Capitao Nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos

This a solo-guitar recording, the 8th track of my first album, "Capitão nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos". There was a clear worry of showing some technical skills, but there are also some interesting, Monk-like, exploration of minor and major 2nds, and some interesting, intuitive and non-rationalized voice movements. I resisted uploading this track for years, don't remember exactly why, but then, there it is. 

08 Nostalgia

Opening song of the album "Capitao Nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos", issued in 1999. Players are: André Magalhães (drums), Giba Silva Pinto (bass), Paulo Campos (percusssion) Benjamin Taubkin (keyboards), myself on GR-50 Midi-Guitar, Ubaldo Versolatto (Baritone-sax and flutes), Marcelo Mangabeira and Paulo Pascali (tenor-saxes), Silvio de Pieri and Tiago Sormani (alto-saxes),and Mané Silveira (flutes and soprano-sax). Mané Silveira's performance is outstanding, with his unmistakable smooth sax sound, and the impro was captured in his first take. It is probably the most detailed score  I've written -- André thought we would never suceed in recording it all, but we did! The composition is dedicated to Maestro Moacir Santos.


Baião D Todos Os Santos

My friend Felipe Ribeiro asked me to upload material a little more psychedelic. When I studied with Moacir Santos, in a 10 days workshop in Campos do Jordão, in 1995, he said: "Well, this is what they call acid-jazz", haha. And indeed it was! This is the 3rd track of the album " "Capitao Nemo...". The album was issued in 1999, but this tune was recorded in 1993, in an 8 channel ADAT , so there was some virtuosistic studio work, by the engineer Flavio Decarolli. Thistune was written in 1987, I think, for a band I had then. When I started to make the album, I added some changes in the chords and wrote the brass arrangement -- who can resist re-writing things? Also, certainly the composition has some influences of my days along the legendary trombone player, composer and arranger Bocato, who I then invited to play; and so he did his usually styled job, with originality and energy ( I do love his sound and often think of his music ). Anyway, it is a very complex composition, with time changing from 11/8 to 4/8 to 5/8, and 7/8 in the solos. Musicians are: myself on guitar; Marcelo Lyra on bass; Benjamin Taubkin on keyboards; Bocato on trombones; Luiz Claudio Faria on trumpet; and André Magalhães in a fantastic performance on drums. This is quite psychedelic, I don't think one can live too long in that level of intensity! Enjoy!


Rosa Margarida

This another track from my 1999 album, in which I could play with my gifted friends from the Brazilian Jazz group Aquilo del Nisso. At that time, the group was Rogerio Costa (alto-sax), Celso Marques (tenor-sax), Marcelo "Beba" Zanetini (keyboards), Paulo Padilha (bass) and André Magalhães (drums). There are some musical quotations in the impro, with a bass-line from Miles Davis's "All Blues" adapted to a Baiao groove, and Bocato's "Multinacional", a trademark tune of the legendary Banda Metalugia, a tune I played many times with the author. An interesting point is that this was one of the first recordings made at the then opening Zabumba Studio, around 1996.It's a very Hermeto Paschoal-like composition, I was probably studying his work at the time I wrote it.


Caleidoscópio (Keren No Forró)

This is the final track of my album "Capitao Nemo...", issued in 1999. It was written originally in 1985 or something. At the time I was interested in exploring combinations of minor chords, so the first chords are Dm7 - Fm7 - Bm7, and the melody brings them together by exploring blues scale possibilities. I made several explorations of such strategies -- unusual chords tied by a more intuitive melody, trying to create different contexts for improvisation. It was recorded live in the Zabumba studio, in 1997, and it was the last track to be recorded in the album. There was a previous attempt to record it which didn't swing, and I decided to try again, so I invited a dream team, with pianist Thiago Costa (now with singer Maria Rita), bassist Giba Pinto e Silva and drummer André Magalhães. We reherased at the studio and made 5 takes, this one certainly the best. An interesting detail was that I went to studio prepared to use my midi-guitar, but I had the feeling that the acoustic guitar would sound better with the acoustic grand piano they had at Zabumba. So I found Paulo Padilha's Takamine acoustic there, and played with it -- it worked really good, I think. Thiago's playing is fantastic and the vamp at the end sounds so good. I hope you enjoy!

Monte Verde

This is a track of my 1999 album. It is a smooth melody, exploring a sweet combination of chords, played with a nylon stringed acoustic guitar. The GR-50 guitar solo was recorded at one only first take, which is something that I feel happy with. I went into the studio, edited the timbre -- I never repeated this sound again, and recorded the solo and that was it, it was done. People playing are the main team at the album, with myself in the acousting guitar and the GR-50 midi-guitar; Benjamin Taubkin on keyboards; Gilberto Silva Pinto on bass (I think it was fretless electric) andAndré Magalhães on drums. It is a very quiet and peaceful tune, I hope listeners enjoy!


Canto Quieto

Another track of the "Capitão Nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos" album (1999), this composition is an attempt to play with several influences, I'd say that there are ideas here in a range from Ornette Coleman to Bocato, as also as solutions of my own. At the time of the album's release, Arrigo Barnabé told me he enjoyed the complexity of the composition, in which a bass line loop in 7/4 time develops over a drumbeat in 2/2. Thus the rhythm floats very interestingly, and several soloists improvise together, in a kind of Mingus workshop smooth collective chaos. I also like the guitar sound on the melody, which reminds me of Pepeu Gomes's best recordings, with strong and precise picking work with the distorted guitar. People are: me on guitar and GR-50 guitar synth; Rogerio Rochlitz on keyboards; Bocato on trombone; Luiz Claudio Faria on trumpet; Giba Silva Pinto, bass; André Magalhães, drums. Paulo Campos and Manny Monteiro played the tamborins, also. I hope you enjoy!  

Capitão Nemo

This is the second track of my album Capitao Nemo. This was the first track to be recorded, and although the album was issued in 1999, Cafuné was recorded in 1993, in an 8 track ADAT recorder, in a small studio. The technician and studio owner was Flavio Decarolli, who had developed very exquisite techniques for recording drums, and the results, when one thinks about the lack of resources, are really great. About the composition, what I really enjoy is that it sounds so sweet and almost naif in the surface, but when one listens carefully to the background, a lot of musical knowledge has been invested there. Same in the lines I wrote in the arrangement. Also, it was recorded with my dear GR-50, with its typical flute sound, which I still use nowadays! The team is extraordinary: André Magalhães on drums, the fantastic Swami Jr. on bass (I don't even know if he still plays the bass nowadays), Mané Silveira with his great soprano sax sound, and, in very inspired performance, Toninho Ferragucci on the accordion (two tracks). Myself, I play my GR-50 and an acoustic guitar. I really apreciate the sweetness of this composition. It is the anti-guitar-hero manifesto, haha!   Hope you enjoy!   


Cafuné

This is samba-funk, the 7th track of Capitao Nemo... I posted it almost last, because I didn't find the results matched what I wanted when I wrote it -- there was a much more complex arrangement which we left away in the mix, because there were too many notes -- the arranger did a bad job, and it happened that this arranger was me. Also, I intended to double some of the writen bass lines in the guitar, but because I asked Gilberto to play fretless, and the guitar didn't melt... And I wanted Faria to improvise but Benjamin insisted he wanted to record an electric piano solo -- and I've let him do it, because he is an outstanding player. To complete the whole chalenge, I think I've writen the final bars at the studio, and nobody believed the brass would find the proper tempo... it was crazyness. But then, extraordinary musicians as those guys are, it worked, and If I didn't tell, most listneres wouldn't even suppose it was such a confusion to record it!  Personel are: myself (guitar), Gilberto Silva Pinto (bass), Benjamin Taubkin (keyboards), Luis Claudio Faria (trumpet), Bocato (trombone), and,, as always, André Magalhães on drums. A great team.  Hope you enjoy! 

Peiote

Hello,
I'm Sergio Basbaum. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1964, of Jewish leftist parents, I started to play guitar when I was 11. I guess I just could do something resembling music when I was around 13 or something.  I was then living in Rio de Janeiro with my family, and started to get really involved with music, studying theory, harmony and other things. So, when I was 16 I had decided I'd like to be a professional musician. I came back to São Paulo, where I had many friends who were playing, commited to be a good jazz guitarrist, and had several different teachers, in jazz harmony, improvisation, arranging, composition, whatever there was to study. Around 1985 I was doing interesting gigs and was more or less known in the Sao Paulo scene. However, I couldn't make no money! (ok, there was a lot of crazyness going on those days....). So by the early 1990s I decided to go into college to study Cinema, and got a Bachelor's degree. And then, I got a master degree in Comunications and Semiotics, and eventually became a college teacher -- something I had never planned! This was in the same year when I issued my first album, "Capitao Nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos", a work you will find here, and which I still enjoy -- with more than 20 guest musicians helping me give life to compositions and arrangements. But things went well in the university, I made a doctorate also in C&S, and became an interdisciplinar researcher, dealing with amazing questions of art, technology and perception, really fascinating and contemporary stuff. I even made Post-Doc in Philosophy! As years passed, and a lot of water passed under the briddge, I started to play regularly again, and I have issued a second album in 2012 -- an album of songs, with great friends as very special guests. You can listen to those songs here as also. In the last three years or so, I also began to develop audiovisual performances with diferent teams -- you can find some of them in the links in this page. So, I'm happy with music and art again, and I hope music and art lovers may find pleasure in the sounds I make. Best vibes for you, friend!    

Capitao Nemo no Forró de Todos os Santos

sergiobasbaum