When the protean Brazilian producer/arranger/composer/instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal died in September at age 89, obituary writers were challenged to find someone to compare him to (maybe Prince came closest). Hermeto, as he was invariably known, summed up his musical philosophy as tudo é som, “all is sound.” No wonder his nickname was o Bruxo, the Sorcerer.
As a student at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, pianist Ben Tweedt came under Hermeto’s spell, an enchantment that inspired an evening of the master’s compositions at BOP STOP Saturday evening.
The concert is entitled Chorinho Pra Ele after one of Hermeto’s most beguiling compositions. But though the literal translation of the title is “Little Cry for Him,” the chorinho form, and much of the evening’s music, radiates a boundless joy.
Chorinho music originated in the late 19th century in Brazil’s sun-baked, impoverished northeast and was the first music that Hermeto took up as a youngster. Yet genius seldom leaves even a good thing alone. “At the same time as [it] takes on this very different quality, he stays true to the roots of the music in unexpected ways,” Tweedt said on a video call from his Cincinnati home.
As with any folk-based idiom, having musicians with a direct connection to the music is valuable, and in bassist Kip Reed and percussionist Patrick Graney, the band has two members who have played with Hermeto. In the crucial drum chair, Brazilian-born Kiko Sebrian brings authority and authenticity, while the front line of Angie Coyle (Tweedt’s wife) and Cleveland’s Max Schlenk adds instrumental color by doubling on a variety of saxophones and flutes. When BOP STOP director Bryan Kennard joins them, a three-flute lineup will pay homage to Hermeto’s most characteristic instrument.
The versatility of the horn players gave Tweedt a full palette of colors to build into his arrangements of Hermeto’s harmonically dense compositions. “He uses chord changes in a very different way than the way that jazz composers use them,“ Tweedt said. “Hermeto has a way of crafting melodic entities just by the way that he writes his chords.” Schlenk was also astounded by the originality of the music. “It’s almost as if somebody never learned the rules of how to do stuff and just started just doing stuff,” he told me.
The fascination with Hermeto’s music and the chorinho form specifically prompted Tweedt to investigate the composers who codified the form in the 1930s and ‘40s. He apparently was not alone. By a kind of cosmic coincidence, earlier Saturday, The Treelawn will present an afternoon of choro, an earlier folk form that roughly bears the same resemblance to chorinho as ragtime does to jazz. Maybe it’s sorcery.
Or maybe it’s because chorinho hits all the pleasure centers of the heart, the feet and the mind. “What thrills me the most about music,” Tweedt said, “is when it can strike this beautiful balance of being so steeped in a tradition and adhering to it, but also breaking all of its rules at the same time. It’s great.”
Chorinho Pra Ele: A Tribute to Hermeto Pascoal, Saturday, Nov., 15, 8 p.m., BOP STOP 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. Tickets: $20 available here.
Trading Fours
There’s never a bad time to get out and commune in the same room with creative musicians. Below are four musical events of interest in the coming week that you might want to check out.
Chuchito Valdés Trio
Thurs. and Fri., Nov. 13 &. 14, 7:30 p.m.
Irishtown Bend Taproom, 1849 W. 24th St., Cleveland. (tickets)
Brazil is home two one of the two towering branches Afro-Latin music. The other is Cuba. Chuchito Valdés, the scion of a three-generation dynasty of Cuban jazz pianists, returns to Cleveland in a trio with his regular drummer, Rafael Monteagudo and the indispensable bassist Kip Reed. Expect silk and thunder in equal measure.
Modern Warrior Live
Fri., Nov. 14, 7 p.m.
John Carroll University, Kulas Auditorium, Cleveland Heights. (tickets)
There is never a bad time to recall the sacrifices of the women and men who who served in the U.S. military. Yet coming during Veterans Day week, Friday’s presentation of Dominick Farinacci’s moving tribute adds an extra poignancy to what is already a moving evening of words and music.
Endea Owens & The Cookout
Fri., Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m.
Tri-C Metro Campus Auditorium, 2900 Community College Ave. Cleveland (tickets)
It’s old news that Detroit-raised bassist Endea Owens’ high-profile gig in the house band of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will soon come to an end, a casualty of the Cultural Revolution afoot in the U.S. So if you want to catch her, this show at Tri-C is your best bet–and a sure bet, too, given her shining energy and irrepressible personality.
Chris Hovan Unity Project
Sunday, Nov 16, 7 p.m.
BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. (tickets)
Mention the Hammond B-3 organ and an entire lost world of smoky clubs and greasy, blues-based music comes into focus. But in the hands of Larry Young (a/k/a Khalid Yasin), the B-3 headed in a more progressive, outward-bound direction best heard on Unity (Blue Note, 1966). Cleveland drummer Chris Hovan recreates the instrumentation of that classic session for a Sunday where only the band will be smoking.
For the most complete listing of jazz and jazz-adjacent events., look to Jim Szabo’s essential, weekly Northeast Ohio jazz calendar.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Don’t comply in advance,
jc
