Raul de Souza

With the Raul de Souza Next Generation Band at the INNtöne Jazzfestival 2018

Raul de Souza , actually João José Pereira de Souza (born August 23, 1934 in Rio de Janeiro ), is a Brazilian jazz musician (tenor, bass and valve trombone ) and band leader . With the song Sweet Lucy , which was released on his album of the same name, de Souza had a worldwide success in the late 1970s.

Life

Youth in Brazil

Raul de Souza grew up in a middle-class family in Rio de Janeiro. As a child he played the tambourine in a Presbyterian church where his father was a pastor. Later he tried his hand at trumpet , tuba , flute and tenor saxophone . Eventually, the teenager chose the trumpet. In 1950 he worked as a weaver in the textile company Fábrica Bangú and played the tuba in the factory orchestra. During his military service in an infantry regiment of the Air Force, he met the drummer Edison Machado (1934-1990) know. After his release, de Souza took part in radio competitions and met virtuosos and composers such as Pixinguinha (1897–1973), Waldir Azevedo (1923–1980) and Altamiro Carrilho (* 1924). He has been a professional musician since around 1954. He played u. a. for Carrilho's All-Star Band À Turma da Gafieira and in the bands of tenor saxophonist Zé Bodega (1923–2003) and guitarist Baden Powell de Aquino (1937–2000). He later joined the Brazilian Air Force Band in Curitiba in the southern state of Paraná . There he met Airto Moreira (* 1941), with whom he has a lifelong friendship, and who was then performing as a bolero singer in local nightclubs.

Bossa Nova musician of the 1960s

After five years in Curibita, de Souza lived briefly in São Paulo and then moved back to his hometown Rio de Janeiro. His friend Airto Moreira, now a percussionist , married the singer Flora Purim (* 1942) in 1965 , daughter of a Russian violinist and a Brazilian pianist. Both introduced Raul de Souza to the music-dominating bossa nova scene in Brazil in the mid-1960s . The couple Purim / Moreira belonged to a younger generation of Brazilian jazz musicians from the cool jazz -influenced bossa nova-1950s to more aggressive Samba -Jazz (or Sam bop advanced).

De Souza was a member of the hard-Bossa - ensemble Sexteto Bossa Rio , the pianist Sergio Mendes (* 1941) had formed. 1963 was de Souza on the successful Bossa Rio - Album Você ainda não ouviu nada heard (* 1934) in addition to other trombonists Edson Maciel and Hector Costita. After a European tour with Mendes in 1964, de Souza switched to the jazz combo Os Catedráticos by Eumir Deodato (* 1943). As early as October 1964, he was involved in Deodato's long-playing record Tremendão and in the same year he supported Flora Purim, for whose debut album Flora e 'MPM the drummer Dom Um Romão (1924-2005) put together a big band . In the spring of 1965 he also worked as a studio musician for the first album of Quarteto em Cy , a vocal quartet of four sisters from El Salvador , and played for the formation O Trio 3D of the pianist Antonio Adolfos (* 1947) on Convida .

In January 1965, de Souza released his first album À Vontade Mesmo . The Sambalanço Trio , which the pianist César Camargo Mariano had formed the year before with Airto Moreira on drums and Humberto Cláiber (* 1937) on double bass , made themselves available to the trombonist. This called himself on his first work in the Portuguese diminutive Raulzinho . In the autumn of 1965 de Souza traveled to Paris and played a. a. with Kenny Clarke (1914–1985) in the jazz clubs Blue Note and L'Éléphant Blanc . After his return he played for the band RC7 of the singer Roberto Carlos (* 1941), founded his own combo Impacto 8 in 1968 , which he broke up after only one LP, International Hot , and moved to Mexico in 1969. He was living in Acapulco when Flora Purim and Airto Moreira asked him to come to Los Angeles in August 1973 . He joined her band, which was opening act on a tour of the Crusaders . He then stayed in Boston and studied at Berklee College of Music .

Sideman and band leader in the 1970s

In 1974 he followed Flora Purim to Los Angeles to play Stories To Tell on her Milestone album . The founder of Milestone - Labels , Orrin Keepnews was of the instrumental notion of Blechbläsers done so that he allowed Moreira in October 1974 for Raul de Souza, the album Colors produce. Moreira managed to assemble a prominent musician ensemble: In addition to the alto saxophonist Julian Cannonball Adderley (1928–1975), the trumpeters Snooky Young (1919–2011) and Oscar Brashear (* 1944), the saxophonist Sahib Shihab (1925–1989) and Jerome Richardson (1920-2000), trombonist and arranger J. J. Johnson (1924-2001), et al. a. the drummer Jack DeJohnette (* 1942) and the bassist Richard Davis (* 1930) with. Some critics consider Colors to be Raul de Souza's greatest musical achievement.

He became a sought-after sideman . In 1975 de Souza was created by vibraphonist Cal Tjader (1925–1982) for the record Amazonas (Fantasy), by saxophonist Azar Lawrence (* 1953) for Summer Soltice (Prestige) and by Sonny Rollins (* 1930) for Nucleus (Milestone ) and in 1976 by the Latin Jazz Fusion band Caldera around Steve Tavaglione (saxophone), Carlos Vega (drums) and Jorge Strunz (guitar) for their debut work of the same name.

In return for the decisive career kick, de Souza supported Airto Moreira in his coproduction with Herbie Hancock , Identity ( Arista , 1975), in Promises Of The Sun (Arista, 1976) with the composer, guitarist and singer Milton Nascimento (* 1942) and I. 'm Fine, How are You? (Warner, 1977) with bassist Jaco Pastorius (1951–1987) and guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves (1940–2013). After a year and a half in prison for drug possession, Flora Purim helped her with the productions Encounter (Milestone, 1977), Nothing Will Be As It Was ... Tomorrow (Milestone, 1977), Everyday, Everynight ( Warner , 1978) and Carry On (Warner, 1978).

In 1977 de Souza signed a contract with the Capitol record label , for which he released the two pop jazz / funk albums Sweet Lucy (1977) and Don't Ask My Neighbors (1978), produced by George Duke . However, the disco- oriented record Til Tomorrow Comes , produced by Arthur Wright in 1979, became a failure.

Studio musician in the 1980s

Artistically things went downhill during the 1980s. Raul de Souza lived in São Paulo, performed only occasionally and made insignificant recordings. Out of his sporadic studio work, productions with the German guitarist Alex Merck (1956–2012) and the guitarists Gilberto Gil (* 1942) and Toninho Horta (* 1948) stand out. In the early 1990s he worked a. a. with the singers Maria Bethânia (* 1946), Lisa Ono (* 1962), Salena Jones (* 1944), Leny Andrade (* 1943), the singers Taiguara (* 1945) and Nelson Ângelo (* 1949) as well as the composer João Donato (* 1934). Antônio Carlos Jobim engaged him in 1994 for his album Antônio Brasileiro (Globo Columbia), which was honored with a Grammy in 1996 for best Latin jazz performance .

Comeback since the late 1990s

Raul de Souza (2014), between Carlinhos Patriolino and Tito Freitas

Since the late 1990s, with a renewed interest in Latin American music in Europe and the USA, Raul de Souza became more active again. He released several CDs. Together with the French saxophonist Claire Michael, the pianist Jean-Michel Vallet, the bassist Patrick Chartrol and the drummer Thierry Le Gall, he formed the quintet Raul de Souza & Claire Michael Group in 2004 . In 2005 the group released the electro-jazz album eLiXiR . With this band as well as with old companions and young jazz musicians, Raul de Souza can still be heard in Parisian clubs and at jazz events in France and in his Brazilian homeland. B. at the Amazonas Jazz Festival in the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus in July 2007. In summer 2008, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova, he gave concerts at the Fêtes de Genève and at the INNtoene Jazz Festival in Passau . In Geneva he performed with the Brazilian Raul de Souza Quintet , supported by Jefferson Sabag (piano), Mario Conde (guitar), Glauco Sölter (bass) and Endrigo Bettega ( percussion ), and in Passau with the American formation Raul de Souza Quartet , which he formed with guitarist Mike Keneally , bassist Bryan Beller and drummer Marco Minnemann.

The "Souzabone"

In 1975, Raul de Souza in Los Angeles had the instrument maker Dominique Calicio design a four-valve trombone with an electric pickup that extended into the bass range. He called his invention "Souzabone", a suitcase word from Souza and trombone (English trombone ). The American pianist and producer George Duke described the sound character of the idiosyncratic brass instrument as a "mixture between a tenor trombone and a French horn " .

Discography

• À Vontade Mesmo (RCA Brazil, 1965)
• International Hot (whatmusic, 1968)
• Colors (Milestone, 1974)
• Sweet Lucy (Capitol, 1977)
• Don't Ask My Neighbors (Capitol, 1978)
• Til Tomorrow Comes (Capitol, 1979)
• Via Volta (Top Tape, 1986)
• 20 Preferidas: Raul de Souza (RGE, 1996)
• Rio (Mix House / Eldorado, 1998) together with Conrad Herwig
• No Palco! Raul de Souza (Inter CD Records, 2000)
• Splendid Night (Media 7 / Next Music, 2003)
• eLiXiR (Tratore, 2005)
• Jazzmin (Biscoito Fino, 2006)
• Soul & Creation (Phantom Sound & Vision, 2008)
• Bossa Eterna (Biscoito Fino, 2008) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova
• Brazilian Samba Jazz (Encore Merci, 2016)
• Blue Voyage (Selo Sesc, 2018)

Web links

Commons : Raul de Souza  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Alex Henderson: Raul de Souza , short biography and discography, article in the All Music Guide (in English)
• Arnaldo DeSouteiro: Biography of Raul de Souza , text booklet of the new edition of the album Colors , Rio de Janeiro, April 1999 (bad English translation on the website of the French jazz musician Gilles Miton, which is dedicated to the American saxophonist Julian Cannonball Adderley.) Arnaldo DeSouteiro (* 1963), Brazilian music critic, impresario and producer, revised his "liner notes" on Raul de Souza in September 2001 for a new CD edition by À Vontade Mesmo in his own company Jazz Station Productions : see (on the website of Brazilian Pop-Jazz -Singer Ithamara Koorax)
• Raul de Souza , short biography and discography, AllBrazilianMusic / CliqueMusic Editora S / A, Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese and English)
• Raul de Souza , brazilianmusic.com, short biography, discography, interview (in English)
• Raul de Souza , short biography and discography, Clube de Jazz, Belo Horizonte (in Portuguese)
• Dafne Sampaio: As reviravoltas de João José , short biography, Brazilian music website (in Portuguese)