Egberto Gismonti: Cego Aderaldo

Egberto Gismonti's 1996 album Zigzag on the ECM record label

Birthday greetings to guitarist/pianist/composer Egberto Gismonti, who celebrates No. 64 today. Or in the Portuguese of his native Brazil: ”Parabens.”

Though Gismonti’s parents were Sicilian- and Lebanese-born, and he himself studied in Europe (as well as Brazil), his music is rooted in the multiculturalism of the country of his birth.

“I have a large interest in Brazilian culture, and I have been preoccupied with its development for a long time,” Gismonti said in an interview with Bruce Gilman on brazil-brasil.com. “To the world, Brazil represents a real mixing of races. I’m not talking about living together but about breeding together — Brazilians, Indians, Europeans, Africans. Because of this merging we are closer to the broader picture of life and to a more aesthetic horizon.”

Given that, it’s ironic that one of his most famous and groundbreaking collaborations — with countryman and percussionist Nana Vasconcelos — was accidental. Gismonti planned to do the 1977 album Danca Das Cabecas — Dance of the Heads, if our translation is correct — but, according to shazam.com, Brazil’s military government placed a restrictive tariff ($7,000) on citizens leaving the country. The musicians Gismonti was to record with couldn’t afford to depart.

Already in Europe, where the album was to be recorded for the ECM record label, with the deadline nearing, Gismonti met Vasconcelos, who was living there. “Having to record the album in three days, he decided to have Vasconcelos into it, and asked by (Vasconcelos) to describe the album’s concept, (Gismonti) explained that both of them had a common history, and he proposed Vasconcelos use that album for telling it,” wrote Alvaro Neder on shazam.com. “It was the history of two boys wandering through a dense, humid forest, full of insects and animals, keeping a 180-feet distance from each other.”

The album won several awards, and according to Neder’s review for allmusic.com, “changed both artists’ lives.”

“I had known his music from Brazil before and I really admired him,” Vasconcelos told N. Scott Robinson in a 2000 interview at nscottrobinson.com. “But when we started to play together, it was a big change for his music. Because it was something he had never experienced before. He was used to playing with a quartet . . . When he started to play with me . . . the Afro-Brazilian element was in his music for the first time. Egberto was coming from a schooled concept; he went to the conservatory in Vienna to be a classical musician. I come from the street so I brought those elements to his music. We both realized, how that was so different, but at the same time it was together, because of the way we think.”

Danca Das Cabecas was the first of Gismonti’s many albums for ECM, despite a competing offer — “The main problem,” he told Gilman, “was making a decision between Atlantic’s very substantial contract versus ECM’s very artistic purpose.” Gismonti committed to ECM and the indigenous cultures of Brazil, according to Neder.

“In the heart of the Amazon forest, Alto Xingu, he tried to make contact with the Yawaiapitì tribe, playing his flute for two weeks until head chief Sapaim invited him to his home,” wrote Neder for shazam.com. “They shared no common language other than music and Gismonti spent about a month living and learning with them, upon the condition of spreading the forest people’s values.”

They could have no better advocate. Through the years, Gismonti seems equally comfortable recording with fellow Brazilians Vasconcelos, Nando Carneiro and Zeca Assumpcao, with ECM’s international stars Charlie Haden or Jan Garbarek, or even solo (the favorite here is Gismonti’s work with Garbarek and Haden on ECM’s 1981 release Folk Songs; a link to one of its songs below).

According to ecmrecords.com, Gismonti taught himself to play the guitar at 21; today his son Alexandre, 30, performs and plays with him. Congratulations, indeed.

sources: yahoo.com, bittersuiteband.com, wikipedia.org, shazam.com, brazil-brasil.com, nscott.robinson.com, ecmrecords.com, allmusic.com

Around the World: Germany’s Rainer Bruninghaus

Pianist Rainer Bruninghaus is best known for his work with other artists, but it’s certainly in part to him that those artists’ work is so well received. 

Bruninghaus has worked, with some overlap, with the best of the European ECM record label — first with bassist Eberhard Weber, his fellow and better-known countryman, during a succession of exemplary albums through the 1970s, and for much of the last two decades with Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek.

But Bruninghaus has also led a few albums, too, including 1981′s Freigeweht (link below).

Born in 1949 in the state of Lower Saxony in northwest Germany, Bruninghaus dabbled in rock before his union with Weber.

From Gary Glauber’s review on popmatters.com of Weber’s 2001 album Endless Days, on which Bruninghaus played: “Weber selected Bruninghaus because of his all-around musicianship, his ability to excel at classical music as well as jazz and his great sense of ensemble playing.”

Next Monday: Denmark

Jan Garbarek: The Creek

Jan Garbarek's Legend Of The Seven Dreams, rescued from a cutout bin

Birthday greetings to Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, who celebrates No. 64 today.

You won’t normally hear Garbarek where you hear traditional jazz — his sound is usually referred to as European jazz. It’s instantly recognizable, sometimes haunting and often beautiful. But his roots are traditional American jazz; as a youngster, it was hearing John Coltrane play that inspired him to do likewise.

American pianist George Russell was Garbarek’s first big mentor after Russell settled for a time in Scandinavia – ironic, since Garbarek grew up in Norway the son of a Polish prisoner of war, who according to jazz.com, was deported to Norway as a laborer.

Garbarek’s work with pianist Keith Jarrett only increased the reputation of both through the 70s. But Garbarek has not been limited since he began recording more than 40 years ago – he has an extensive discography as a leader and a lengthy list of associates, from the most accomplished artists at the ECM record label to one-time unions with musicians the world over.

Most of Garbarek’s many albums are without liner notes, and while there are plenty of pictures of him, there are also just as many pictures of  countryside, presumably from his native Norway. Not surprisingly, Garabarek recently composed a song called: The Reluctant Saxophonist. “It could be me. I certainly feel like it sometimes,” he told jazz.com. ” . . . When you actually play it’s fun, but you have to get down to it and there other things to do, other thoughts to think.”

When he does play, there’s only one thought to think:  Tusen takk.

The link below is to The Creek, off his 1996 album Visible World.