Moreno Veloso triggers his music machine
Singing, playing the guitar and writing the songs on his debut album, the musician hopes to answer the question: "What is the musical legacy inherited by Caetano’s son?"
Silvio Essinger
27/10/2000
Moreno Veloso reckons that "most newcomers make their debut albums willing to get hyped into the music business". Not him, though: "I was already involved with it, even if I hadn’t wanted to." As a child, Caetano’s son wrote the lyrics for Um Canto de Afoxé para o Bloco do Ilê, written by his dad and recorded on the disc Cores, Nomes (1982). He grew up, went to college to study physics, kept a detached relationship with music, randomly joining his friends’ bands, such as Goodnight Varsóvia. Nonetheless, Moreno has constantly been asked whether or not he was going to follow his father’s steps. "I have answered about 920 phone calls from journalists. I’d usually say: "I’m nothing; haven’t done anything, yet...’", he says. But that’s past: Moreno has just released the album Máquina de Escrever Música, recorded with Domenico Lancelotti (percussion) and Kassin (bass, additional instruments and production) as a trio named Moreno + 2. According to him, that is the answer for the old question "What’s Moreno’s musical heritage?"
By entering the market with a disc that gathers his own compositions plus versions, with his voice, guitar and (occasionally) his cello, Moreno is due to become a celebrity – like it or not, with all of its side effects. "That’s probably the burden I’ll have to carry", he sighs. "Up till now, it was plain fun to play and show my work. But, thank God, the joy of having the album released is bigger and the distress." If producer Carlos Barmack hadn’t invited him to a live performance, Moreno wouldn’t have made Máquina de Escrever Música. In his turn, Moreno lined up his schoolmates Kassin (from the band Acabou La Tequila) and Domenico (from the band Mulheres Q Dizem Sim). The alchemy happened. All of a sudden, besides the show, they had a full album, which started being recorded a year and a half ago, at the studio in Kassin’s apartment. "A new side of myself emerged, one I had never noticed", says Moreno, whose works were scattered, at the time. On the album Livro, from 1997, his dad had recorded How Beautiful Could a Being Be. Soon after that, the father-son partnership was recovered (17 years after Caetano’s recording of Um Canto de Afoxé) and they wrote Sertão, which ended up being recorded by Gal Costa (and appears on Máquina). The name of the album was taken from a Tom Jobim story: the maestro tried to go through customs with a new computer, claiming it was a typewriter (= máquina de escrever, in Portuguese). "That’s a bit large for a typewriter, ain’t it?", asked the agent, to which Jobim replied, "It’s a music typewriter". The fact is, the CD Moreno + 2 was totally made in computers, although not top line ones. One of the pathfinders on this trip through the chip land was Daniel Jobim, Tom’s grandson, who also played the piano on the opening track (Sertão) and on the last one (I’m Wishing). "The CD is a friendship web", says Moreno, who admits to not having an astonishing musical memory and to not being a phonogram freak. "My dad’s musical memory is amazing. His and João Gilberto’s. If they hear a song just once, say, at four years old, they can remember and reproduce it by the time they’re 45", he goes, and complements: "And Kassin is the disc collector. These people surround me by chance. My friends show me things, my dad reminds me of others."
Attention to the lyrics
Máquina de Escrever Música was recorded along three months in a studio assembled by the band in Araras (Rio de Janeiro highlands) and finished in Rio and New York. "It’s not a pop album", he warns. "Some people name it ‘music salad’, but this term has taken a depreciative connotation. It is a mix of all of my musical calls." Basically unplugged, the CD privileges Moreno’s voice. "I’m not sure if I’m a good singer", he claims. "My concern is the message." He explains: "The songs that made it to the album all have a reason to be in there. I want the audience to understand the lyrics." That’s why he made a version of Eu Sou Melhor Que Você (or I Am Better Than You, by Mulheres Q Dizem Sim) with only the acoustic guitar and his voice. "It was on purpose, to make people pay attention", he says.
When it comes to possible comparisons between his and his dad’s voices, he anticipates: "My dad taught me how to sing. But if you put some of the vocal passages aside, I thinks the genes haven’t really kicked in." For the CD, Moreno recorded the samba Só Vendo Que Beleza (Henricão/Rubens Campos), which happens to be the very first song that Caetano ever taught him. "Only recently have I discovered that the only samba in my album was made in São Paulo. I was thinking it had been made in Rio or Bahia...". Moreno tells that when the CD was ready, he forwarded it to countless recording companies and labels, major or independent. All of them reacted similarly, appointing a little problem here and there. "But I wanted it just the way it is, which is mine, Kassin’s and Domenico’s way", says Moreno. The label Natascha (which belongs to Caetano’s wife, Paula Lavigne), didn’t quite object to Máquina, but the guy preferred to pass, "so as not to get stuck into family businesses". "Paula is a marketing and management genius", he praises. "I believe in everything she does, but she’s a relative." The small and segmented label Rock It! came up as the ideal option. "The president (former Legião Urbana guitarist Dado Villa-Lobos) had even lent us a case full of microphones prior to our signing up the deal", says Moreno. Nevertheless, Natascha holds the distribution rights of Máquina de Escrever Música for Europe, USA and Japan – and has slated the release to January 2001, probably followed by live performances abroad. Moreno’s greatest fear in regard to the acceptance of the album by the press is not exactly self-related, but related to Caetano. "My dad has a high-impact media persona. I’m concerned with the attacks that he will suffer because of me", he says, and adds: "But he’s skilled at talking back." The lad is pretty sure he’ll make other albums: "There are a number of songs that didn’t make it to this CD, others came up while we were recording. We need a follow-up, the songs need to be recorded." The next releases by the trio shall be Domenico + 2 (which is ready to go, and more experimental than Máquina); Kassin + 2 and, maybe a + 3 ("probably a more anarchic project", he laughs).
By entering the market with a disc that gathers his own compositions plus versions, with his voice, guitar and (occasionally) his cello, Moreno is due to become a celebrity – like it or not, with all of its side effects. "That’s probably the burden I’ll have to carry", he sighs. "Up till now, it was plain fun to play and show my work. But, thank God, the joy of having the album released is bigger and the distress." If producer Carlos Barmack hadn’t invited him to a live performance, Moreno wouldn’t have made Máquina de Escrever Música. In his turn, Moreno lined up his schoolmates Kassin (from the band Acabou La Tequila) and Domenico (from the band Mulheres Q Dizem Sim). The alchemy happened. All of a sudden, besides the show, they had a full album, which started being recorded a year and a half ago, at the studio in Kassin’s apartment. "A new side of myself emerged, one I had never noticed", says Moreno, whose works were scattered, at the time. On the album Livro, from 1997, his dad had recorded How Beautiful Could a Being Be. Soon after that, the father-son partnership was recovered (17 years after Caetano’s recording of Um Canto de Afoxé) and they wrote Sertão, which ended up being recorded by Gal Costa (and appears on Máquina). The name of the album was taken from a Tom Jobim story: the maestro tried to go through customs with a new computer, claiming it was a typewriter (= máquina de escrever, in Portuguese). "That’s a bit large for a typewriter, ain’t it?", asked the agent, to which Jobim replied, "It’s a music typewriter". The fact is, the CD Moreno + 2 was totally made in computers, although not top line ones. One of the pathfinders on this trip through the chip land was Daniel Jobim, Tom’s grandson, who also played the piano on the opening track (Sertão) and on the last one (I’m Wishing). "The CD is a friendship web", says Moreno, who admits to not having an astonishing musical memory and to not being a phonogram freak. "My dad’s musical memory is amazing. His and João Gilberto’s. If they hear a song just once, say, at four years old, they can remember and reproduce it by the time they’re 45", he goes, and complements: "And Kassin is the disc collector. These people surround me by chance. My friends show me things, my dad reminds me of others."
Attention to the lyrics
Máquina de Escrever Música was recorded along three months in a studio assembled by the band in Araras (Rio de Janeiro highlands) and finished in Rio and New York. "It’s not a pop album", he warns. "Some people name it ‘music salad’, but this term has taken a depreciative connotation. It is a mix of all of my musical calls." Basically unplugged, the CD privileges Moreno’s voice. "I’m not sure if I’m a good singer", he claims. "My concern is the message." He explains: "The songs that made it to the album all have a reason to be in there. I want the audience to understand the lyrics." That’s why he made a version of Eu Sou Melhor Que Você (or I Am Better Than You, by Mulheres Q Dizem Sim) with only the acoustic guitar and his voice. "It was on purpose, to make people pay attention", he says.
When it comes to possible comparisons between his and his dad’s voices, he anticipates: "My dad taught me how to sing. But if you put some of the vocal passages aside, I thinks the genes haven’t really kicked in." For the CD, Moreno recorded the samba Só Vendo Que Beleza (Henricão/Rubens Campos), which happens to be the very first song that Caetano ever taught him. "Only recently have I discovered that the only samba in my album was made in São Paulo. I was thinking it had been made in Rio or Bahia...". Moreno tells that when the CD was ready, he forwarded it to countless recording companies and labels, major or independent. All of them reacted similarly, appointing a little problem here and there. "But I wanted it just the way it is, which is mine, Kassin’s and Domenico’s way", says Moreno. The label Natascha (which belongs to Caetano’s wife, Paula Lavigne), didn’t quite object to Máquina, but the guy preferred to pass, "so as not to get stuck into family businesses". "Paula is a marketing and management genius", he praises. "I believe in everything she does, but she’s a relative." The small and segmented label Rock It! came up as the ideal option. "The president (former Legião Urbana guitarist Dado Villa-Lobos) had even lent us a case full of microphones prior to our signing up the deal", says Moreno. Nevertheless, Natascha holds the distribution rights of Máquina de Escrever Música for Europe, USA and Japan – and has slated the release to January 2001, probably followed by live performances abroad. Moreno’s greatest fear in regard to the acceptance of the album by the press is not exactly self-related, but related to Caetano. "My dad has a high-impact media persona. I’m concerned with the attacks that he will suffer because of me", he says, and adds: "But he’s skilled at talking back." The lad is pretty sure he’ll make other albums: "There are a number of songs that didn’t make it to this CD, others came up while we were recording. We need a follow-up, the songs need to be recorded." The next releases by the trio shall be Domenico + 2 (which is ready to go, and more experimental than Máquina); Kassin + 2 and, maybe a + 3 ("probably a more anarchic project", he laughs).