians. (...) I wantedto show something that isn't jazz, nor samba, nor bossanova, because I am tired of all that! (...) Yes, I makemusic and I am Brazilian. You can take that any wayyou like. (HERMETO,Jazz Magazine, 1984)

As I already mentioned earlier, in the USA, in 1972, Hermeto recorded his

first solo disc. However, just as had happened during the period of the Festivals of

Song, Hermeto was going the opposite way from the record industry. In fact,

Hermeto's path is opposity to the process of formation and expansion of themajors, that is, the conglomerates of large multi-national recording companies,

consolidated during the 1970s and 1990s.66

Proof of this is Hermeto's refusal to be

64 See NAPOLITANO, Marcos op. cit., p. 87-98.

65 See ULHA, Martha Tupinamb. Nova histria, velhos sons: Notas para ouvir e pensar a msicabrasileira popular. In:Debates: Cadernos do programa de ps-graduao em msica. Rio de Janeiro:UNIRIO, 1997, p. 87.

66 The majors, which control more than two thirds of the world record market are: EMI + Odeon = EMI

(1969); Phonogram + Polydor = PolyGram (1978); Sony Corp. + CBS = Sony Music (1987);Bertelsman + Ariola + RCA = BMG-Ariola (1987); and, finally; Time-Warner + WEA + Toshiba +Continental = Warner Music (1991-93). The fusion of PolyGram with MCA, in 1998, produced the


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part, as keyboardist, of the fusion band of Miles Davis for the gigantic

multinational Sony, choosing, instead of a (subaltern) stardom, to begin his solo

career as composer, arranger and instrumentalist for a relatively unknown record

label (Buddah Records).

In counterpoint to Hermeto's professional career, the power of the majors

influenced the whole culture industry beginning in the 1970s, reaching a climax in the

1990s. It produced styles such as disco and lambada, launched products directed at the

children's market, such as the TV host, model and singer (?) Xuxa, as well as styles

directed to the young middle class public - such as BRockand pop in the 1980s - and

finally, mass consumption genres directed to the mass popular market in Brazil, such as

ax, pagode, msica sertaneja and msica romntica.

67

The products which werepromoted jointly by the majors, newspapers, radio stations, films (Saturday Night

Fever, Lambada), clips on MTV (Thriller by Michael Jackson), TV programs (Xou da

Xuxa) and mini-series (Dancin Days, Pantanal, O Rei do gado, etc.), had in common

the fact that they were directed to large slices of the market. The change in format from

LP to CD, and the diversity of these products did not hide, however, their musical

redundancy. In fact, in search of the largest possible consuming public, in the

soundtrack of the end of the twentieth century the multiplex sounds, styles, genres,

agents, places and authors [seemed] to intone, in reality, a single song (Dias, 2000, p.

170)

However, the movement of the independent musicians and recording companies

in the years 1980-1990 - a period in which Hermeto and Grop recorded six discs for the

independent label Som da Gente- began a gradual change on a scene dominated by the

insatiable appetite of the transnational cultural industry. Severely criticized due to the

high price charged for CDs - the sale of which only brought the artist approximately 13%

of the unit value of the product (Dias, 2000) - the large record companies were obliged to

lower their prices due to the indie movement, but that did not prevent the former from

experiencing a vertiginous decline after the turn of the millennium, while the Internet

continued to grow, connecting more than thirty million Brazilians and approximately a

Universal Music Group,since 2006 the largest record company in the world. See DIAS, Mrcia Tosta.Os Donos da voz. So Paulo: BoiTempo Editorial, 2000: 41-3 and ULHA, op. cit., 1997, p. 85.

67 See ULHA, Martha Tupinamb de, ibidem, p. 80-100 and ULHA, Msica Romntica em MontesClaros. In: REILY, Suzel Ana.British Journal of Ethnomusicology9/i, 2000. p. 11-40.


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billion people around the world. Looking at the number of sites,68

blogs69

and virtual

communities of Hermeto's fans in Orkut70

(with more than sixteen thousand participants)

Hermeto would seem to be more comfortable than ever. In facilitating access by

Brazilians and others to diverse audiovisual and bibliographic material, the Internet isbeing utilized by its users as a contemporary strategy of resistance, making it possible,

partially, to get around the isolation which the majors and the media in general71

imposed

on musical genres which belong to areas of lower production, sales and consumption,

among these being classical music, choro and instrumental music in general, and the

music of Hermeto Pascoal in particular.

Hermeto stated in a recent interview that the record companies never interfered in

the choice of repertoire to be recorded on his discs, and that the problem, in reality, was in

inadequate distribution and non-payment of royalties:

[The record companies] just use you as catalog, that's all.Then there's a jazz festival, and they put on display thedisc by Hermeto Pascoal. And it sells and sells, more thananyone else. Once the festival is over, they collecteverything. (...) And they don't pay what they aresupposed to pay. (...) Now and then, they send R$100,00,and that's it. I am going to say something light: what the

record companies do is nothing more or less than robbery.It's robbery.(...) Everyone can pirate my songs. I will neverbe against that, because that way it's much easier forpeople to hear them. What we make is independent music.(FRANA, 2004, p. 14)

In fact, on various occasions Hermeto recommended that is fans record his shows with

home recorders. The lack of distribution on the part of the record companies can easily

be noted by those who seek in vain for the records of Hermeto Pascoal on the shelves of

stores and at the websites of Brazilian megastores. As research, during the editing ofthis article I sought 16 discs recorded by Hermeto beginning in 1971*.

72 With the

68 See: http://www.hermetopascoal.com.br

69 See: http://www.miscelaneavanguardiosa.blogspot.com

70 See: http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=62155

71 Educational TV and Rdio MEC represent an exception. As I already mentioned, Hermeto issued in1999, on the MEC label, the solo CD Eu e eles, on which he plays all the instruments, as well as theCD Mundo Verde Esperana(2002), with the new lineup of the band.

72 In a search done at the beginning of 2008, at the sites of the virtual megastore Submarinoand at the

specialized megastoreModern Sound.The latter had, in stock, three CDs by Hermeto recorded forWarner Bros. and reissued in Brazil in 2001, because the owner of the store had foresight and boughta relatively large quantity of these three items before the company took them off the market in 2004.


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exception of two CDs issued by the label of Rdio MEC (1999* e 2002*) and of the

independent CD from 2006*, Hermeto's other discs (11 items) are out of print in Brazil

and abroad, and the two other titles (1977* and 1987) are only available as imports to

Brazil. The growing market for rare vinyl makes a profit on this, but it is in the virtual

space of the Internet that Hermeto's work is experiencing a true revival. In addition to

the 11 out-of-print discs of the record companies, net users have available various other

unpublished recordings and videos of Hermeto and the groups which accompanied

him73

. Considering the decreases in the costs of the technologies of recording,

reproduction and the cost of home computers, as well as the global reach of the Internet,

and the fact that Pascoal is a composer possessing a vast oeuvre (around 4.200

compositions)74- of which only a small part was recorded commercially - I believe that

the potential for disseminating his music on the Internet is promising.

5-CONCLUSION -THE COMMONPLACE AND THE "NO-PLACE"

These days I understand that the media does not deal withserious work. This is something that is true the world over.This is why great musicians despair. (...) As if peopleweren't enjoying what they do. I think exactly the

opposite. (...) I am with the people who want me. Thepeople who want me are not the ones who are trying toknow what they will want. It's the people who want towant. (HERMETO, 1998)

Since the first phonograph recordings in Brazil, among them the samba Pelo telefone

(1916), produced at the sessions of sambistas at the house of Tia Ciata, until the sound

files of Hermeto Pascoal and Group, shared over the Internet, popular musicians have

been negotiating their place in the Brazilian society of the twentieth and twenty-first

centuries. Crossing the biombos culturais which link the rooms of a house, in the sameway that they link the house to the street, the city to the farm, the colony to the

metropolis, and the local to the international, popular artists make exchanges between

heterogeneous musical genres, thus creating new hybrid species.

In this urban house with open windows, the musics of the Americas blended

with the musics of Africa and Europe, guaranteeing varied mixtures. Folk music, choro,

"Hermeto's discs always sell well!" the owner of the store, Pedro Passos Filho, told me.

73 See the list of URLs in the appendix, after the bibliography.74See Hermeto in GARCIA, Revista [email protected], p. 27. See http://www.brasilnet.co.uk


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samba, bossa nova, jovem guarda, MPB, tropiclia, msica romntica, brega,BRock,

the experimental popular music of Hermeto Pascoal, etc. constitute differe

Documents

Luizcostalimaneto Traditionandpostmodernity Hermeto Pascoal