/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-BRAZIL: A Magical Guitar Falls Silent

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 3 2000 (IPS) - Baden Powell, a Brazilian guitar genius who enchanted the world – especially Europe, died in late September leaving behind a vast musical legacy.

The artist is generally associated with the Brazilian bossa nova of the 1960s, when he established himself as one of the great performers and composers of this musical genre. But he had little in common with the sugary-sweet songs of that movement, which reflected the thoughtless pleasures of the middle class.

Considered mixed-race or “mulatto,” Powell was born in 1937 in a small city of the Brazilian interior. He grew up in a traditional working class neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro, not in the neighbourhoods along the city’s coast, such as Ipanema and Copacabana, where bossa nova originated.

His first compositions were traditional sambas, which he called “Afro-sambas” as they represented a search for his African roots.

His style of playing the Spanish guitar was completely different from the soft touch of his bossa nova colleagues, such as Joao Gilberto. Powell played aggressively, vigorously, though with nuances that did not rule out a delicate side.

Son of a shoe repairman and amateur violinist, he began to study guitar when he was eight years old. Soon thereafter he was playing on local radio stations and at parties.

His father’s interest in scouting explains Baden Powell’s name, given in honour of the British founder of the Boy Scouts organisation.

At age 16, Powell played on Radio Nacional as a professional accompanist for Brazil’s most famous singers. He was already known as a virtuoso, both in classical and popular music. “A perfect guitarist,” claimed Billy Blanco, his partner since Powell began composing his first songs.

In the 1960s, he wrote and performed with the big names of the time, such as Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim. Some of his songs are included among the “classics” of that golden age of Brazilian popular music, such as “Samba da bendiçao” and “Canto de Ossanha.”

He made several concert tours overseas in that period. Then, in the early 1970s, he decided to move to Europe, living first in Paris and later in Baden-Baden, Germany, where his two children were born. Now they, too, are musicians and are trying to keep alive his works and continue in the tradition.

In Europe, where he gave frequent concerts throughout the region, he recorded more than 50 albums, most of which were never distributed in his home country, Brazil. The repertoire consisted of classical works, primarily Bach, and of his Brazilian favourites, which cover most of the 20th century.

As a composer, he leaves the world with 500 of his so He is recognised as the most skilled and eclectic of the Brazilian guitarists, a group consisting of a long line of excellent musicians, who forged deep roots for this Spanish-origin instrument in Latin America, putting it on the level of cultural importance reached in Mexico, for example.

Some years ago, Powell began dividing his time between Europe and Brazil. With failing health, due in large part to his many years of alcohol consumption, he became an evangelical Christian in 1997. He gave up drinking and also renounced his own Afro-sambas that made reference to African religions.

Pneumonia kept him hospitalised the last month of his life, deteriorating into a generalised infection that ultimately killed him.

His death will likely spark renewed interest in his songs and albums, many of which have been long forgotten in Brazil, as his friend Billy Blanco lamented. Powell left one album ready, “Lembranças” (Memories), with old songs that enchanted his childhood and probably inspired his musical career.

But the public’s rediscovery of Powell’s work began before he died. Current popular singers, like Ed Motta and Bebel Gilberto, included some of his songs on their latest albums.

The voluntary exile of the great guitarist for more than two decades in Europe is another telling example of the phenomenon affecting Brazilian music. Recognised around the world as being among the most creative, it has a limited market inside the country.

As a result, Brazil has become a major exporter not only of music, but also its own musicians and composers.