A MÚSICA BRASILEIRA DESTE SÉCULO POR SEUS AUTORES E INTÉRPRETES - BADEN POWELL

Baden Powell’s guitar has influenced a whole generation of instrumentalists from the 60s on. In the interview conceded in 1990 and reproduced in this album, Baden tells the story of his life and career in one hour of music (voice and acoustic guitar) and conversation. As someone who’s been a musician since the age of 15, Powell’s memories are all linked to and by music. From childhood to adolescence, he remembers while playing the waltz Revivendo o Passado (Freire Jr) and Naquele Tempo (Benedito Lacerda and Pixinguinha), here in a version with echoes from Spanish composer Agustín Barrios (1885-1944), one of Baden’s heroes. He used to listen to Pixinguinha with his first guitar teacher, legendary Meira ("who taught me everything there is to know about guitar"), and on the radio. Baden was also a regular at Mangueira samba school and shows a great deal of respect for Nelson Cavaquinho, from whom he plays Palhaço. In the 50’s, Powell’s memories fly toward the nights at the Plaza, a club where, at age 16, he would play with Ed Lincoln, Luis Eça, Johnny Alf, Tom Jobim (then an architecture student), João Donato and, occasionally, a certain João, who would sit down and play after the customers had left and would later turn Brazilian music upside down. "The Plaza was the beginning of everything", he recalls while playing Minha Saudade (João Donato), Rapaz de Bem (Johnny Alf) and Samba Triste, his first hit, written with Billy Blanco. A little later, in the 60s, he and Vinicius de Moraes became partners. The stories involving the duo are amusing, like when Baden dropped by Vinicius’ house (they were going to write a song) and ended up staying for four months – during which they produced a large amount of masterpieces. Not surprisingly, 10 out of the 20 songs in the album were composed by the partners.(Nana Vaz de Castro)