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Bola Sete

Bola Sete (born Djalma de Andrade) was a Brazilian guitarist born on July 16, 1923 in Rio de Janeiro and who died on February 14, 1987 in Greenbrae, California. Sete played jazz with Vince Guaraldi as well as with Dizzy Gillespie. His song "Bettina" was featured on the "Tribe Vibes" breakbeat compilation, as it had been sampled by the musical group A Tribe Called Quest.

Bola Sete's name means "Seven Ball". In Brazilian billiards, the seven ball is the only black ball on the table, and Bola got this nickname when he was the only black member of a small jazz group. He studied guitar at the Conservatory of Rio and he started performing with his own sextet and local samba groups while he was still a student. His early infuences were guitarists Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Barney Kessel & Oscar Moore (of the Nat King Cole Trio), while he was also captured by the sound of the big bands that were touring South America at that time (Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman). His career started in Italy, where he played in various clubs & hotels for 4 years (1952-1956). Then, he returned to Brazil and started touring all of South America. That's when the manager of the Sheraton hotels noticed him and decided to bring him in the US to play in the hotels (1962). He played for a while in New York's Park Sheraton, and later he moved in San Francisco to play in the Sheraton Palace. Dizzy Gillespie was staying there at the time, so he was listening to Bola Sete playing every day. When Dizzy decided to bring his pianist Lalo Schifrin to the hotel, he discovered that Lalo & Bola had already met & played together in Argentina. That's how Dizzy met Bola, and this meeting was the beginning for Bola's success in the US. In the fall of 1962, Dizzy took the talented guitarist to the Ninth Annual Monterey Jazz Festival, where he enjoyed a huge success. After that, he toured for a while with Gillespie and finally he returned to San Francisco where he joined The Vince Guaraldi trio. Bola Sete was already well-known in the US, and his partnership with Vince was another huge success for both of them. After staying for a couple of years with Guaraldi, Bola Sete formed his own trio with his fellow Brazilians Sebastian Neto (bass) and Paulinho (drums).

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227
Album Review

Bola Sete: Voodoo Village

Read "Voodoo Village" reviewed by David Rickert


In the mid-sixties bossa nova was the second most popular music after rock and roll, a situation that gave talented artists like Bola Sete exposure that otherwise might have been elusive. Like Charlie Byrd, another artist who paid the rent with Brazilian music, Sete combined formidable classical and flamenco chops with a jazz sensibility to create some truly wonderful recordings that are slowly making their way back into print. Tour de Force, an earlier reissue that combined two Sete albums, ...

278
Album Review

Bola Sete: Voodoo Village

Read "Voodoo Village" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Seven ball, corner pocket. If Bola Sete had chosen cue stick over guitar there’s little doubt he would have brought similar agility and acumen to the game of billiards. Luckily for listeners across the globe he chose the latter instrument as his means of expression. Particulars on Sete’s colorful career are recounted elsewhere—his Bohemian youth spent in Rio as well as his place at the ground floor of the bossa nova explosion and his narrow miss at beating the team ...

128
Album Review

Bola Sete: Tour de Force

Read "Tour de Force" reviewed by David Rickert


At the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival an unknown by the name of Bola Sete wowed the audience with a sprightly mix of traditional Brazilian singing, dancing, and guitar playing. The audience loved it, but unfortunately Sete’s appearance was ill timed and he never got much mileage out of it; the bossa nova craze wouldn’t hit until about a year later. In fact, Sete has always been a marginal figure in the Latin jazz scene, despite being a Brazilian native; even ...

127
Album Review

Bola Sete Trios: Tour de Force

Read "Tour de Force" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Post-dating the craze igniting pairing of Getz and Gilberto that resulted in Jazz Samba by several months these recordings by Brazilian guitar phenom Sete are cut from the same crowd-pleasing source- a fusing of South American folk themes and rhythms with jazz-based improvisation. Much of the music of Sete’s early American trios leans more toward the Latin side of the equation, but both rhythm sections bring solid jazz credentials to the table as well. The team of Tucker and Bailey ...

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All About Jazz Top 10 Tracks: November 2021

All About Jazz Top 10 Tracks: November 2021

Source: All About Jazz

All About Jazz features a free song every day spanning all genres of jazz, and of the tracks featured in November, these ten represent our reader's favorites as indicated by total listens. Musicians and record labels can submit full length MP3s for consideration here. Enjoy! Top Tracks Say It Again Leon Brenko From: From Now On 06:31 Consolação Bola Sete From: Samba in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse, 1966-1968

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Recording

New Bola Sete 3-CD Set - 'Samba In Seattle: Live At The Penthouse, 1966-1968'

New Bola Sete 3-CD Set - 'Samba In Seattle: Live At The Penthouse, 1966-1968'

Source: Tompkins Square

Bola Sete's Samba in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse, 1966-1968, a 3-CD set of previously unreleased live recordings. Available worldwide December 3, 2021 via Tompkins Square. Samba in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse, 1966-1968 is the first official release of the legendary and influential Brazilian acoustic guitarist Bola Sete's live recordings at the Penthouse jazz club in Seattle, WA featuring bassist Sebastião Neto and drummer Paulinho Magalhães. Produced by Grammy-nominated jazz detective Zev Feldman, and remastered from the original tape ...

"Bola Sete is as significant as Jimi Hendrix and Segovia, in the sense of having wisdom, knowledge, soul and passion." — Carlos Santana

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Bossa Nova at...

Liberation Hall
2023

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Samba in Seattle:...

Tompkins Square
2021

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Bossa Nova Guitar...

Verve Records
2009

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Windspell

Fantasy
2008

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Consolação

From: Samba in Seattle: Live at the...
By Bola Sete

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