Marisa Monte: “Gilberto Gil is intuitive about our existences”

Gil’s music has always been in my life. I cannot think of any day in my existence without him being present. My parents really enjoyed music, and I remember when the Refazenda album first came out, in 1975. That might be my oldest memory of Gil.

I was 7 years old; my father would show me that song about the avocado tree, the vegetal world, the time, the cycles of life. And I was so small, a child, thinking of time, nature, cycles of life…

Perhaps due to the familiarity with his work early on, I have always felt like he was a beloved one in our lives. I cannot remember exactly the first time I saw him in person out of the stages. Maybe it was in a dressing room, maybe in a studio…

… or in any of the uncountable concerts in which I was his open act in summer festivals throughout Europe, in the beginning of my career, in the 1990s, but he certainly existed to me in an spectral, poetic and philosophic way long before he existed to me physically in mass, heat, and eye to eye.

Gil recorded this song in 1969 (in the album called Gilberto Gil), long before technology took up the space it has in our lives today. Visionary, futurologist, utopic, dreamer, intuitive about our daily life and our existences.

When I recorded, in 1996 (in the Barulhinho Bom – Uma Viagem Musical album), technology was a growing reality, but the song is not exactly about technology, it is more of a counterpoint to it and the human spirit and its creative power.

The machine is an accelerator of our productive capacity, but it does not replace our emotion and sensitivity.

I thought it would be nice, in a moment in which technology was overrunning our lives in a most definitely way, to relive this principle and reaffirm the importance of individual reasoning, natural intelligence, and human culture.

In 1992, I was invited to be an act in a Gil’s concert in Munich, Germany. It was a charity concert to raise funds for a project called Kinder Brasil. Of course, I felt honored and excited for the chance of singing with him.

We then started a series of meetings at my house, in the Urca neighborhood, where we would listen to LPs and talk about our references and musical passions, so we could reach a common track list.

The idea was a concert with his band, in which I would sing a few hits I had recorded in my two first albums and his hits, among other songs that we would pick together.

… and from my repertoire (“O xote das meninas,” by Luis Gonzaga e Zé Dantas, “Volte para o seu lar,” by Arnaldo Antunes, “Lenda das sereias” and “South American way”), and also “Balança a pema,” from Jorge Ben’s first album, Samba do Esquema Novo.

He would always arrive carrying his guitar, we would drink some tea, eat Brazilian cheese bread and cookies and, then, would sing together looking for the best songs, the tunes, the forms etc. In these meetings, we picked a few of his compositions (“Extra,” “Meditação,” and “Expresso 2222”).

I never forgot him saying that, when he first heard Jorge Ben playing guitar in this album he wanted to quit playing, for he was so delighted. We jammed “Dança da solidão” by Paulinho da Viola, “Boas festas” by Assis Valent and “Eu sou o samba” by Zé Keti, among others.

He was always the first to arrive for rehearsals with the band. The musicians affectively called him “professor” and ever since, I have admired his obstinate search for perfection.

Gil always keeps the guitar on his lap, he practices daily the music he takes to the stages, making the guitar an extension of his daily life and sharing with the audience the deepest and intimate there are between him and his instrument.

After this concert, I invited him, along with his band, to record with me five songs in the album Cor de Rosa e Carvão, in 1993. These were “Dança da solidão,” “Segue o seco,” “Bem leve,” “O céu”, “Balança pema.”

His sophisticated guitar leveled up the album’s arrangements. I am forever grateful for it.