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Edu Lobo: For me Tom was always a kind of model, an objective, something
like that. I think it was that way for everyone in my generation. My
thing is to make my music come as close as possible to that model, that
harmonic and melodic rigor. I think he was very important in the sense of
attracting people to that music, such that they wouldn't be drawn to some
other kind of music.
Commercial music
Including because of the fact that in Tom's music you have millions of
examples of songs that became extremely well known, and that are extremely
commercial in the best sense of the term; I mean "Girl from Ipanema" is an
extremely commercial piece of music and it's a masterpiece at the same
time... It's absolutely well made, well constructed.
LR: "One-Note Samba" is also commercial beyond belief.
EL: "Desafinado" is fantastic and it wasn't even that commercial in its
day. It became commercial, but at the time it was extremely revolutionary.
Nobody was composing like that.
LR: "Desafinado" was the most incredible thing...
EL: Yeah, and now my first recollection of it, I remember.... I always do
this test with everyone and I'm gonna do it with you too. Do you remember
the first time you heard "Chega de saudade"? Remember where you were?
LR: I was with Carlinhos Lyra at a guitar lesson, and he played a little
bit of it.
SL: I heard it on the radio. I was living outside the city at the time.
EL: Which means you remember the first time you heard that music. Everyone
I've ever talked to remembers. Caetano remembers, Chico remembers.
Everyone I've ever asked, they remember. I remember where I was, I was in
Recife, it was a summer day... "What is this?" I couldn't even figure out
who was singing, it was that recording by João (Gilberto)... It wasn't even
the kind of thing you'd like right away, it was like you'd listen and just
sit with it for a while, and listen again..."What are these lyrics? What is
this music? What kind of singing is this? What kind of guitar playing is
that?" There was nothing like it at the time. And there were other things
that were so good..
LR: But nothing like that one, no way.
EL: But there was Caymmi, Custódio's songs, Ary Barroso, millions of the
most beautiful things. There was Villa-Lobos and so on, but it didn't have
that...
SL: Freshness.
EL: That's why when you think about all the junk they wrote about Bossa
Nova, I think even the name is sort of dumb because it doesn't convey
anything. For you to say that Tom was a bossa nova composer is very
limiting...
LR: It limits his scope.
EL: Yeah, exactly, and afterwards he went on to explore other spheres.
SL: His thing is just so vast, if you turn on that novela "O Rei do Gado"
("The King of Cattle"), there's "Correnteza", which every cleaning lady
knows how to sing, everybody sings it.
EL: Yeah, and they already used "Luiza" as the opener for a novela. And
that's a hard tune to sing, it's got these intervals that people usually
goof up on, but... anyway, they sing it.
The two buzzards
EL: EL: Now, aside from that there's something else: he was one of the funniest
people I ever knew. With a sense of humor that was very personal, there
was a kind of code you had to know in order to understand Tom. There were
some people who didn't get it at all. Because he was a guy who, in the
middle of a conversation, would start telling a story about buzzards, for
example. He would invent so many stories, and he would go on with them for
like fifteen, twenty days. And if you ran into him three times he never
remembered that he'd already told it to you and he'd tell it all over
again. And then after the twenty days were over he'd be coming at you with
a new story. He had thousands of them, but there's one I remember
particularly, the one about the buzzards, which went like this: "Do you
know the story about the buzzards that were flying around?" (laughter)
It's not a joke! This is a story he made up. "There were two buzzards
flying side by side and all of a sudden an airplane passed by, way up high
overhead. So they flipped upside down, looking up at the plane, and one of
them tapped the other one with the tip of his wing and said: 'Boy, Walter's
really gotten rich hasn't he?'" (laughter)
EL: That is not a joke, I never heard that as a joke, it's a story he made
up... And I remember at the time Walter Clark was at TV Globo, but he was
really talking about Walter Moreira Salles, the richest man in Brazil. You
just remember those things. Also I remember when we were recording the
album, with a lot of ballads and so on, and in the studio next to us there
was a rock group - I don't recall which one - that was also recording.
They were real serious, very "dark", all dressed in black, dark sunglasses
and the whole thing. And Tom said: "How amusing, here we are singing our
heartbreaking ballads and dying laughing at the same time, and there they
are, playing their stuff and looking as depressed as can be"... It's true,
they were playing rock, and there we were: (singing) "Farewell, come back
Luiza..." and as soon as the track was laid down it was straight back to
the jokes, Walter the buzzard and all that craziness. Just nonstop
silliness. Puns, plays on words. He was a pun specialist, from the worst
to the best, he was very funny.
Theater Album
SL: There's a story about him and Chico fighting over reading dictionaries...
EL: There was the thing about the dictionaries. They had every dictionary
in the world.
SL: And when you and Chico recorded 'Corsário do Rei' ('The King's
Buccaneer'), you called Tom to record and...
EL: 'Choro bandido'. Which was dedicated to him, by the way.
SL: And which is very pretty. I know of three recordings of it, including
yours, but that one was untouchable.
EL: We used that one just now, on a new disc called "Album de Teatro",
which is coming out in November.
LR: With all the theater compositions you did with Chico.
EL: With all the compositions we did for the theater, Chico and I. And it
has that very recording on it, which has such a nice feel to it, a great
feel. And that composition, when it was finished I said: "Chico, this tune
has 'Tom' written all over it" and so we wound up dedicating it to him, and
that was actually before Chico wrote the lyrics. Of all the tunes I did, I
think it was the one he liked most.
An ear for music
LR: He would listen to everything, wouldn't he?
EL: Everything.
LR: An ear for music...
EL: Yeah, an ear for music. He didn't have perfect pitch and he complained
about it. He talked about that a little bit. He used to say that the
engineers had perfect pitch.
LR: The engineers?
EL: Yeah, he used to say: "The engineers have perfect pitch, but I don't".
I don't know if he felt sorry about it, but at the same time he knew that
was stupid. You can have perfect pitch and not have much musical sense.
LR: He was above all that.
EL: He used to say: "Did you know that Stravinsky also didn't have perfect
pitch?" But Tom had an ear, a sensibility for music, that was
extraordinary. I don't know how many times I saw him do something like, for
example, he'd hear a certain chord and his arm would get goosebumps right
away. He'd say: "Ooh, listen to this" and then he'd play it. It was an
instant reaction to something that really touched him emotionally, he was
not just pretending.
Leadership
EL: He was a total musician, a complete musician, and that's why I say once
again that his importance for our generation is enormous. Because since we
idolized Tom's style so much, we had to study it, I mean when we played the
guitar in those days we didn't know shit, not me, not you, nobody. So in
the end I think it was extremely important, his leadership.
LR: He radiated tremendous energy, an enormous stimulus for every musician...
EL: No doubt about it. But then there was that horrible thing in Brazil, a
period when it was supposedly bad to study, because you'd lose your
authenticity...
LR: Your naturalness.
EL: But I think in Brazil any time you have an attitude about studying, it
creates this kind of totally reactionary, dangerous idea. There are so many
stories... because Caymmi tried to study with Guerra Peixe and Guerra Peixe
supposedly said: "Ah! No, don't mess with that, if it ain't broke don't fix
it..." y'know? Maybe that story's not even true. However, I think there
is such a thing as a natural composer...
LR: Like Caymmi. Dorival Caymmi is a natural composer.
EL: What I can't agree with is that if Caymmi had studied, if he had
decided to study, it would've been bad for him, you know? Obviously not. I
mean, to say that studying is harmful to your work, for somebody's
composing...
LR: And Tom studied music.
EL: He studied piano. He studied orchestration, he studied the classics.
If you could augment your vocabulary, then obviously it will help you write
better. Your talent won't change, that stays the same, right? You either
have it or you don't. If you don't have any talent it won't do you any
good to study, the best you can hope for is to become a good musicologist.
But if you have the talent, if it can be developed, why not? Your hearing
can be developed, it can improve, you become a better listener.
LR: You understand music better.
EL: It'll be good for you, obviously. All that, just to get back to the
subject of Tom.
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