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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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Hey there! How are things going? Chances are this is not the first Red Flower Press post you are reading, so I will take it for granted that you are aware I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It´s winter time for us now and usually that doesn´t mean much here, but not this time. Oh, no!

Although meteorology says the season will probably have higher average temperatures, we are now experiencing some pretty cold days, meaning temperatures around fourteen degrees Celsius, quite unusual here. I like the cold weather, specially when they come with sunny (though short) days and a bright blue sky, but I must confess that this home office winter made me very nostalgic.

The reason is very simple: usually, at this point of time, I am travelling somewhere for conferences and performances. Last year was already a shock, after all, most clubs were closed and many conferences were postponed, but since some activities are resumed this year, mostly privileging local audiences, I feel somehow left outside the “back to normal party”, so to speak.

1984 British rock band Queen released the hit “I want to break free”, with an anthological video clip. 2020 the Brazilian writer Luis Fernando Verissimo wrote that the pandemic would teach us to cherish normality. In 2021 both visions make sense to me: I certainly miss my old life, but I am also aware that it was not ideal and I do want to break free from some old patterns.

The big question now seems to be how to deal with the challenge of reinventing ourselves. How to establish a new normal, that is actually better than the old one? Learning something from the pandemic (how to avoid another one, for instance) includes leaving some things behind for good. It also means being more thankful for the small miracles of life (a huge, wonderful mystery in itself).

I know it is just a matter of time for resuming all activities I had before the pandemic. I know that, in a big scale, things are getting better (wishful thinking?). Yet today, I get a chill in my heart.

I guess winter in Rio can be ice cold after all.

Be seeing you!

G. F.