Menu Listen Fabiano do Nascimento Announces New Live LP Solstice Concert With 232 pages and an expanded 12″ by 12″ format our biggest print issue yet celebrates the people and Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records The NYC-based project’s second album delights in its confident sense of chaos with vocalist Cole Haden knowing full well there’s no way we’re going to avert our gaze for a single moment Channeling Ziggy Stardust’s glam transcendence Will Toledo resurrects the album as a grandiose narrative vehicle while marking his valiant stride into the rock canon The Erasure frontman works out something open and anthemic on his latest solo album with producer Dave Audé adding subtler shades to his post-house pop mix Nascimento cruises on his seven-string guitar and Gabe Noel holds the entire show down with a rhythmically inclined bass line The song was originally performed by Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo, and was featured on their 1984 album Lagoa da Canoa Município de Arapiraca. Check out do Nascimento and his own grupo’s performance of the song below, and pre-order Solstice Concert here Try a different filter or a new search keyword launching both Pascoal’s and Moreira’s careers in the process Pascoal has been on a lifelong musical journey that has taken him down many paths His work is rooted in traditional Brazilian music but is extremely progressive and often built around complex orchestrations “Hermeto had always been portrayed in the [Brazilian] media as some kind of a sorcerer,” says his longtime keyboardist Jovino Santos Neto who also translates for Pascoal during interviews in English “So a lot of people came for that kind of exotic figure But once they sat there and started to hear the music…” and two then-new members of what Pascoal simply called Grupo: Carlos Malta on soprano saxophone “A lot of people when they hear our concerts they think the whole thing was improvised—that it just happened in the moment,” Pascoal says the tunes were carefully composed while leaving room for extended improvisation “to write and arrange in such a fluid way that sometimes it’s almost impossible for the listeners even musician listeners or critic listeners to actually know what part was composed and what part was improvised.” Malta was “I had an opportunity to gauge his musicality to gauge his musical chops as a horn player and flutist and then to engage that with the band and to find the right way to showcase that technique and his musicality but within a larger context of the group.” were key to the process because Pascoal’s writing methods were highly unorthodox he used oversized score paper and did not follow standard methods of organization—horns here “[Carter] was able to make it in such a way that the musicians who were used to reading everything could read everything,” Pascoal recalls “And Art also conducted most of the sessions it was a completely different sound than what the jazz orchestra canon had to that point It was a really innovative and very different record I’ve studied those arrangements very deeply; I break them down and isolate just the trumpets and it’s a really incredible work of art.” In 1982, Pascoal released Hermeto Pascoal E Grupo, which featured a version of the band heard on Planetário Da Gávea and guitarist Heraldo do Monte (of Quarteto Novo) as a guest Pascoal plays a dozen different instruments folk-magic feel; dogs bark through “Magimani Sagei,” and the melodies on tunes like “Série de Arco” and “Cores” frequently have an almost circus-like quality though the arrangements lean in the direction of complex art-funk Pascoal compares it to a car trip: “The analogy is like when you’re driving somewhere on a road very rarely the road is as straight as an arrow The road has curves and sometimes when you’re driving you feel like getting off the road and going to a shortcut through the woods.” That’s how he sees his music—the journey and the destination are all of equal importance “It’s not a boring road that stays in one direction The road meanders; it goes up the hill and down the hill and curves and goes right and left That’s how we feel about this music being created and made.” Pascoal’s Lagoa Da Canoa – Município De Arapiraca was recorded during the summer of 1984 and released later that year In addition to more of the proggy-yet-childlike melodies and long jazz fusion solos (he’s playing soprano sax on the cover) including recordings of football announcers Pascoal enjoys using voices as sources of found melody; it’s part of his overall compositional philosophy which he describes as “Tudo e som” (“everything is sound”) “There’s no theory involved except when you have to actually write down a chart it all lives in this universe of pure sound.” Lagoa Da Canoa feels like a love letter to the region of Brazil where Pascoal grew up and he admits that his early life is always present in his mind “I don’t really see time in that linear way like ‘Oh that was a long time ago—I still can close my eyes and go back to being a child in Lagoa da Canoa,” he says Each is unique but clearly bears the stamp of its creator—most evidently in the element of surprise “I am 100 percent intuitive,” Pascoal says so I let my ideas surprise me as much as they sometimes surprise the listener.” he made himself flutes to play to the birds scrap-metal instruments in his grandfather's smithy and spent hours at the lake listening to the sounds of the water featuring Hermeto and his musicians in an impromptu water-band captures his sense that music and the natural world belong together When Hermeto Pascoal first toured in Europe in the 1980s, his energy, humour and eclectic tastes blew audiences away. Here's Hermeto e Grupo in those years, playing Finland's Pori Jazz in 1984 - on a typical mix of an inimitable theme American jazz-sax methods (saxophonist Carlos Malta's in Sonny Rollins mode) and Latin-dance vivacity Another '80s example of the group at full stretch from the Só Não Toca Quem Não Quer album around 1986 Hermeto's piano-playing joins dance-music's clamorous chording and bursts of free-jazz worthy of Cecil Taylor After he'd worked as an accordionist with other family members (including his father and brother) from the age of 11 Hermeto performed as a pianist in popular groups with percussionist Airto Moreira later to become a major Brazilian-jazz star Here he is with Moreira and bossa nova bassist Humberto Clayber on the 1965 album Em Som Maior Hermeto Pascoal might play everything from keys to saxes to flutes freewheeling performance is a solo item from a series of memorable encounters with Brazilian accordion star Sivuca You can also download videos from the group's own site David Block ventures into the eccentric musical world of the intuitive multi-instrumentalist who became a global jazz name when he played on Miles Davis's 1970 album Live-Evil He creates music out of almost any object that he can get his hands on “I know that he can recognise people from six feet away” president/owner of the talent agency Riot Artists who has also worked with him for the past 12 years who was part of Pascoal’s band from 1977 to 1992 got to know Pascoal and see facets of him that the average fan might not know about They were both kind enough to share their experiences working with Pascoal for this article Hermeto Pascoal was born 22 June 1936 in the small farming town of Lagoa da Canoa which is in the northeast section of Alagoas because his school could not provide him with the special accommodations that he needed in order to be on par with his classmates was a musician and he taught his son how to play the accordion which allowed him to figure out how to incorporate animal sounds into his music He also taught himself how to play the piano and the flute One of Pascoal’s strengths was to use everyday objects to make sounds and then incorporate those sounds into his music Smith said that Pascoal would be sitting in a restaurant or sitting outside and he’d pick up the things within his reach to see what sounds he could make “He’d wet his beard and pluck it with the microphone held closely” “He frequently plays a tea kettle filled with water that makes various and unusual sounds We can be in a restaurant and he will bang on the glass with his silverware He composes incessantly whether on tour or at home It doesn’t matter if he’s in Tokyo Smith said that when Pascoal travels to these and other cities he does not see the sights or get the feel for the place “He spends all day in his hotel room composing He has people draw the scores for him and then he places the notes on them”.  Making music out of anything has always been a Pascoal trademark Pascoal moved to Rio de Janeiro in the early 60s where he began recording with some of the new generation of Brazilian musicians He went on to play with such luminaries as Miles Davis appearing on Davis’s 1970 album Live-Evil Despite being legally blind, Pascoal once tried to box with Davis. As a result, Davis referred to him as that crazy Brazilian albino. There’s a video with more info about that playful boxing match When Neto met Pascoal for the first time in November 1977 he had no idea that he would end up performing with Pascoal for the next 15 years Neto was working on his master’s degree in ecology at the Amazon Research Institute He had spent the past few years studying biology in Canada and was home temporarily in Brazil visiting family and friends I learned that Hermeto bought a house close to where my parents lived” “I just wanted to meet Hermeto and say ‘Hey I heard his music; I was at a few of his shows Neto mustered up the courage to ring Pascoal’s doorbell Neto would later relive that moment in his article “Ringing the Bell at the Hermeto Pascoal House.”  He wrote: “I-i-i-i-s Hermeto home? I’m a musician and I’d love to meet him”. She led me to the living room and I found myself sitting alone on the couch while Hermeto Pascoal, in trunks and shirtless, played an electric piano with headphones on and his eyes screwed shut”. The original story is here. “I told Hermeto that I had a band in Canada and showed him my tape, so he showed me his latest album Slaves Mass (1977).” To date, Slaves Mass is one of Pascoal’s best-selling albums “Hermeto then asked me if I could read charts” had me read it and I botched everything” he expected Pascoal to show him to the door …”he asked me if I could play a gig with him that week” “Hermeto has this amazing set of antennas He said a person could play given the right environment and nourishment After his initial performance with Pascoal He spent the next 15 years in Pascoal’s band Pascoal has spent years composing some pieces and wrote other pieces spontaneously One of these spontaneous occasions happened when they were in Montreux “Hermeto picked up a laundry list on the ground and just like that Pascoal has not capitalised commercially on his strengths Neto concluded that he wants people to understand that there are many sides to Hermeto Pascoal “He’s known for playing with a pig on stage © Unless otherwise indicated, all content copyright Jazz Journal 1948-2025