Hermeto Pascoal @ Thalia Hall

Hermeto is a Brazilian legend. He has worked with the greatest of the greats, such as: Milton Nascimento, Tim Maia, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and countless others. He first gained public attention in 1971 after performing and recording with Miles Davis on the Live/Evil album, of which Miles said, “Hermeto is one of the most important musicians on the planet.” There is good reason (beyond his Gandalf-like appearance) why he is known as “O Bruxo” (the Wizard). Long before Miles, he was performing and collabing with the likes of Edu Lobo and Elis Regina. Later collaborations involved fellow Brazilian musicians Airto Moreira and Flora Purim. From the late 1970s onward, he has mostly led his own groups, playing at many prestigious venues, such as the Montruex Jazz Festival in 1979.

Pascoal often makes music with unconventional objects such as teapots, children’s toys, and animals, as well as keyboards, button accordions, melodica, saxophones, guitars, flutes, voices, various brass and folkloric instruments. He uses nature as a basis for his compositions, as in his Música da Lagoa, in which the musicians burble water and play flutes while immersed in a lagoon: a Brazilian television broadcast from 1999 showed him soloing at one point by singing into a cup with his mouth partially submerged in water. Folk music from rural Brazil is another important influence in his work.