Documentos do Arquivo Pessoal de Gilberto Gil

RIFFS International Gil By Davitt Sigerson You'd have to figure Gilberto Gil was too consciously intellectual to make it as a roots man, too ítal to headline Vegas, and too Vegas to be any sort of an intellec- tual. But Gil has melodies for behind them an archetypal Brazilian imp- and r days. ishness that's no less real for being highly practiced. They mean that Gil can do pretty much anything he pleases, and you will sing along. He proved that last week, in two concerts at the Beacon and a pair of gigs at S.O.B.'s. it isn't often that we get legitimate Brazilian stars playing town; Jobim and Joảo Gilberto tend to keep low profiles when they're up this way, and most of the wave that succeeded them seems to be awaiting a general thaw that will probably never take place. Gil hasn't played New York since a Columbia date in 1979, but that makes him something of a regular, Between the four Gil shows and a sched uled July appearance by the great Caetano Veloso at the Public Theater, this should go down as our summer to remember for Brazilian music. They billed Gil as "The Stevie Wonder of Brazil," which has a ring it and makes a point. They are both ingenious melodists, essentially pop musicians for all the uncompromised ethnicity of their grooves. If anything, that duality is easier in Brazil, Culture and complexions do this lovely thing there of grading through black and white with lots of pretty browns and beiges turning up in between: the Portuguese colonists were economic im- perialists to be sure, but horny ones with #likeable tendency to recognize their own. Gil comes from Salvador, capital besides. They are all patriots (there are more references to Brazil in Brazilian mu- sic than there are to America in ours). They have a highly developed ability to agree and disagree at the same time, to keep it in the family. That's why Gil and Caetano could return to live under the same regime that expelled them, why the founders of Tropicalia are masters of bossa nova. It seems as if all Brazilians sing, all Brazilians bang on things, and all Brazil- ians cry to a good bossa nova. In Brazil the bananas are as sweet and wet as papayas are here, and the papayas are un Bahia, a state which, because it juts into pilsener excellent, and set is in the site the South Atlantic, was the main landfull all times. I mention this not only to in- for slaves brought across from Africa. As dulge my own reverie, but also to cite a result, Bahia has always been the heart some reasons why Gil, for all his appealing of black Brazil: it shows in the genes, the qualities and impeccable Tropicalia polyrhythms, and the cooking credentials, should not be offered up for that most tight-assed of posts, Interna- tional Black Culture Hero. Not that he wouldn't like the royalties or the atten- and certainly no way he'd curb his Brazil ian exuberance to please all those jumpy zealots. and sing as if they're family. Caetano has a song called "Chuva, Suor e Cerveja"- "Rain, Sweat, and Beer." I thouht of that It was in Bahia that Tropicalia got it on, as a reaction to dictatorship and also to the European sophistication of bossa nova. Tropicalia was an ethnic morous consent to segregate his band or his music, zilian musicians, Gil and his band play : enough for the dictators to force Gil and Caetano (coleaders, along with Gal Costa) into exile in the early '70s. But Brazil is a funny country, the social and political undertones are not as well-defined as a Realce, recorded in Los Angeles in 1978/song a lot at Gil's shows. If you missed the shows, , , North American might expect. For one Through Luar and 1982's superb Um or the A Arte compilation for middle- thing, Caetano and Gal aren't exactly Banda Um he has turned himself the period Gil, and wait for Realce, Luar, and what you'd call black. Gil himself looks Maurice White of the southern hemi- rather like a brown Lusitanian grandee. sphere, taking the gloss and interna- For another, the exiles returned without a tionalism of EW&F, taking back the vow- i a elly vocal riffs that White got from Brazil in the first place. If you put "Toda Menina Baiana," "Sarará Miolo," "Axé Baba," "Palco," "Banda Um," "Andar Com Fé," and "Esotérico" on a single album, you'd have a pop masterpiece to equal The Best of EW&F Volume One. Um Banda Um, not yet imported, for the latest sound. Try to see Caetano at the Public, and don't miss Gil when he re- turns, which should be soon. He is, after all, the Willie Nelson of Brazil. . so rather than freeze their buns in London, Gil and Caetano came home, They and Milton and Chico Buarque con- tinue to write songs that may occasionally worry the military regime, but in Brazil there is a different rhythm to the ten- sions--sort of a samba, really. And musi- cally, for all the new-old values of Tropi- calia (bringing back funny flutes and ac- cordions for B-Funk Folklorico), Gil, Caetano, and Gal were avid students and are acknowledged masters of bossa nova-as Gil proved at the Beacon with his exquisite version of "Flora" off 1981's A Gente Precisa Ver O Luar Brazilians have certain things in com- mon. They are all immigrants (most of thu indigenous peoples having long since been wiped out). They are all weird mixtures of races ( something to do with the geo graphic distribution of the settlers, and the considerable autonomy of the states that has helped to preserve ethnic tropes intact even as it shuffled the gene pool) - not just African and Portuguese, but also Japanese, Arab, German, and Scots in significant numbers, and many others On stage it all sounds quite different, and even better. Gil's band is virtuosic, but it plays for the floating pocket that can go from a frantic samba to a bossa nova to a reggae (very popular in Bahic "Não Chore Mais,"Gil's version of "No Woman No Cry," was a monster pop hit in Brazil), to Gil's now characteristic pop-funk groove with no strain. They can return to older Gil classics like "Ela" and "Ex- presso 2222" (my all-time personal fave with no strain. And Gil isn't straining either. He's our chorus-master (a little professionally at the Beacon, for a mixed crowd of vets and tyros, but quite unself- consciously for the shock troops at S.O.B.'s), and as a soloist his chops are first-rate, but the effect is comfy, like the voice in the middle of our heads. Which is to say that if there's no way for Gil to become the International Black Culture Dalto: intelligence and difference MARA BETHANA Gilberto Gil: a pop musician for all the uncompromised ethnicity of the groove Hero, he does have enough musical where- withal to qualify as an (or maybe the) International Pop Hero with no reference Inter- Outside of or maybe including the American Anglo-American scene, Brazil's is the world's greatest popular music, and to ask where Gil fits into that music is to miss Dream the point. There's a parallel here with country music. In Rio, as in Nashville, everybody knows everybody else in the business, and collaborations between ma- jor stars (co-compositions and particu- larly duet singles) are the rule. The tradi- tional elements of the music are familiar enough and revered enough so that any one, from any point in the spectrum of Brasilian pop, could find some common ground with anyone else. Where the idea of Eddie Van Halen guesting with Mi- chael Jackson was headline news, Eddie Arnold singing with Gary Stewart, or Merle Haggard touring with Alabama, would not be. Sure there are pronounced differences of style and quality, but those By Dita Sullivan There are certain dreams that defy analysis. Properly speaking, they are not dreams, but visions that occur during sleep: juxtapositions of past, future, and imaginary events, the disparate images blissfully united in a coherent landscape. Such visions can be distinguished from mere dreams not only by their content- which is archetypal rather than per- sonal--but also by their effect, which lingers after waking: exhilaration, eupho- ria, a sense of inexplicable, lyrical happi ness This inexplicable, lyrical quality pervades the work of Jorge Dalto's Inter American Band, a band whose sound re- sists definition. Hearing Dalto's solos, which are often played simultaneously on acoustic and electric piano, is like travers- ing a finely wrought suspension bridge held together by Latin music's character- istic 6/8 time. Beginning with the tangos of his Argentine boyhood, it takes you on a circuitous route through Peruvian folk melodies and Brazilian harmonies. Then, fortified by syncopated arpeggios, it con- tinues on to New Orleans and ragtime Continued on page 69