Most Brazilian pop we hear up north here comes at you two
ways – either in its subtle, silky smooth bossa nova style, or in the
drum-heavy, rhythmically charged sambas of the urban centers. But once upon a
time in the late-60’s there was a group of musicians who called themselves
tropicalistas. They dubbed their movement Tropicália, a youth-lead movement
that incorporated hidden political lyrics and any sounds they liked into their
music – especially American and British Rock and R&B, but also including
the bossas and sambas of Brazil, even if they sometimes thumbed their noses at
tradition. But where many of the others in the group stuck closer to Brazilian
tradition or to rock and roll, Tom Zé utilized his schooling in music theory
plus his love of traditional musics to create something altogether odder,
utilizing not only the music he grew up with, but also advanced Western
classical music. What’s unique about Zé is that for all his experimental
impulses – which included building his own musical devices that incorporated
such non-musical-seeming pieces as blenders and typewriters – he’s remarkably
catchy, even in his loopy, angular eccentricity. He was considered too
eccentric in his heyday to achieve the popularity (or notoriety) of his
compatriots, and between 1978 and the 1990 release of this collection, he
released only one album, living in relative obscurity.
All that changed when David Byrne
took a late 80’s trip to Brazil and picked up one of Zé’s albums on a whim and
was struck by the curiously catchy sounds he heard there. He tracked down Tom
Zé and reissued cuts from several records as this release (with its ironic
subtitle: Massive Hits) on his then-new Luaka Bop label. Since then Zé
has found the audience for his work internationally (and has achieved a revival
and recognition at home as well) and resumed his recording career, which has
continued steadily through his latest release, a 2012 album (Tropicália Lixo
Lógico) which has yet to find a domestic distributor.
And in
listening to this wonderful collection – drawn from the early/mid-1970’s and
largely from his brilliant (and sadly out of print) 1976 album Estudando o
Samba – it’s hard to imagine what was so upsettingly odd about the music.
Surely he didn’t adhere as closely to tradition as others, but today, as in
1990, these sound like a slightly bent, personal take on the pop – meaning
Brazilian pop, of course – norms. Even the loopy stuff, like the lead track “Mā”
and its answer bookending the album, “Nave Maria” with their syncopated,
dissonant rhythm guitars churning out an irresistible rhythm, or the short,
fragmentary bites of “Um "oh!" e um "ah!"” or “Complexo de
Épico” are infectious as all get-out. And for real pop hooks, try “Hein?”
(simple, catchy) or “Dói” (with its horn section emerging late to give an extra
punch to the samba feel of the piece) for starters and wonder yet again how his
work could be neglected as too odd. And when he chooses to bend himself to
tradition instead of the other way around, he can come up with a piece as
openly lovely as his cover of Jobim’s gorgeous “A Felicidade.” Give it a try
and see if you’re not drawn inexorably into Tom Zé’s weird, funny, catchy,
moving world. It’s a great place to visit.
- Patrick
Brown
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