Baden Powell is a guitarist and composer who came to prominence in the 1960′s when for a couple years bossa nova music was all the rage. Due to its history, brazilian culture draws on extremely diverse resources ranging from its native tribal cultures to European and North American influences.
In no Brazilian artist were all of these influences so perfectly melded as in Baden Powell.
Two or three times in my life I’ve been asked for 10 “desert island” albums. My answer has always been the same: “Any 10 Baden Powell albums.” I’ve always found that his music, more than any other, bears repeated listening. If the only music I heard the rest of my life was Baden Powell music, I’d die happy.
His approach to guitar playing is a rough-hewn amalgam of two styles one would think of as largely incompatible: classical and flamenco guitar. To this blend he adds the samba music of Brazil which incorporates a lot of native rhythms and percussion instruments. Then he brings in the influence of classic North American jazz of the 30′s, 40′s, and 50′s. The result is almost impossibly appealing without being cotton candy appealing in the hook-driven way of pop music.
A quick bio: Powell was born in the city of Varre-Sai in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, a scouting enthusiast, named him after Robert Baden-Powell (aka Lord Baden-Powell). After his family moved to a suburb of Rio de Janeiro he started taking guitar lessons. By age 15 he was already a professional player with various bands and accompanying professional singers. Powell propelled to public recognition when, in 1959, he convinced Billy Blanco, an established singer and songwriter, to put lyrics to one of his songs. The result was called “Samba Triste” which became a huge hit and has been covered by many artists, including Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd in their seminal LP Jazz Samba. His music improved further due to his collaboration with famed Brazilian poet and lyricist Vinicio de Moraes, which resulted, among other things, in the album which many believe to be his finest: Samba Triste, which means “Sad Samba.”
He often toured Europe in the 1960s, relocating to France in 1968. In the 1970s, he released numerous recordings with a variety of labels in Europe and Brazil. Owing to health problems and people’s changing tastes, he more or less retired in France and Germany in the 1980′s. In the 1990s he and his family moved back to Brazil, where he continued to record and perform. This is when he was rediscovered in Brazil and became renowned as a national treasure. Long addicted to alcohol and tobacco, he finally gave them up, attributing the strength to do so to his conversion to evangelical Christianity. Even so, his health had greatly deteriorated due to many years of abuse, and at last Baden Powell died of pneumonia on the 26th of September, 2000, in Rio de Janeiro.
This bio is very condensed. You can learn much more about his life by visiting his Wikipedia entry and by doing some general googling.
Following are a few examples from Youtube. First up, a young Baden Powell playing a Luis Bonfa tune that’s become a jazz classic, Manha de Carnaval. This translates as “Morning of the Carnaval.” The Carnaval is Brazil’s equivalent of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, only it is on a much grander scale, particularly the one in Rio, which features a grand parade during which the various samba schools show off their artistic skills through dancing, gaudy costumes, and fantastic floats. Naturally, the highlight of the parade is the dancing girls with their milk chocolate skin and abundant curves. All of the dancers are scantily clad and some are topless.
Next we have Canto deo Xango or Song of Django (Reinhardt), the famed early jazz guitarist. Obviously a tribute, it starts off sad but picks up tempo and becomes exuberant, but never leaves the minor key feel behind:
Finally, Baden Powell sings and plays Lapinha, the title of which seems to refer to a wild area of Brazil that has become a nature reserve.
If you’ve never heard of Baden Powell before, or had heard his name but not his music, I hope this post has enriched your life just a bit. His music has greatly enriched mine.
