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Baden Powell

Baden Powell de Aquino was born in Varre-e-Sai in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, a scouting enthusiast, named him after Lord Robert Baden-Powell. When he was three, his family relocated to a suburb in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The new surroundings proved profoundly influential. His house was a stop for popular musicians during his formative years. He soon started guitar lessons with Jayme Florence ("Meira"), a famous choro guitarist, in the 1940s. He proved a young virtuoso, having won many talent competitions before he was a teenager. At age fifteen, he was already playing professionally, accompanying singers and bands in various styles. As a youngster, he was fascinated by swing and jazz, but his main influences were firmly rooted in the Brazilian guitar canon.

He first achieved notoriety in 1959 by convincing singer/composer Billy Blanco to put lyrics to one of his compositions. The result was "Samba Triste," which has been covered by many artists, including Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd on their seminal LP Jazz Samba.

In 1962, he met the poet/diplomat Vincius de Moraes and began a collaboration that yielded some true classics of 1960s Brazilian music. Although bossa nova was the prevailing sound of the times, Baden and Vinicius wanted to transcend the then-fashionable sound by blending Afro-Brazilian sacred and secular music with Rio-style samba. The most enduring result are their "Afro-Sambas," released on LP in 1966. During the 1960s, Baden studied advanced harmony with Moacir Santos, released recordings on the Brazilian labels Elenco and Forma, as well as in the French label Barclay and the German label MPS/Saba. His 1966 Tristeza on Guitar is considered by many to be a high point in his career. In addition, he was the house guitarist for Elenco, and Elis Regina's TV show "O Fino da Bossa".

In 1968, he partnered with poet Paulo Cesar Pinheiro and produced another series of Afro-Brazilian inspired music released in 1970 as Os Cantores da Lapinha.

He visited and toured Europe frequently in the 1960s, relocating permanently to France in 1968. In the 1970s, he released many recordings with different labels in Europe and Brazil. His star dimmed somewhat owing to health problems and changing tastes. He spent the 1980s in semi-retirement in France and Germany. Finally, in the 1990s he and his family moved back to Brazil, where he continued to record and perform. Public recognition of his work came around that time in Brazil. By the end of the 1990s he converted to evangelical Christianity, to which he credits overcoming his long addictions to alcohol and tobacco. Nevertheless, his health had greatly deteriorated after many years of abuse, and he died of pneumonia on the 26th of September, 2000, in Rio de Janeiro.

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Album Review

Baden Powell: Tristeza on Guitar

Read "Tristeza on Guitar" reviewed by Chris May


2018 is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the German jazz label MPS. To mark the occasion, the label's catalogue of over 400 albums has been released on download, and a vinyl and CD reissue programme has begun. Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell's Tristeza on Guitar is among the first of these discs. Originally released in 1966, it is an enduring treasure of twentieth-century Brazilian music. Between 1966 and 1976, Powell recorded nine albums for MPS, ...

313
Album Review

Baden Powell: Baden Live at Bruxelles

Read "Baden Live at Bruxelles" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger


Although this solo live CD was recorded a year before Baden Powell's death in 1999, it shows no diminishing of his extraordinary power. It also features his rarely-heard voice on a few tracks. Slightly rough but warm and true, it fits the Brazilian preference for soulful over pretty singing.

In a land famous for many superb guitarists, Baden Powell is considered one of the greatest. His harmonies are instantly recognizable, and his strong, passionate style is much closer to the ...

275
Album Review

Baden Powell: O Universo Musica de Baden Powell

Read "O Universo Musica de Baden Powell" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger


2 disc set - from The Barclay Years 1964-1972 and The Festival Years 1970-1977 Baden Powell was a legendary Brazilian guitarist whom many consider the best of all time. A prodigy at the age of six, classically trained, his powerful sound and personality are unique and instantly recognizable. Unlike the velvety Joao Gilberto, who rode the bossa nova wave, and Tom Jobim, whose guitar technique was just enough to sketch his beautiful songs, there's no hint of pop ...

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Recording

Baden Powell: Tristeza on Guitar

Baden Powell: Tristeza on Guitar

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In the States, guitarist Baden Powell remains one of the least known bossa nova pioneers of the late 1950s and 1960s. Rather than play the smoothed-out, laid-back samba popularized by João Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, João Donato and Antonio Carlos Jobim, to name a few, he favored a more percussive attack that mixed Brazilian and African rhythms with a classical guitar approach. Powell also didn't travel much to New York, which by 1964 had become the commercial ...

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