Tom Zé

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Tom Zé in São Paulo, 2007

Tom Zé (born October 11, 1936 in Irará , Bahia as Antônio José Santana Martins ) is a Brazilian composer , singer , arranger and multi-instrumentalist .

biography

Zé grew up in the small town of Irará, Bahia in Sertão , northeast Brazil . After graduating from the University of Music in Salvador da Bahia , Zé moved to São Paulo , where he started his musician career. In his early work, he processed his impressions of the big city from the point of view of a simple citizen from the poor northeast of the country.

Influenced by the Tropicalismo movement, Zé worked on the album Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis (1968) alongside Caetano Veloso , Gilberto Gil , Gal Costa , Os Mutantes , and Nara Leão . While the other artists later had great commercial success, Zé largely withdrew in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1968 Zé took first place in the 4th Festival of Popular Brazilian Music ( Música Popular Brasileira ) with the song São, São Paulo .

With his music, he always stayed true to the experimental and Dada impulses of the Tropicália movement, which he himself had introduced, especially through his unorthodox instrumentation, in which he also included vacuum cleaners and typewriters. Musically he makes use of samba , bossa nova , Brazilian folk music, forró , and American rock and roll . His work is valued by many avant-garde composers for its dissonance , polytonality, and unusual time signatures.

In the early 1990s, Zé's work experienced a renaissance through the musician David Byrne when he discovered Zé's 1975 album Estudando o Samba on a trip to Rio de Janeiro . Byrne then published a compilation of Zé's work and two other albums on his music label Luaka Bop. A guitar riff from Zé's song Jimmy, Renda-se was used by R&B singer Amerie for her song Take Control .

In the 1990s, Zé also composed music for the ballet of the Brazilian dance and ballet company Grupo Corpo .

Zé is a founding member of the Academy of the Arts in Cologne, which opened in October 2012 .

Quotes

"I don't make art, I make spoken and sung journalism."

Discography

Studio albums

title Release date Label
Grande Liquidação 1968 Sony Brazil
Tom Zé (album) 1970 Continental
Se o Caso É Chorar 1972
Todos os Olhos 1973
Estudando o Samba 1975
Correio da Estação do Brás 1978
Nave Maria 1984
Brazil Classics, Vol. 5: The Hips of Tradition 1992 Luaka Bop
Com Defeito de Fabricação 1998 Luaka Bop
Postmodern Plato 1999 Trama Records
Jogos de Armar 2000 Trama Records
Imprensa Cantada 2003 Trama Records
Estudando o pagoda 2005 BrazilBrazilTrama Records Luaka Bop
United StatesUnited States
Danç-Êh-Sá 2006 Tratore
Pirulito da Ciência 2010 Biscoito Fino
Explaining Things So I Can Confuse You 2010 Luaka Bop
Tropicália Lixo Lógico 2012 Independent / Natura Musical

Collections

title Release date Label
Brazil Classics, Vol. 4: The Best of Tom Zé - Massive Hits 1990 Luaka Bop
Tom Zé 1994 Warner
20 Preferidas 1999 RGE
Série Dois Mementos, Vol. 1 2000 Wea International
Série Dois Mementos, Vol. 2 2000 Wea International
Série Dois Mementos, Vol. 15 2000 Wea International

Individual evidence

  1. Homepage Akademie der Künste der Welt Cologne ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 30, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.academycologne.org
  2. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5360230

Web links