Quarteto Novo: Quarteto Novo feat. Airto & Hermeto Pascoal (1967)

A unique and innovative Brazilian classic on the verge of jazz and folk music.

You know, i hate that question for one's desert island discs. It's simply such a cruel prospect to have to live with only 10 or 20 records. But if i had to chose, this album would most likely be among the selection (next to Jobim's Stoneflower and Moacir Santos' Coisas and...)

The group had already polished it's unique style backing protest singer Geraldo Vandré on tour and record, before they recorded their sole album. Instead of bossa nova these musicians looked for the Brazilian Northeast, where they all stemed from, for musical styles and rhythms. Not that they cold-shouldered bossa nova, nor jazz or anything that could enrich their musical palette. But the rich folk music of Northeastern Brazil was at the heart of their style and that was something new and unique in the mid-1960s. New was also the instrumentation of this quartet. While they could sound like a regular jazz group with piano, guitar, bass and drums, they often used much more unusual combinations, with Airto playing all kinds of hand percussion, Hermeto playing flute and the two string men both playing guitar or one of the relatives of the guitar found in Brazil.

Despite being based on folk music and often sounding like "authentic" folk songs, almost all of their material was original, often composed in tandem with Geraldo Vandré. Many tunes have lovely, pastoral themes, and all tracks have pretty varied arrangements. The agile musical imagination that would characterise later albums by Hermeto and Airto is already apparent here.

I'm unable to pick any favourites. From the simple, almost naive O Ovo to the smoking jazz of Vim de Santana, there's simply not one lame track here. Airto can both immitate a whole samba school and play an enthralling solo on the triangle (!). Hermeto's work on the flute seems to illuminate all possibilities of the instrument and Heraldo do Monte's guitar playing changes easily between folk picking and jazzy soloing.

Airto would of course go on to international stardom as a member of Miles' group and as a solo artist. Hermeto would be able to record pretty regulary but stay a cult figure. Heraldo do Monte became a busy session musican who would record an occasional obscure instrumental album while Theo de Barros is mainly known as a composer and arranger.

Me and my friends (and many more people for sure) were introduced to this group when Universal issued it's first wave of "Blue Note" compilations in the 1990s. Using the "Blue Note" brand to compile material that initially appeared on Odeon Records, two samplers called "Blue Brazil" offered many obscure gems to our hungry ears, among them several tracks from this album.

Quarteto Novo: Quarteto Novo
Odeon MOFB 3503, 1967

O Ôvo (Geraldo Vandré - Hermeto Pascoal)
Fica Mal com Deus (Geraldo Vandré)
Canto Geral (Geraldo Vandré - Hermeto Pascoal)
Algodão (Luiz Gonzaga - Zé Dantas)
Canta Maria (Geraldo Vandré)
Síntese (Heraldo do Monte)
Misturada (Airto Moreira- Geraldo Vandré)
Vim de Santana (Theo de Barros)

Hermeto Pascoal (fl, p) Theo de Barros (g, b) Heraldo do Monte (g, viola nordestina) Airto Moreira (perc)



Hermeto talking about Quarteto Novo: