Hermeto Pascoal

Hermeto Pascoal is a Brazilian jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer whose work combines improvisation, orchestration and experimentation. He is associated with jazz, avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion, and he contributes to recordings by Brazilian and international artists as well as leading his own groups.

Early life and musical development

Pascoal is born in Arapiraca, Brazil, in 1936 and grows up in Alagoas. He starts out playing sanfona, or button accordion, before moving to flute at the age of eight. He is a self-taught child prodigy. By the age of eleven, he performs in musical groups with his brother Jose Neto Pascoal and his father Pascoal José da Costa. In 1950, he and his family move to Recife, where he plays in groups that begin to receive radio airplay. By 1960, he adds saxophone to his work and forms Som Quatro.

Career

His recording career begins in 1964 with appearances on Brazilian albums alongside relatively unknown groups. Those recordings, with musicians including Edu Lobo, Elis Regina and Cesar Camargo Mariano, help shape influential directions in post-bossa nova Brazilian jazz. He comes to wider attention through his appearance on Miles Davis’s 1971 album Live-Evil, where he appears on several studio pieces that he also composes. Davis describes him as “the most impressive musician in the world”. Pascoal later collaborates with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim. From the late 1970s onwards, he mostly leads his own groups and appears at major venues including the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1979.

Style and instruments

Pascoal is known by the nicknames “o bruxo” (the sorcerer), “o mago” (the magician) and “o campeão” (the champion). He is also a true albino. His music often uses nature as a basis for composition and experimentation, and he works with unconventional instruments and sound sources including teapots, children’s toys and, on occasion, animals. A Brazilian television broadcast in 1999 shows him soloing by singing into a cup with his mouth partly submerged in water.

Groups and honours

He is a member of Quarteto Novo and Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo. In 2019, Hermeto Pascoal e Sua Visão Original do Forró wins the Latin Grammy Award for Best Portuguese Language Roots Album.