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Mauro Senise and Gilson Peranzzetta played it on the recording (mp3 of the track is
downloadable here: https://amajazz.com.br/2020/09/14/jazz-em-curucaca/ ) The mp3
plays a tone lower than written.
https://amajazz.com.br/2020/09/14/jazz-em-curucaca/
Tempos depois, Hermeto lançou um álbum, Só não toca quem não quer, em que cada
faixa era dedicada a um crítico de música – marqueteiro astuto aquele alagoano de
Lagoa da Canoa. ou Olho d’Água Grande, município de Arapiraca. A minha música
chamava-se, significativamente, Viagem, um forró futurista levado por flautas em
uníssono.
O tempo passou. Um dia, escrevendo um release para um novo álbum do Mauro Senise
(meu professor de saxofone durante dez anos) e do pianista Gilson Peranzzetta,
perguntei aos amigos se não gravariam para mim a partitura do Hermeto. Aproveitando
uma brecha de estúdio, eles fizeram esta bonita interpretação. Batizei a música de O
Canto do Curucaca, um pássaro da região. Tem tudo a ver. E assim seguimos nosso
caminho, afrontando pandemias e pandemônios, unidos pela força da música.
The Story Behind The Composition
I met Hermeto on the night of Monday, July 16, 1979, at the airport of Galeão, we
were embarking on the same flight to Geneva, on the way to the Montreux Jazz
Festival, it was his first European tour, with the band that included saxophonists
Nivaldo Ornelas, Cacau, keyboardist Jovino dos Santos, bassist Itiberê Zwarg,
drummer Nenê, vocalist Zabelê and percussionist Pernambuco. The departure lounge
was a veritable cafeteria, Hermeto loading a clothesline full of pots, pans, pans and
kettles of all calibers - as if the international rooms lacked the most sophisticated
percussion kits. As editor of Manchete, I had closed one more issue of the magazine
and put forward the “core” of the following, to go back to my days as a reporter and
closely follow Bruxo's onslaught on one of the main jazz festivals in the world. On the
following Monday, it would be dawn in Rio to close another issue and write the
special report on Brazilian Night, with Hermeto and Elis sharing the poster. I vividly
remember several details of the trip: from my conversation with Nivaldo Ornelas at
the stop in Dakar, over the years I would joke with him: “Man, we met under the real
Senegalese heat, didn't we? ” A long-haul flight, when the weather is clear, offers
something magical: we fly over the globe like someone studying a map in a geography
class. At the height of the Bay of Biscay I was sitting next to Zabelê - the vocalist,
married to Nenê - we were suddenly silent admiring that perfect right angle and the
line that rises vertically from south to north along the Bordeaux coast. The plane
seemed to be anchored in the sky at ten thousand meters altitude and I was traveling
not only in space, but also in time. On that exact corner was Fuenterrabía, in the
Basque Country, a deserted beach of fine sand ideal for reading Proust. I appreciate
the tip from my beloved friend Elizabeth Gallotti. Another parenthesis: I would not
normally use the term “tip”, I only did it in honor of the recently disappeared poet
Olga Savary, who introduced the word in the newspapers, an abbreviation for
“indication”. There is an urgent need to publish an encyclopedia on the contribution
of journalists to the enrichment of our vocabulary ...
Some time later, Hermeto released an album, “Só não toca quem não quer” in which
each track was dedicated to a music critic - a shrewd marketing move from Lagoa da
Canoa, or Olho d’Água Grande, municipality of Arapiraca. The song dedicated to me
was called, significantly, “Viagem”, a futuristic forro carried by flutes in unison.
Returning to Serra Santa Catarina. Before lunch, on Saturday, the company gathered
around the large fireplace of the inn, roasting pine nuts and drinking whiskey.
Hermeto's eldest son, Fábio, proved to be a great connoisseur - and consumer - of old
Scotch. At the end of the afternoon, we headed for São Joaquim, where Hermeto
would perform at a newly opened Convention Center, for this very reason without
heating. Local temperature zero degrees, thermal sensation minus ten. But Hermeto -
ironically, with his kettles - would turn the place into a cauldron. Too bad we had to
endure the cold of São Joaquim without the spectacle of snow. After the show, the
hungry crowd was received in the restaurants of São Joaquim Park Hotel, an ugly
tower in the middle of the dull low-rise city. The menu listing was varied and
attractive - meat, fish, seafood, pasta, various recipes - but the food was rubbery,
sticky and tasteless. The return to the inn, at two in the morning on narrow and
winding mountain roads, with trucks at almost every turn threatening to throw us
over the cliff, was only successfully completed thanks to Abel's expertise and cold
blood, with his girlfriend in the front seat ; Aline, Hermeto and me making small talk
in the back seat.
At Hotel Curucaca I used to wake up early and shared coffee two mornings in a row
with Hermeto and Aline. It was a rare opportunity to hear first-hand episodes about
the wizard's fabulous career and clarify doubts, such as his participation in one of
Miles Davis' most important albums, the double Live-Evil, from 1971. Hermeto
participated in three of the eight tracks and composed two of them, “Little Church”
and “Nem Um Talvez”. Contrary to what I imagined, he held no grudge for the fact
that the themes were long credited to Miles Davis. “The guy was totally focused on
his sound, he didn't have time to think about those frills!,” justified Hermeto. I
explained to him my thesis of the reason that would have taken Miles to steal other
people's compositions - on the album Quiet Nights he signs our popular “Prenda
Minha” as Song # 1… When he recorded his first composition, at 17, “Donna Lee” -
based on the chord sequence “(Back Home Again in) Indiana” - Miles saw the song
credited to Charlie Parker and carried the trauma for the rest of his life. Looking at me
with those Chinese eyes, Hermeto seemed not to take me too seriously - "These
intellectuals! ..." seemed to be thinking.
Sunday's breakfast was surrounded by a melancholy air, Aline and Hermeto's bags
already at the reception waiting for the transport that would take the couple back to
concerts and tours around the world. It reminded me of another Sunday, almost
exactly thirty years earlier, at the Paris / Charles De Gaulle airport, when I saw
Hermeto and Elis disappear in the acrylic tubes of the connection to Tokyo, where
another jazz festival awaited them, Hermeto puts it on the table a paper that he took
out of his saddlebag, is a sheet torn from a spiral music notebook with a theme that
he composed for me, in the tone of the flat tenor sax. I confess that I was going
through difficult times, away from my vintage Martin Indiana, without technical and
emotional preparation to face Hermeto's beautiful and complex melody.
The time has passed. One day, writing a release for a new album by Mauro Senise (my
saxophone teacher for ten years) and pianist Gilson Peranzzetta, I asked friends if
they would not record the score for Hermeto. Taking advantage of a studio loophole,
they made this beautiful interpretation. I named the song “O Canto do Curucaca”, a
bird from the region. It's all about. And so we went on our way, facing pandemics and
pandemonians, united by the strength of music.