A longa arte de Tom Jobim | Ep.4: Tom e Chico

Hi, I'm Arthur Nestrovski. I'm here again to talk to you about Tom Jobim and I have at my side none other than Paula Morelenbaum, Tom Jobim's predestined interpreter, who is here with us. A true luxury.

We spoke in the first episode of the song Sabiá as an example of the type of crossover between concert music and popular music, between foreign influences and Brazilian roots influences. The richness of poetry sung in the song is one of Tom Jobim's first three partnerships with Chico Buarque. Well, this song, Sabiá.

. . One thing we didn't say and which is important in the context here is that at that time, 1968, which is the year of their first three partnerships, which are Sabiá, Retrato em Branco e Preto and Pois is, at that time, Tom Jobim, who was 41 years old, he was known and recognized nationally and internationally as a master of Brazilian song.

But this partnership is very important for Tom Jobim because this young partner, Chico Buarque, was incredibly, the now octogenarian Chico Buarque was only 24 years old when he wrote the lyrics for Retrato em Branco e Preto, Pois é and Sabiá, and these lyrics gave, so to speak, the stimulus, the impulse that Tom Jobim needed to disconnect from bossa nova. He was already in this process, but those lyrics were fundamental in, so to speak, leaving the bossa nova collection behind and moving forward in another direction. It is no coincidence that, two years later, he would compose lyrics and music for Águas de Março, a song that could not have been written that way had it not been for the example of Chico Buarque's lyrics, very different from the loving and generous lyricism of Vinicius de Moraes.

Here, a different lyric, much more cutting, much more incisive. It was fundamental to Tom Jobim's own trajectory as a poet and, to some extent, as a composer. In this sense, it's worth taking a look at the other two songs they made at that time, starting with Pois é.

Well, what remains is what is said and I say what is left unsaid It is difficult to say that it is still beautiful Singing what is left of you There is our more-than-perfect. . .

Anyway, she continues. It's important for us to stop here. There is a detail in these lyrics that Paula has just sung that seems crucial to understanding that moment.

The fact is this: those lyrics you sang, Paula, are the lyrics we have in our heads. What remains is said and I say again for unsaid And it's difficult to say that it's still beautiful Singing what's left of you That's how Elis Regina recorded the song on the album Elis e Tom, it's track two, right after Águas de Março, come Yes, and she sang these lyrics with these verses and from then on everyone sang like that too. Gal Costa recorded the song twice, Nana Caymmi and many others recorded it like this.

But, my friends, it's not Chico Buarque's lyrics. It's shocking to say this, but these are not Chico Buarque's verses. Chico Buarque had recorded it before, in 1970, on the album Chico Buarque de Holanda, volume four.

See the difference. That's right It remains what was said and said again as unsaid And it's difficult to say that it was beautiful It's useless to sing what I lost Look at the difference. The lyrics that Elis sings, It's difficult to say that it's still beautiful Singing what's left of you It's difficult to say that it's still beautiful to sing what's left of you.

The verse is very beautiful, but it sounds like Vinicius de Moraes. Now, Chico Buarque's lyrics. .

. It's difficult to say it was beautiful It's useless to sing what I lost That's completely different. In this difference, for me, we have nothing less than the difference between bossa nova lyrics and new times lyrics.

Sing what's left of you, that is, what's still left. It doesn't end, because love, with Vinicius de Moraes, never ends. So, 'singing what's left of you' is a lyric that sounds like Vinicius de Moraes' lyrics.

'It's useless to sing what I lost', there's no forgiveness here. This is raw realism. This is Chico Buarque's lyrics.

This difference is crucial. Now I ask you, maybe one of you knows. Who changed these lyrics?

And when and why? Because it was only after Elis and Tom that it was sung like that, and from then on it started to be sung like that. Well, my dears, I asked Chico Buarque.

I spoke to Chico and said: 'do you remember this? ' And he answered me: 'I'll tell you. .

. ', quoting Wave, right? 'I'll tell you.

. . I don't remember!

” Exclamation point. 'Do you know that I never realized that Elis had sung that verse differently? ' 'How can you?

' Well, what is said and what is not said remains to be said. Let's believe he doesn't really remember. The fact is that these are the lessons of bossa nova, of the relationship between lyrics and music, now masterfully conducted by the recognized, renowned master of the song, Tom Jobim, and his greatest apprentice and successor, Chico Buarque.

He is the apprentice who has reached the height of, if not surpassed, the master himself. Well, let's now take a look at Portrait in Black and White, because there are other very important points there. Tom Jobim took to the extreme a lesson in Brazilian music that already came from before, from Noel Rosa and other samba players decades before bossa nova.

But in bossa nova, this lesson, which consists of understanding the natural melody of the spoken voice and transforming it into a melody, and transforming it into a song, gains another distinction due to the arts of Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Morais and due to many of the lessons from João Gilberto. João Gilberto, who did not record many Chico Buarque songs, recorded and sang Retrato em Branco e Preto numerous times. As the decades pass, he makes the melody of Retrato em Branco e Preto increasingly closer to spoken language.

I already know the steps of this road I know it won't lead to anything Your secrets I know by heart Am I talking or am I singing? It's almost impossible to say. If I were João Gilberto.

I already know the steps of this road I know it won't lead to anything Your secrets I know by heart I already know the stones along the way And I also know that there alone I'm going to get so much worse What can I against the charm Of this love that I deny so much I avoid so much and yet it always returns to bewitch With its same sad, old facts That in a portrait album I insist on collecting Incredible, isn't it? What song is this? Well, 'what song is that?

' is a good question. What kind of melody is this? If you look at the fingers here, graphically, see.

See what's happening. It's a non-melody. It's a knot.

They are notes very close to each other. It's a chromatic melody. It's called because we, like on the piano, you're not just using the white keys, you're using white and black.

They're sticky and it's a nuisance, right? It doesn't come out like so many of Tom Jobim's songs. And this is another of the lessons from the bossa nova repertoire that he carried forward forever.

Tom Jobim starts from minimal elements, which don't even look like music, and extracts the maximum from there. It's a kind of nuclear fission that the composer is capable of making from small blocks of. .

. It's not even music. Of music elements.

If I played this, like I played, without the singing and without the harmony. It's nothing. It's someone trying to warm up.

Then you do it. . .

As if that wasn't enough. Incredible. Chico Buarque owed us two songs that are on the album Matita Perê, from 83.

I don't know if you know that, Paula. Cloud Ranch. - Beautiful.

- Yeah. Beautiful song, I mean, it's an instrumental piece that's on the album. This, as well as Golden Clouds.

It's a relatively well-known song. It has to be in lalálá. Why?

Because Chico Buarque didn't write the lyrics that Tom Jobim ordered. He passed these two songs to Chico and Chico said he couldn't do it. He owes that one.

On the other hand, they would go on to create, well, a collection of masterpieces from then on. Among them, for example. I love you, Maria In the photo We are happy I call you flustered And I leave confessions on the recorder It will be funny If you have a new love It is certainly one of the most illustrious, consecrated, most wonderful partnerships in the Brazilian songbook and the Jobim songbook.

Vinicius de Moraes was Tom Jobim's predestined partner, Newton Mendonça was a first partner with whom he made Desafinado and Samba de uma Nota Só, but Newton Mendonça died very young. Dolores Duran too, with whom he made Estrada do Sol, for example. But Vinicius would become a partner in dozens of songs and after Vinicius, without a doubt, Chico Buarque is the partner, the apprentice and the greatest successor to the long art of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

I already know the steps of this road I know it won't lead to anything Your secrets I know by heart I already know the stones along the way And I also know that there alone I'm going to get so much worse And what can I do against the charm Of this love that I deny so much I avoid so much and yet it always returns to bewitch With its same sad, old facts That in a portrait album I insist on collecting At a certain moment, the concern with nature became something very important for the composer and for the citizen Antonio Carlos Jobim. He was one of the first, he was a visionary. He was one of the first to defend Brazilian nature.

Tom Jobim composed a series of songs that are known as Jobim's ecological songs, which he himself called forest songs.