Photo Credits: Image Courtesy Of Calabash Music
Edu Lobo
Edu Lobo is the most important musician of the so-called second Bossa Nova generation.
As no other composer of his generation, Edu Lobo applied bossa's harmonic sophistication to his vast knowledge of Brazilian popular music. Still, he composed about his backyard. But his backyard was infinitely more vast. It stretched out through the countryside, perceiving other images besides those that sang of sun, of salt, of south as seen through the window. Edu raised the blinds.
He walked, curiously, in two apparently contradictory directions. If he brought the new popular music (the music of bossa nova's second generation) themes such as the northeastern, the black, the Indian, the disowned, that which had not aligned itself to the Juscelinian model, he progressed, in harmonic and melodic terms, towards an erudite texture — within the possibilities of Brazilian erudite musical language, as Villa-Lobos and the ever-present Tom Jobim wished it.
Caetano Veloso, a man from the Recôncavo Region in Bahia, recognizes, in an elucidating parenthetical in his book "Verdade Tropica"l that: "Actually, the northeastern modalism came through to us more through Edu Lobo, from Rio, than from the border between Bahia and Pernambuco."
Born in Rio, of Pernambucan father, Edu Lobo had diversity at his reach. And so did others. His genius allowed him to take advantage of this diversity more than any other of his time, to compose a musical translation of his people as Villa-Lobos and Jobim had succeeded in doing. Edu is the third tip of the contemporary Brazilian music trinity.
Like the other two before him, Edu Lobo combined inspiration with the innate capacity of translating day-to-day observations into beauty, of finding greatness in common motivations, the great care of the meticulous, perfectionist craftsman. He is a composer of definitive works, of unappealable finish. For this reason, his music for ballet, for films, for television or theatre are a body other than the work it complements, a body with autonomous life (that quite often survives the work which originated it). For this reason, his creations, each and every one of them, are a parameter.
Edu composes, admirably, bossa nova, sambas, marches, frevos, beach songs (which have ceased to be a Caymmian privilege), ballads, incredibly slow songs, marchas rancho, instrumental experimentations. Perhaps, the only terrain into which he has not ventured is the samba enredo — theme songs for samba schools — but who can tell the future. He writes beautiful lyrics. Distinguished pianist and guitarist, he is an accomplished arranger and first-rate singer. His instruments are always acoustic, though he does not shy away from modern technology when the trade calls for it.
And if it is important to speak of the jack of all trade, it is even more important to highlight the fastidiousness of his writing. As in the case of all great creators, Edu Lobo invented his own music. He created his syntax, his accent, his brand of intervals and syncopations, his harmonic structure, his melodic tracks, his trademark. even if he makes a point of identifying the deepest roots of what he does.
In historical terms, and there is nothing speculative about this, Edu Lobo has been walking side by side with a modernity he inaugurated up to a limit which is left up to pure speculation. His last pieces, mature works, show the non-accommodated conciseness of those who hold surprises. If, against all market expectations, Brazilian music remains rich, in evolution, Edu Lobo will be ahead of it. The picture painted by this songbook — whose parts Edu made a point of annotating by hand, with the care he dedicates to any task he takes on — allows the music student or lover to confirm the adjectives used in the text. We are dealing with one of the greatest collections of works of the 20th century. And I'll repeat: It is the best production of the best music made in the world. —Courtesy Calabash Music