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Autumn Leaves is one of the most popular jazz songs, with several versions in different languages. It was composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945 with original French lyrics by Jacques Prévert (later it would gain English lyrics by Johnny Mercer) and the instrumental version by pianist Roger Williams reached the top of the 1955 US Billboard charts.

Another song that deals with this time of the year is Autumn in Rio, by Ed Motta, released in 2000. While the French song highlights the sad character of the season, from a European point of view, the Brazilian artist exalts the arrival of mid-season. According to Motta: There is a place to be happy / Besides April in Paris/ Autumn in Rio.

In 2013, on my first CD, I also vocalized my special affection for the season that brings relief to the inclement heat of the tropical summer. After Summer is the name of my homage to the golden lights and mild temperatures of autumm. In my ode to the season, it represents a ritual of saying goodbye to summer and its promisses to enter a period of achievements (in Brazil, we say that the year only begins “after carnival”, which in practice means “after summer”).

Ten years later, I look back at this summer of 2013 and feel a little nostalgic. There are many dreams involved in releasing a first album and, most of the time, only a small part of them come true (we cannot all win all the awards, can we?). Perhaps the great lesson of these last ten years has been exactly this: that it is necessary to keep going, even if one or two projects fall by the wayside.

Or maybe the greatest lesson of the last ten years was learning how to turn those left-behind-dreams into fertilizer for the dreams that will still grow. Just as the leaves that fall in autumn will serve to enrich the earth, in a perpetual cycle of creation. How many past ideas merged into the projects I now take to the stage? How much of yesterday remains in today and will certainly accompany us tomorrow?

A little too philosophical for your taste? True. It must be the season.

Be seeing you!

G. F.


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Today is Shrove Tuesday or maybe you know the date as Mardi Gras, it does not matter at all, for today all that matters is to celebrate. But maybe you do not have so many experiences with Carnival and you are wondering: celebrate what, exactly?

Therefore, even though this Carnival is already coming to an end, I would like to share with you three lessons I learned in this first post-pandemic Carnival.

  1. Celebrate life
    First, the fact that you are alive. Since 2020, this perspective must always be remembered, as we are the survivors of a very difficult time for humanity.
  2. Carnival is a state of mind
    This year my Carnival had more working hours for me than partying, but even so it is good to know that there are many people on the street, dancing and singing. I know it may sound weird, but I like to think that even at home I can get some of that energy of life. To tell you the truth, even my working days seemed much lighter. I would even say that it even made the tremendous heat of this summer more bearable.
  3. The carnival paradox: it goes by fast, but it comes back every year
    Carnival Tuesday is the culmination of the party, but it is also the beginning of the end, which is kind of sad. In times like these, it might help to remember that Carnival comes back every year. Likewise, if this collective catharsis seems too much for you, then it is always good to remember: the party happens only happens once a year.

As for me, my plan is to use these lessons in my daily life and, above all, on the stage. After all, as we say in Brazil, Carnival is the greatest show on Earth. Now, go celebrate!

Be seeing you!

G.F.

p.s If you want the celebration to last longer, click here and pre-save my new single Pele Adentro. See you there!

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When it comes to the birth of a musical genre, it is impossible to establish precise coordinates, such as date and place of birth. When talking about Bossa Nova, however, it is impossible to escape some key events.

I have written about places considered to be the birthplaces of Bossa Nova, and today I would like to celebrate the another landmark: the legendary concert at the Carnegie Hall in November 21, 1962, featuring young Brazilian stars making their US debuts.

Names such as Sérgio Mendes, João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim were introduced to an audience of three thousand listeners, among them five-stars artists, such as Tony Bennett and Miles Davis.

Despite several last-minute mishaps, including João Gilberto worried about the crease in his pants, and the sound problems that occurred during the concert, that night in 1962 a new musical genre was presented to a large opinion-forming audience and to a great vehicle, the New York Times.

Both, critics and audience, were immediately hooked by the new beat coming from Brazil, but as nothing comes from nothing, it must be said that ears and sensibilities had been prepared for that moment months in advance, by the release in April of Jazz Samba, by Getz and Charlie Byrd.

The album introduced Tom Jobim in the single ‘Desafinado’ and it is a landmark in itself: it had more than a million copies sold, and achieved #1 on the chart of Billboard, paving the way for Bossa Nova outside Brazil.

I frequently hear that Bossa Nova is “elitist”. Not true at all. Although several aspects have been left out of the official Bossa Nova historiography (race, gender and cultural appropriation issues come to mind), the importance of gender in the construction of various aspects of Brazilian identity is undeniable.

Bossa has in its DNA the ancestral African drums and redefines them in the light of the Copacabana sun. In her different moments, she walks through the many Brazilian contradictions and transforms them into brilliant music. There is something very beautiful about Brazil, as represented by Bossa and I am proud to remember and to be part of that tradition.

Viva a Bossa Nova!

Be seeing you!

G.F.

p.s.: More stories on the topic? Check this one about the hit Mas Que Nada, by Jorge Benjor or this one, about The Look of Love at 50.

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“The sun on the newsstands
fills me with joy and laziness
Who reads so much news?”
– Alegria, Alegria (Joy, Joy)
Caetano Veloso, 1967

What´s New? is one of the many incredible interpretations of Billie Holiday. The 1939 song by Johnny Burke and Bob Haggart was included in the album Velvet Mood: Songs by Billie Holiday, released on Clef Records in 1956. I wonder about the first verses: “What’s new? How is the world treating you?” and how they relate to the last verse of Notícia de Jornal (Luis Reis and Haroldo Barbosa), sang by Chico Buarque : “Our pain doesn’t come out in the newspaper“

I don’t know where you live, but I can bet that the vast majority of the incredible amount of news flashing across your screen daily rarely treats you well, let alone mirrors your pain. And yet we waste precious scrolling down an infinite screen of events that might fill our hours, but are fairly unable to appease the feeling of not being informed enough.

At the end of the day, which always seems shorter than the previous one (what do you mean it’s already that late?), how much information do we retain afterall? Very little. The bitter truth is that nobody needs so much news, and this is not an easy thing for me to admit for I am a confessed news junkie. Fear of Missing Out hadn’t even been invented yet and I already suffered from it.

Frankly, before digital media everything seemed to be under control, because the volume of news that a newspaper or printed magazine could contain was limited, not only in terms of the physical space occupied, but also in terms of time. Even in publications with two runs a day, once the edition was over, there was not much to do, even in the event of the biggest scoop ever.

The patience factor was even more important when it came to weekly or monthly magazines. Now think about the number of times the same content can be updated, rewritten and re-edited in the interval of, say, half a day. Pretty insane, isn’t it?

I remember an interview with the late Portuguese writer José Saramago, in which he said that if he subscribed to forty-three printed newspapers and magazines daily, his neighbors would certainly call him crazy when they saw the volume of information dumped at his door every morning. On the other hand, no one would question a cable TV subscription which included the same number of channels.

As we say in Brazil, Saramago shot at what he saw and hit (also) what he didn’t see. Not only we got used to a connstant hyper-supply of news, we have also expanded the concept of what can be considered relevant enough to gain the status of news. The faits divers, for instance, have been fully upgraded and are now sometimes considered more important than, well, basically anything else.

We discussed previously the importance of sorting out relevant songs in order to build up a consistent set list. Maybe exercizing fine curation also in other departments of life is not a bad idea at all. Sometimes it is good to take a break and take it slow.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

p.s.: in case you want to take five minutes relaxing from the news, I would like to suggest this lyric video of a song from 1893, which got new lyrics due to the 150th birth anniversary of the composer, Ernesto Nazareth.

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Como Nossos Pais (Like Our Parents) is a 1976 song by Brazilian singer and composer Belchior. It is one of the first songs of my repertoire and it has a special place in my affective memory.I sang it already many times, but there is one particular performance that I will never forget.

It was during college time. It was a Saturday night and my roommate J. had just broken up with her long time boyfriend. She wanted to go for a walk and I, sympathetically, went along. Many steps and lots of talk later, just when my friend’s morale was getting better, a man came out of the middle of nowhere and said: “Give me what you have!”

I think he showed us a knife hidden under his hoodie or maybe it was a gun, all I remember is that J. and I looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do. None of us had carried a handbag and smartphones were not yet a reality, so the thief took the only more or less valuable item at hand: my friend’s watch.

Needless to say, after those very scary seconds we totally forgot her break up. The mood for a walk was also gone, so we headed towards the main street and looked for a bus stop. Just ahead of us there was a cultural centre with a restaurant inside and they had live music on weekends. The place was kind of fancy, but it was an opportunity to have a drink (we really needed one) and grab a cab back home.

We got in and realised the singer was an acquaintance of ours. He talked to us during the break and invited me to sing a song. I remember I was in jeans and a t-shirt and it felt really weird to be dressed like that on stage, but what the heck? The night was weird already.

I sang Como Nossos Pais. Why this song? I do not remember if I chose it from the set list of the band, or if I suggested it during the break (weird night indeed). Anyway, its ruthless verses about lost dreams and the bitter reality suited the moment perfectly and I put all my heart and soul on them.

We played impromptu, but the result, surprisingly, was not bad at all. The house was full and there was a lot of applause. I remember seeing my friend clapping her hands enthusiastically (by then she had already had a drink or two, I shall add). Looking back to it, I believe the “magic performance” was a mix of beginner’s luck and the universe trying to balance things somehow.

We went back home with the feeling that, after all, it was a happy lucky day.

Today is J.´s birthday and I wish her many happy returns, plenty of amazing stories to tell.

Be seeing you!

G.F.