Edu Lobo on his life and music
Composer writes music for movies and plays
Tárik de Souza
18/10/2000
Nelson Motta is right when he claims that Edu Lobo "was the guy that never wanted to be king". When the composer became known in the 60s with the mega-hits Upa Neguinho!, Ponteio and Arrastão, his first deed was to disappear – he left everything behind and moved to the USA to study music. Since then, he has recorded only a few albums and has written quality music scores for plays, ballets and films. Despite the lonesome routine, Edu never stopped producing. In 2000, he’s been involved in two projects - writing the music for the movie Xangô de Baker Street (by Miguel Faria) and for a play with Chico Buarque – a predictable masterpiece.
At the same time, Universal has just put out two albums that have never been released in Brazil, recorded when Edu went into self-imposed exile to escape from the militaries and, above all, from the suffocating, sudden success achieved in Brazil. Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, from 1979, brings Edu accompanied by an all-star lineup: Oscar Castro Neves (acoustic guitar), Tião Netto (bass), Claudio Sion (drums), Airto Moreira (percussion) and Hermeto Pascoal (piano and flute). The other album, From the Hot Afternoon (1969), by saxophonist Paul Desmond (from the Dave Brubeck Quartet), features six songs by Edu (the other six were composed by Milton Nascimento), who plays the acoustic guitar in the album.
Lobo hosted our staff - Tárik de Souza, Nana Vaz and Tom Cardoso – in his studio in Rio. In the interview, the composer talked about his life in America in the early 70s and the records that were released there; about his uncomfortable and meteoric popstar experience in Brazil and about his eternal disputes with the tropicalists and the pleasure of working with his favorite partner once again. "I’m very excited and glad to be sharing this project with Chico Buarque".
AllBrazilianMusic – Universal has just put out two important albums made during your brief period in the United States - From the Hot Afternoon, by Paul Desmond (1969), and Sérgio Mendes Presents Lobo (1970). Back then, Sergio Mendes was at the top and splitting a record with him was a privilege. Did you consider the possibility of an international career?
Edu Lobo – No. Soon after releasing that Sergio Mendes Presents, I returned to Brazil to renew my visa. When I arrived, I realized how bored I actually was in the States and decided never to go back there.
ABM – Even though life was quite hard in Brazil...
Edu Lobo – Even so, I was missing the sense of companionship, which I only noticed when I came back here. I traveled to the United States and sold all of my possessions – I had made plans to remain there, so I’d bought a house, and stuff.
ABM – Where were you living?
Edu Lobo – In Los Angeles. In the beginning, I really enjoyed it. I was studying music, the city was calm, a lot better than today. A million novelties. I became a record store maniac. Completely changed my life. Didn’t have to answer the phone or perform in front of an audience, and that was very good.
ABM – You left Brazil as a star.
Edu Lobo – That was against my will. I never went for success. I was literally pushed toward the stage. I had always dreamt of being a musician, but had never pictured myself up on a stage. I loved it when people recorded my songs, when they were on the radio. But I never fancied being a pop star. I moved to Los Angeles to break that process down. I was thinking: "now I shall be seen as a composer". I wasn’t more radical only because it would have been too risky. In Brazil, there’s always the risk that the owner/composer of a song is the interpreter. If you are only a composer, you might as well disappear. But that happens only in Brazil – Cole Porter played few shows along his career and any 8 year-old American kid knows about his songs.
ABM – How did the recording sessions for Sérgio Mendes Presents Lobo go?
Edu Lobo – We recorded it at Sergio Mendes’ house. It took the longest time to make that album, long studio hours. I think it shows. It is way too careful. It’s very well recorded, and features a few weird things, like The Beatles’ Hey Jude – the contract established that I had to record two foreign songs.
ABM – Did that album have any impact in the USA?
Edu Lobo – None.
ABM – What about your guest appearance in Paul Desmond’s album?
Edu Lobo – It was a fantastic experience. He belongs to a breed of instrumentalists that is long gone – that sax, nobody plays like that anymore. I remember a good story about that album. There’s this track, Pra Dizer Adeus, that was not supposed to have vocals. Wanda was in the studio, Paul liked her voice and said: "try singing this song – her English was very good – just to help us have a guideline". It was four keys below hers and sounded really strange. She sang it, anyway, and he went: "beautiful! Beautiful!" I thought "this is so American, he’s never gonna put it on the record", but, surprise - he did!
ABM – Whom did you study music with, in that period?
Edu Lobo – I attended a course on orchestration with a guy called Albert Harris. It was only theory, because there was no orchestra to practice or anything. But it was great; I had private lessons three times a week. I returned to Brazil and began writing a bit, only to quit very soon. My thing is not writing, but writing with someone who’s actually a writer. I like partnership, having a million ideas, thinking of the different sections, but I need someone more experienced by my side. Every musician has a different spirit. The instrumentalist will spend eight hours a day just repeating the same passage. And some have the talent for writing the arrangement right there and then, as I’ve seen Chiquinho de Morais do. It’s almost scary. You think, "no way this is going to work", but then it does! This learning process was extremely valuable to me, because not knowing how to write music would make me too insecure. Besides, I had this feeling that my success on the radio would soon be history. I though that everything was going too commercial.
ABM – What do you think of (local network TV station) Globo trying to resurrect the old music festivals?
Edu Lobo – Is the mood right? I think it’s no use promoting a festival if there’s no programming. Why were the past festivals successful? Everybody who was there, remembers at least 10 songs that competed in those fests, because they made a truly big deal out of it. There weren’t soap operas, back then, and we were the big stars – it was even difficult for me to anonymously walk down the streets.
ABM – You hated the harassment.
Edu Lobo – I always believed that the whole festival thing would vanish pretty quickly. And I always managed to disappear when my name was too much in evidence – when I was placed first in the 1967 festival (with the song Ponteio), I fled and spent 3 months in France.
ABM – Your work has been intimately related to theater plays from the very beginning. Did you always appreciate the support provided by the theater?
Edu Lobo – I think it started out by chance. I was 21 and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (Brazilian playwright) invited me to write the score for the play he was writing. I would have very little time to do the job and seriously considered giving up, but I didn’t. We had a meeting, and I asked: "so, what are you writing about?" "Nothing", he answered. So the both of us just stood there, kind of embarrassed. I started playing this song I had written with Vinicius de Moraes called Zambi. Guarnieri went: "Zambi, Zumbi (African-Brazilian fugitive slave, a symbol of resistance for the black populations in Brazil), maybe we got something there" (laughs). It was such a relief, because we were running out of conversation topics, and stuff. And the challenge, the fact that I thought I wouldn’t really have the time to do it, became about a physical need, for me, to work under pressure. I’m still like that, the score I’m writing with Chico Buarque, I barely deliver the scores in time.
ABM – Among the plays that you’ve written with Chico, which one do you like the most?
Edu Lobo – I love O Grande Circo Místico. In O Corsário do Rei, I disagreed with some of the director’s remarks. Nonetheless, I still love some of those songs, such as Choro Bandido.
ABM – And many of those became classics, like Beatriz.
Edu Lobo – It’s a mystery to me, how this song became a hit. Nobody goes out humming that song, it has never been on the radio, it has only one recording (by Milton Nascimento), and still, everybody knows it. Isn’t that weird?
ABM – Did you read Caetano Veloso’s book, Verdade Tropical? You name is all over it.
Edu Lobo – I read it very attentively. Caetano modified his taste way too fast – in my opinion. He thought it was necessary to be a fan of Jovem Guarda (early Brazil rock movement) and other modern things. But there’s so much contemporary stuff that I don’t care for! I paid attention to Phillip Glass, but I think it’s boring. In fact, I never had trouble with the tropicalists, but I think they had a problem with me. Tropicalia was much more about attitude than music, although I do respect their talent as musicians.
At the same time, Universal has just put out two albums that have never been released in Brazil, recorded when Edu went into self-imposed exile to escape from the militaries and, above all, from the suffocating, sudden success achieved in Brazil. Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo, from 1979, brings Edu accompanied by an all-star lineup: Oscar Castro Neves (acoustic guitar), Tião Netto (bass), Claudio Sion (drums), Airto Moreira (percussion) and Hermeto Pascoal (piano and flute). The other album, From the Hot Afternoon (1969), by saxophonist Paul Desmond (from the Dave Brubeck Quartet), features six songs by Edu (the other six were composed by Milton Nascimento), who plays the acoustic guitar in the album.
Lobo hosted our staff - Tárik de Souza, Nana Vaz and Tom Cardoso – in his studio in Rio. In the interview, the composer talked about his life in America in the early 70s and the records that were released there; about his uncomfortable and meteoric popstar experience in Brazil and about his eternal disputes with the tropicalists and the pleasure of working with his favorite partner once again. "I’m very excited and glad to be sharing this project with Chico Buarque".
AllBrazilianMusic – Universal has just put out two important albums made during your brief period in the United States - From the Hot Afternoon, by Paul Desmond (1969), and Sérgio Mendes Presents Lobo (1970). Back then, Sergio Mendes was at the top and splitting a record with him was a privilege. Did you consider the possibility of an international career?
Edu Lobo – No. Soon after releasing that Sergio Mendes Presents, I returned to Brazil to renew my visa. When I arrived, I realized how bored I actually was in the States and decided never to go back there.
ABM – Even though life was quite hard in Brazil...
Edu Lobo – Even so, I was missing the sense of companionship, which I only noticed when I came back here. I traveled to the United States and sold all of my possessions – I had made plans to remain there, so I’d bought a house, and stuff.
ABM – Where were you living?
Edu Lobo – In Los Angeles. In the beginning, I really enjoyed it. I was studying music, the city was calm, a lot better than today. A million novelties. I became a record store maniac. Completely changed my life. Didn’t have to answer the phone or perform in front of an audience, and that was very good.
ABM – You left Brazil as a star.
Edu Lobo – That was against my will. I never went for success. I was literally pushed toward the stage. I had always dreamt of being a musician, but had never pictured myself up on a stage. I loved it when people recorded my songs, when they were on the radio. But I never fancied being a pop star. I moved to Los Angeles to break that process down. I was thinking: "now I shall be seen as a composer". I wasn’t more radical only because it would have been too risky. In Brazil, there’s always the risk that the owner/composer of a song is the interpreter. If you are only a composer, you might as well disappear. But that happens only in Brazil – Cole Porter played few shows along his career and any 8 year-old American kid knows about his songs.
ABM – How did the recording sessions for Sérgio Mendes Presents Lobo go?
Edu Lobo – We recorded it at Sergio Mendes’ house. It took the longest time to make that album, long studio hours. I think it shows. It is way too careful. It’s very well recorded, and features a few weird things, like The Beatles’ Hey Jude – the contract established that I had to record two foreign songs.
ABM – Did that album have any impact in the USA?
Edu Lobo – None.
ABM – What about your guest appearance in Paul Desmond’s album?
Edu Lobo – It was a fantastic experience. He belongs to a breed of instrumentalists that is long gone – that sax, nobody plays like that anymore. I remember a good story about that album. There’s this track, Pra Dizer Adeus, that was not supposed to have vocals. Wanda was in the studio, Paul liked her voice and said: "try singing this song – her English was very good – just to help us have a guideline". It was four keys below hers and sounded really strange. She sang it, anyway, and he went: "beautiful! Beautiful!" I thought "this is so American, he’s never gonna put it on the record", but, surprise - he did!
ABM – Whom did you study music with, in that period?
Edu Lobo – I attended a course on orchestration with a guy called Albert Harris. It was only theory, because there was no orchestra to practice or anything. But it was great; I had private lessons three times a week. I returned to Brazil and began writing a bit, only to quit very soon. My thing is not writing, but writing with someone who’s actually a writer. I like partnership, having a million ideas, thinking of the different sections, but I need someone more experienced by my side. Every musician has a different spirit. The instrumentalist will spend eight hours a day just repeating the same passage. And some have the talent for writing the arrangement right there and then, as I’ve seen Chiquinho de Morais do. It’s almost scary. You think, "no way this is going to work", but then it does! This learning process was extremely valuable to me, because not knowing how to write music would make me too insecure. Besides, I had this feeling that my success on the radio would soon be history. I though that everything was going too commercial.
ABM – What do you think of (local network TV station) Globo trying to resurrect the old music festivals?
Edu Lobo – Is the mood right? I think it’s no use promoting a festival if there’s no programming. Why were the past festivals successful? Everybody who was there, remembers at least 10 songs that competed in those fests, because they made a truly big deal out of it. There weren’t soap operas, back then, and we were the big stars – it was even difficult for me to anonymously walk down the streets.
ABM – You hated the harassment.
Edu Lobo – I always believed that the whole festival thing would vanish pretty quickly. And I always managed to disappear when my name was too much in evidence – when I was placed first in the 1967 festival (with the song Ponteio), I fled and spent 3 months in France.
ABM – Your work has been intimately related to theater plays from the very beginning. Did you always appreciate the support provided by the theater?
Edu Lobo – I think it started out by chance. I was 21 and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (Brazilian playwright) invited me to write the score for the play he was writing. I would have very little time to do the job and seriously considered giving up, but I didn’t. We had a meeting, and I asked: "so, what are you writing about?" "Nothing", he answered. So the both of us just stood there, kind of embarrassed. I started playing this song I had written with Vinicius de Moraes called Zambi. Guarnieri went: "Zambi, Zumbi (African-Brazilian fugitive slave, a symbol of resistance for the black populations in Brazil), maybe we got something there" (laughs). It was such a relief, because we were running out of conversation topics, and stuff. And the challenge, the fact that I thought I wouldn’t really have the time to do it, became about a physical need, for me, to work under pressure. I’m still like that, the score I’m writing with Chico Buarque, I barely deliver the scores in time.
ABM – Among the plays that you’ve written with Chico, which one do you like the most?
Edu Lobo – I love O Grande Circo Místico. In O Corsário do Rei, I disagreed with some of the director’s remarks. Nonetheless, I still love some of those songs, such as Choro Bandido.
ABM – And many of those became classics, like Beatriz.
Edu Lobo – It’s a mystery to me, how this song became a hit. Nobody goes out humming that song, it has never been on the radio, it has only one recording (by Milton Nascimento), and still, everybody knows it. Isn’t that weird?
ABM – Did you read Caetano Veloso’s book, Verdade Tropical? You name is all over it.
Edu Lobo – I read it very attentively. Caetano modified his taste way too fast – in my opinion. He thought it was necessary to be a fan of Jovem Guarda (early Brazil rock movement) and other modern things. But there’s so much contemporary stuff that I don’t care for! I paid attention to Phillip Glass, but I think it’s boring. In fact, I never had trouble with the tropicalists, but I think they had a problem with me. Tropicalia was much more about attitude than music, although I do respect their talent as musicians.