Hermeto Pascoal
Hermeto Pascoal was a Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. Pascoal was best known in Brazilian music for his orchestration and improvisation, as well as for being a record producer and contributor to many Brazilian and international albums.
Life and career
Early life and career
Pascoal was born on 22 June 1936 in Olho d'Água das Flores in Northeastern Brazil, in an area that lacked electricity at the time he was born. He learned the accordion from his father and practiced for hours indoors, as, being born with albinism, he was incapable of working in the countryside with the rest of his family. As a child, Pascoal idolised baião accordionist Luiz Gonzaga, and he inspired both Pascoal and his brother, José Neto, to pursue music.From an early age, Pascoal played the button accordion. At age seven, he started with the flute. Pascoal was a self-taught child prodigy. When he was eleven, he started performing in musical groups with his brother and father. He and his family moved between Recife and Caruaru several times. Pascoal starting playing in some groups there that would start getting radio time. With his brother and Sivuca, who both also had albinism, he formed an accordion trio called O Mundo em Chamas for a short time.
Pascoal taught himself piano, woodwind and percussion instruments. At the end of the 1950s, Pascoal had moved to the south of the country and eked out a living as a musician in Rio and São Paulo. In 1960, he picked up the saxophone and created the group Som Quatro.
In 1964, he played in the Sambrasa Trio, with Airto Moreira and Humberto Clayber. They released only one album, Em Som Maior. Then he joined Trio Novo and in 1967 the group, renamed Quarteto Novo, released an album that launched the careers of Pascoal and Moreira. Pascoal would then go on to join the multi-faceted group Brazilian Octopus. In 1969, at the invitation of Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, he traveled to the United States and recorded two LPs with them on Buddah Records, serving as composer, arranger, and instrumentalist: Pascoal also managed to record his debut album in 1970 for Cobblestone Records with the help of Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Joe Farrell and Googie Coppola.
International fame
Pascoal initially caught the international public's attention with an appearance on Miles Davis's 1971 album Live-Evil, which featured him on three pieces, which he also composed. Davis allegedly called Pascoal "the most impressive musician in the world". Later collaborations involved fellow Brazilian musicians Airto Moreira and Flora Purim. From the late 1970s onward, he has mostly led his own groups, playing at many prestigious venues, such as the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1979. Other members of the group have included bassist Itibere Zwarg, pianist Jovino Santos-Neto and percussionists Nene, Pernambuco, and Zabelê.Between 1996 and 1997, Pascoal worked on a book project called Calendário do Som, which contains a song for every day of the year, including 29 February, so that everyone would have a song for their birthday.
He later returned to the Jabour neighborhood in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro, where he spent much of his time composing, rehearsing and hosting musicians from all over the world.
In 2019, his album Hermeto Pascoal e Sua Visão Original do Forró won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Portuguese Language Roots Album.
Personal life and death
Pascoal was married to Ilza da Silva, to whom he dedicated many compositions, from 1954 until her death in 2000. They had six children, Jorge, Fábio, Flávia, Fátima, Fabiula, and Flávio, and many grandchildren. Hermeto was later married to Aline Morena from 2003 until 2016, while living in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.Pascoal died from multiple organ failure in Rio de Janeiro, on 13 September 2025, at the age of 89.
Music
Pascoal was a multi-instrumentalist who would switch between instruments in performance. Known as o Bruxo, he often made music with unconventional objects such as teapots, children's toys, and animals, as well as keyboards, button accordions, melodica, saxophones, guitars, flutes, voices, various brass and folkloric instruments. He used nature as a basis for his compositions, as in his Música da Lagoa, in which the musicians burble water and play glass bottles and flutes while immersed in a lagoon: a Brazilian television broadcast from 1999 showed him soloing at one point by singing into a cup with his mouth partially submerged in water. Folk music from rural Brazil is another important influence in his work.Discography
Conjunto Som 4, with Conjunto Som 4Em Som Maior, with Sambrasa TrioQuarteto Novo, with Quarteto NovoBrazilian Octopus, with Brazilian OctopusHermeto Pascoal A música livre de Hermeto Pascoal Slaves Mass Zabumbê-bum-á Ao vivo Montreux Nova história da Música Popular Brasileira Cérebro magnético Planetário da Gávea Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo Lagoa da Canoa, Município de Arapiraca Brasil Universo Só não toca quem não quer Hermeto solo: por diferentes caminhos A Musica Livre de Hermeto Paschoal Festa dos deuses Instrumental no CCBB, with Renato BorghettiBrasil Musical, with Pau BrasilEu e eles Mundo verde esperança Chimarrão com rapadura, with Aline MorenaBodas de Latão, with Aline MorenaHermeto Pascoal: The Monash Sessions, with the Sir Zelman Cowen School of MusicNo Mundo dos Sons Viajando com o som Natureza Universal Made of Music E sua visão original do forró- ''Pra Você, Ilza''