Brazzil

Close to 19 million adult Brazilians have become tired of waiting for government help and have resolved to work themselves for the needy population. Brazilians that give donations without the help of assistance entities, is close to 80 percent of the population.  It is the poor that are most willing to help.
By Brazzil Magazine

Bringing the fruit of an artist's musical creativity to the public's attention is the reviewer's responsibility, but when the artist is as talented as André Mehmari, that task becomes a joyful one. An extraordinary musician whose exquisite flights of passion and brilliant technical gifts keep him in constant demand as pianist, composer, arranger, and instrumentalist; André Mehmari, at 24 years old, is regarded by musicians and critics alike as one of the most talented musicians in Brazil today. Jornal da Tarde, an important daily from São Paulo, says, "André Mehmari is a singular artist, the owner of a new lyricism, who shows himself able to revisit Romanticism from a well-humored angle. Possessing a composer's mind, Mehmari indeed composes, even as he improvises upon other people's ideas."

Mehmari's compositions and arrangements have been performed by Banda Mantiqueira, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State Orchestra), São Paulo's Jazz Sinfônica, and the Quarteto de Cordas da Cidade de São Paulo (São Paulo String Quartet). Mauro Dias, in O Estado de S. Paulo says, "Pianist André Mehmari is a precocious genius, an extraordinary talent of vibrating and generous imagination. He uses his classical training to approach popular music as great pianists, such as Luis Eça and even Egberto (Gismonti), have before him, in a rich and creative way, making the formality of one language work for the enrichment of the other." Even as Mehmari tours as an orchestral soloist and has his works performed by classical ensembles, his scores for ballet and film continue to bring him additional accolades. At last count, Mehmari had written soundtracks for over 500 television commercials and lists among his clients Varig, Nestle, Peugeot, Guaraná Antarctica, Volkswagen, General Motors, and Banco do Brasil.

Although his classical training colors all his work, Mehmari's career in jazz and Brazilian popular music has also attained wide recognition through his work with producer Rodolfo Stroeter, singer/songwriter Joyce, Grammy-nominated arranger and woodwind virtuoso Nailor "Proveta" Azevedo, and percussionist Tutty Moreno.

Says, Moreno, "André Mehmari is a great up-and-coming talent. I met him during a concert that I was playing with the Filarmônica Brasileira. He was the piano soloist, and he impressed me from his first notes. When the chance came to record my Forças d'Alma album, I didn't hesitate to call him. He was only 20-years-old then, and my instincts were exactly right. Since that time, he has written arrangements for some of the most celebrated artists in Brazilian popular music, including Joyce and Milton Nascimento. To me, his work sounds fresh, free from the usual clichés."

Born in 1977, in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Mehmari began studying music with his mother at the age of five. By twelve, he had taught himself to improvise, written his first compositions, and completed an organ course at the Conservatory of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo. While he was still in his early teens, he was interviewed and had his musical prowess touted by both Veja and Revide magazines.

Beginning his professional career as pianist and organist at social events, Mehmari decided to hone his talent by forming a jazz trio and performing at Ribeirão Preto's only jazz club. "It was fun," says Mehmari, "but the club closed after a few months. I guess the music was too weird for such a small city." Shorty afterward, Mehmari moved to the city of São Paulo to study at the State University (USP), where in his first year he won the university's popular music composition contest. Two years later, with an active performing and arranging network already in place, Mehmari won the university's classical music composition competition with his piece for five clarinets and piano. The following year, he won the first Prêmio Visa de MPB—the most important and respected competition in Brazilian popular music—which allowed him to record a CD with double bass player Célio Barros with whom he shared the award.

In 1999, Mehmari was invited to teach at the Campos do Jordão Winter Festival, and his second CD, Canto, was recorded in his home studio. Mehmari's arrangements and compositions on the CD show a sophistication for musical texture and color that is remarkable in so young a composer. Within this CD's plastic jewel case, there is such a wealth and variety of expression embraced that one feels, at the end, that a lifetime of experience has been exposed in a little over an hour. A simplicity born of sophistication is apparent on every track. "André Mehmari is the most phenomenal young talent to appear on Brazil's music scene in recent years," says guitar virtuoso Paulo Bellinati. "Besides his amazing technical fluidity, he is also a mature pianist, arranger, and composer who has a complete grasp of the contemporary music universe, from jazz to classical. I had the pleasure of playing with him only once, and I can say that it is very rare to find all those qualities together in such a young musician."

Mehmari made his debut as a conductor in May 2000, when his "Enigmas" for solo double-bass, winds, and percussion (commissioned by the São Paulo State Wind Symphony) was premiered. He has recently received a commission from the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra to compose a work celebrating the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. And this summer, Mehmari will begin recording a CD of solo piano music, which will be produced by Egberto Gismonti for his Carmo label. Truly a rising star, Mehmari is a young man with style and intensity who can help guide Brazilian music through the dark and crooked passages of musical mediocrity and the current "funk" delirium that seems to increase each day, persuading listeners that banalities have meaning. I spoke with Mehmari about his background, composition, and the Visa MPB.

Brazzil—André, can you tell me a little about your parents and the roots of the "Mehmari" family name?

Mehmari—My mother is the only musician in the whole family, and she was my first teacher. I grew up listening not only to Elis Regina and Milton Nascimento but also Bach and Ravel. My mom was constantly at the piano playing both Ernesto Nazareth and Chopin, so I grew up without making a clear distinction between classical and popular music. I just called the music I liked "well-made." My mother sings and plays the accordion very well, and although she decided long ago not to pursue a professional career in music, she has always encouraged my musical aspirations. My father, on the other hand, was totally against my decision to become a musician. He wanted me to be anything but a musician. Now we are okay with this, and I've come to understand his fear of this difficult and unstable profession. Our family name comes from my Lebanese grandparents. I also have Italian and Portuguese grandparents from my mother's side, so the many mixtures make this a truly Brazilian name.

Brazzil—How have you managed to balance your time between practicing so many instruments and composing?

Mehmari—I know this may sound pretentious, but I don't regularly practice any of my instruments, not even the piano, my first instrument. I'm lucky that I don't have to spend hours studying scales and working on things like intonation, phrasing, embouchure, and bowings. Playing instruments is just something that has come easily for me, so I only pick up my secondary instruments when I'm going to record them. I prefer to use my time improvising and composing. That's what I really love doing. This gift has given me great insight into what is physically and musically possible for the performers and ensembles for whom I write and arrange.

Brazzil—Are you composing more at the piano, in your head, or in the studio?

Mehmari—I compose both at the piano and at the sequencer, but, in my opinion, everything always has to be heard first in the composer's head. I can often compose without the aid of any material interface because perfect pitch allows me to hear all parts of a full score in my inner ear. Sometimes I'll compose on one of the instruments that I play. For example, the two choros on my Canto CD were composed on the cavaquinho.

Brazzil—Does electronic editing occupy a significant place in your actual composing process?

Mehmari—Well, I do use Emagic's Logic Audio software, which helps me in situations where I have to overdub parts. Hard disk recording and editing is so flexible that I see no other way of doing what I do. Trying to achieve the same results on a DAT machine, for example, would just be insanity. I've used Logic Audio since 1995, and I approach it, not as an instrument, but as a sheet of blank staff paper. A very different sort of paper that suits my personal style of composition.

Brazzil—Have you been working more lately as an arranger or performer?

Mehmari—I think it's well balanced. Sometimes more arrangements, I think.

Brazzil—When you have to write an arrangement, how do you approach the task?

Mehmari—I'm equally happy when I receive an invitation to write for a friend's CD or for an orchestra. I never feel obligated or that I must accept a project on professional grounds because I love to sit down and put together a lot of musical ideas and organize them. The first thing I do is re-harmonize the tune. I almost never use the original harmonic material. Second, I think about aspects of form, and then the orchestration and textural aspects. From my point of view, arranging is the re-creation of an arranged song, so I apply compositional techniques like variation and motivic development to the given theme or to any material in the original composition that I find particularly interesting. So for me, it becomes an intimate compositional process, except that the theme I'm working with already exists.

Brazzil—André, you have such a strong classical and jazz background that I'm wondering if traditional samba de morro is a part of your musical universe.

Mehmari—I like to explore and transform many traditional Brazilian genres like choro, samba, frevo, and maracatu. I also love and truly respect them. But I never play them traditionally. I transform the musical material using some form of my own musical syntax, or put more simply, my style.

Brazzil—Do you see any barriers—social, economic, or racial—between samba and Brazilian jazz or classical music?

Mehmari—Fortunately, good music is not a social class thing, economically speaking. The only barrier between the musician and his potential audience is the lack of space in the mass media that is dedicated exclusively to good music. Specifically about samba, I would say that it is what unifies our country. The poor and the rich, the black and the white, the young and the old. It has no color, no race, no age, no religion. Samba is our big heart put into music.

Brazzil—You've worked a lot with singer/songwriter Joyce. Can you talk a little about arranging and conducting the sessions for her CD Tudo Bonito?

Mehmari—Joyce is a terrific composer and singer, and I love working with her because she allows me to play very freely and not just accompany. It was a lot of fun to write the arrangements for her Tudo Bonito sessions, and Joyce gave me total freedom to write what I wanted. I tried to avoid the traditional "sustained notes" arranging style that, to my ears, is so boring. Also, I recorded the violin, viola, and cello parts before editing the score. Of course, in the case of conducting the string quartet, my directions were more precise than what some think are the stereotypical maestro-type gestures, and I found no difficulty communicating my intentions to the very competent Guerra Peixe String Quartet.

Brazzil—How were the sessions for Tutty Moreno's CD similar or different?

Mehmari—During the sessions for Tutty's Forças d'Alma, I had a lot more conductor business to take care of because there was such strong syncopation in the material that was prerecorded by the jazz quartet, that it confused the strong beat-oriented string players.

Brazzil—Many have pointed to Stravinsky, Keith Jarrett, and Egberto Gismonti as primary influences in your music. Would you comment on this?

Mehmari—My passion for Stravinsky's music is somewhat difficult to explain, but his music just makes my insides dance and fills my soul with joy. Actually, the first classical score I analyzed was Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. I know that sounds crazy, but it's the truth. I was only 13 years old and had had very little orchestral experience. Approaching it was a monumental task at the time, but my love for that music was so strong that I drove myself to learn how to read the parts and to understand their interconnections. Stravinsky's idiosyncratic writing has become so familiar to me that I can feel all his metric changes, yet they still surprise and excite me.

Stravinsky was a multi-faceted composer, whose compositions range from arrangements of Russian folk songs to serial music. I especially like the works composed between The Rite of Spring and his 12-tone period: Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Symphony of Psalms, Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto in D, and many, many others. His entire canon is precious to me, and I always find new shades and interesting colors whenever I return to his music.

As for Jarrett, he is one of my all-time favorite musicians. Oh, he is a great pianist, isn't he? He has that beautiful piano tone and phrasing so difficult to find among jazz pianists. And what can anyone say that hasn't already been said about Egberto's colorful touch at the piano and the quality of his compositions? He is definitely the Brazilian musician who has influenced me the most. I first heard him as a teenager, and his music helped me a lot in finding my own voice.

Moreover, his classical background allowed me to make a lot of connections with the music of Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim. As you know, he is now producing my first solo piano recording for his Carmo label, with distribution from ECM. We still don't know exactly what is going to be recorded, but we will certainly use strong folk material as well as some of my arrangements of Brazilian popular music by composers like Milton, Chico Buarque, and Nelson Cavaquinho.

Brazzil—Your first CD contains virtually all original material. What drew you to record Milton Nascimento's "Ponta de Areia"?

Mehmari—Counterpoint is the air of Milton's music, so I approach his tunes from a very polyphonic point of view. "Ponta de Areia" has become almost like a Brazilian folk song because it allows plenty of space for re-creations and improvisation, as I always prefer.

Brazzil—You also recorded Milton's "Cais" on the Canto CD. Can you talk a little about the recording?

Mehmari—Canto was recorded entirely in my home studio except for the piano and voice, which were recorded at my friend Célio Barros's studio. On this CD, I play, among other instruments, the clarinet, flute, viola, violin, cello, drums, double bass, guitar, accordion, and synths. The disc features my compositions as well as Milton's "Cais" in an expanded arrangement.

Brazzil—I could be wrong, but haven't you used Milton's original harmony?

Mehmari—I believe very strongly that Milton is Brazil's greatest harmonist, and because "Cais" is one of my favorite songs, I retained his original harmony. My idea for that arrangement was to make a sort of movie in sound. I tried to convey a short history, full of images and emotion. It's basically a three-part piece. I wrote the middle section, where I use the non-vibrato strings, when I was moved deeply by the war in Bosnia. The scenes of blood and tragedy were vivid in my memory when I recorded it. This arrangement is my homage to the victims of war in that region and is indeed very imagistic and mystic.

Brazzil—What influenced that "mystical" arrangement of "Mulé Rendera"?

Mehmari—That one was made after my second trip to beautiful Salvador, Bahia. I came back to São Paulo, picked up my "baixolão," which is an acoustic bass guitar similar to Steve Swallow's, and without thinking, I started playing "Mulé," that simple folk melody. I recorded it and started overdubbing immediately after, using that weird mixture of renaissance modal polyphony—viols and Landini cadences played on rabecas—together with that drum `n' bass groove. They blend beautifully, don't they?

Brazzil—The texts by Fernando Pessoa and Manuel Bandeira add a nice touch to an almost exclusively instrumental CD. I understand there have been some problems with the Bandeira family regarding the texts you've chosen.

Mehmari—Manuel, Fernando Pessoa, Drummond, Cecília Meireles, Saramago, and Camões are my favorite Portuguese language writers. And both of the Manuel Bandeira poems, which originally appeared on the disc, fit my musical intentions perfectly. "Valsa Romântica" allowed me to write in an almost madrigalistic style that conformed beautifully with the text's emotional content. The problem with the Bandeira family was that they were asking for more money to use the poems than the label could afford to pay. As you know this kind of music in Brazil is not easy to sell, and the label's owner was afraid that the sum requested by the family was too high for his profit expectations. It was a ridiculous amount that in essence was their way of saying, "No, you can't use the text." We talked and talked, trying to solve this problem, but as it now stands, the track "O Impossível Carinho" with Ná Ozzetti will have to be cut from the album. "Valsa Romântica," however, with Tiago Pinheiro's singing will remain.

Brazzil—What are your feelings about the "funk" movement that is getting so much attention lately?

Mehmari—I guess you're talking about that horrible music that is dominating the mass media here in Brazil. Am I right? Hmmm… When I heard the first brega-pagode, I thought nothing could possibly be worse. But they've done it (laughs)! It's very sad that we have no choice but to listen to this trash everywhere.

Brazzil—So many record labels today, independents as well as majors, are recording and marketing "funk," so I'm wondering if there's still an audience for Brazilian instrumental music?

Mehmari—Too small to print. Just kidding. There are many people who love Brazilian instrumental music and buy CD's and go to concerts, but, of course, instrumental music is not a mass media thing. Sadly, the big record companies are busy with very low quality entertainment. It's a pity in a country so full of good music and great musicians.

Brazzil—How do you feel about the distributor Eldorado closing their doors?

Mehmari—Well, surviving in the marketplace has been an ongoing problem, especially for the small labels. And the difficulty artists have of finding labels that are open to and accepting of new projects is related to this issue. I think it's now time for all small labels to get together and think of some ways to distribute their product themselves or via another company. I believe this is a critical time for the small labels to join forces so the good music that is being created is allowed to reach a wider audience. I've heard that the Eldorado record company, where my first CD, Vencedores do Prêmio Visa was made, will remain in operation.

Brazzil—You've worked with the group Nouvelle Cuisine. Didn't one of the group members own a record label?

Mehmari—Yes, actually two of Nouvelle's musicians are the owners of YBrazil Music (Why Brazil), the first soundtrack company for whom I recorded. I especially like clarinetist/composer Luca Raele. He is one of my favorite Brazilian musicians.

Brazzil—As part of your Visa MPB prize you visited the United States, and I'm wondering how your experience at Berklee compares with the music program at the Universidade de São Paulo.

Mehmari—I only stayed in Boston for a week or two because I didn't find the instruction very helpful. Maybe I was just unlucky and didn't find the right people, or maybe I didn't have the nerve to wait it out until the more interesting classes became available. Everything was painfully basic. Furthermore, I prefer to use my own writing style rather than learning one that is already being used by thousands of musicians.

At USP, on the other hand, I had, for the first time in my life, the opportunity to regularly visit a wonderful music library where I studied the complete works of my favorite composer—Igor Stravinsky—as well hundreds of other "must study" classical works by Beethoven, Mozart, Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Mahler, Schubert, and Webern. You have to remember that I was born in Niterói, but grew up in the Ribeirão Preto suburb of São Paulo, a mid-sized city that is calmer and more laid back than the city of São Paulo; it also has much cleaner air to breathe.

I only came from the countryside to São Paulo in 1995. But it was at USP that I had an outstanding course in music history and where I met the conductor Gil Jardim who encouraged me to write arrangements for different orchestras, which was a very important and practical part of my musical education.

Brazzil—Did you have much opportunity to play or record in New York?

Mehmari—No, I just stayed there for three days. But it's funny because a few days after I returned to Brazil, I received a call from a Brazilian producer asking me to record with New Yorker Randy Brecker on his new Brazilian project. I found this really ironic. We recorded here in São Paulo with Robertinho Silva, Sizão Machado, Ricardo Silveira, and Teco Cardoso. The disc is going to be released soon on the Rainbow Records label.

Brazzil—How was the recent Visa de MPB competition different from the first?

Mehmari—Well, there was no age limit this time, and the prize money was much, much greater (laughs). It was actually about ten times more than it was for the edition I won because this competition has become so important and so successful that VISA has been pumping a lot into it. But I honestly think that the performance standard could have been higher. I stopped following it because I wasn't very happy with the results. It just seemed like a lot of good musicians were out to make space for some not-so-good musicians. But then again, style is something personal, or so they say.

Brazzil—One of the finalists was pianist Heloísa Fernandes, who is also from São Paulo and who has also been compared to Keith Jarrett and Egberto Gismonti. Would you comment on this?

Mehmari—Well, she is a very good piano player. I went to the semi-final elimination concert and had the impression that she has listened to some of my work. Her intro arrangement for Jobim's "Retrato em Branco e Preto" was very close to mine for "Passarim" from the Genuinamente Brasileiro album, a tribute to Tom Jobim recorded in January 2000 with 24-bit digital recording techniques. But I find her more connected with the music of Eliane Elias than the two you mentioned. Sometimes, I find it a little bit silly, to say that every piano player who has a strong connection with the so-called classical tradition is influenced by Keith or Egberto. I'd like to add that in my case, I studied Bach not from Keith Jarrett but directly from Bach's manuscripts.

Brazzil—What are your goals and your greatest musical challenges today?

Mehmari—My only musical goal is to be a better musician. For me, that's a fitting goal because I'll never attain it. What I mean is that each time I work and get better and reach one goal, I automatically set the next without even realizing it. It's a reflex, and each time the goal is a little farther off. My goals always remain slightly out of reach, and as I strive to achieve them and ultimately realize them, the bar gets set a notch higher again, you know? My greatest challenge it to put all the pieces of my musical puzzle together, to make all the essential connections between my influences and my ideas, from my love of Baroque music to drum `n' bass, and from traditional choro to free improvisation. That is my greatest challenge. Definitely!

Bruce Gilman, music editor for Brazzil, received his Masters degree in music from California Institute of the Arts. He leads the Brazilian jazz ensemble Axé and plays cuíca for escola de samba MILA. You can reach him through his e-mail: cuica@interworld.net  

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