Naná Vasconcelos

Juvenal de Hollanda " Naná " Vasconcelos ( born August 2, 1944 in Recife ) is a Brazilian jazz percussionist.

Life and work

Vasconcelos played with twelve years in his father's band, a guitarist, the bongos and maracas. He was familiar with in the coming years with the different rhythms of the music of northern Brazil, learned the game of all relevant Brazilian percussion instruments and specialized since the 1960s on the berimbau, which he ruled virtuously and " whose technique he has developed far beyond the traditional line out "(Martin Kunzler ). He later switched to the drums and went to Rio de Janeiro. He worked there since 1967, first in the Bossa Nova with the singer Agostinho dos Santos, and from 1969 with Milton Nascimento, but also with Luiz Bonfá and Gal Costa. In Rio Gato Barbieri discovered him, who received him as a percussionist in his band. Vasconcelos joined with him in 1971 in New York City, where he recorded with Oliver Nelson and Leon Thomas. In 1972, he joined with Barbieri at the Montreux Jazz Festival and a subsequent European tour. Following the tour Vasconcelos remained in Paris, where he played with Jean -Luc Ponty, worked as a music therapist, and where his first album, Deus Africa arose. He also was involved in recordings by Rolf Kühn and worked in Sweden with Don Cherry.

After his return to Brazil he recorded the album Amazon and began working with Egberto Gismonti, with whom he recorded three albums, and the duo signed him but also for his ensemble. In 1978 he founded with Don Cherry and Collin Walcott, the trio Codona, with whom he went to 1982 on tour and three albums grossed. He also worked in 1980 and 1983 also live with Pat Metheny's band; still he sang with the Yellowjackets, with the Talking Heads and U2.

In 1983 he undertook a tour of Europe with a break-dance group from the Bronx and released the album Zumbi, which provided the rhythmic use of his voice and his body percussion to the fore. However, in the same year, he also began to take a closer deal with mechanical drum sounds (such as on his album Bush Dance heard). 1986 was followed by a solo tour through his native Brazil. He also worked with a wide range of Brazilian musician Sergio Mendes on the singers Joyce and Mônica Salmaso to Itamar Assumpção.

Furthermore accompanied Vasconcelos Harry Belafonte, BB King, Carly Simon and Paul Simon, and worked well in 1984 with drummer Ensemble " Singing Drums " by Pierre Favre. In the field of jazz, he brought his Brazilian percussion in numerous projects by musicians such as Joachim Kühn a, Perry Robinson, Jim Pepper, Trilok Gurtu, L. Shankar, Arild Andersen, Andy Sheppard, Jean -Marie Machado and Céline Rudolph. Several times he was with Jan Garbarek and over again with the group of Don Cherry on a European tour. In 1995, he played in a duo with percussionist Evelyn Glennie.

Vasconcelos several polls was chosen as the best percussionist in the 1980s as the winner. In 1995 he was artistic director of the International Festival of percussionists in Salvador da Bahia. He also starred in the 1990s film scores a among others for films of Mika Kaurismäki and José Araujo, having already in the previous decade was responsible for the music for films by Susan Seidelman and Jim Jarmusch. In 2005 he appeared in the documentary Vasconcelos, Salis, Antonello Salis and Peppe Consolmagno with Consolmagno. Ballet scores he wrote, inter alia, for Pina Bausch, Jonathan Lunn and John Neumeier.

Selection Discography

• Deus Africa, 1970
• Amazon, 1973
• Saudades, 1979
• Perry Robinson: Kundalini, 1978, with Badal Roy
• Codona 1, 1978 Collin Walcott, Don Cherry
• Codona 2, 1980
• Codona 3, 1982
• Jan Garbarek: Eventyr, 1981, with John Abercrombie
• Pat Metheny: offramp, 1982, with Lyle Mays and Steve Rodby
• Zumbi, 1983
• Duas Vozes - Egberto Gismonti & Naná Vasconcelos, 1984
• Nanatronics, 1985
• Bush Dance, 1986, with Erasto Vasconcelos, Clive Stevens, Peter Scherer, Arto Lindsay and Mário Toledo
• Asian Journal, 1988, with Steve Gorn, Mike Richmond and Badal Roy
• Raindance - Naná Vasconcelos & The Bush Dancers, 1989, with Don Cherry, Cyro Baptista, Peter Scherer and Matthias Gohl
• Lester - Naná Vasconcelos & Antonello Salis, 1990
• If You Look Far Enough, 1993, with Arild Andersen and Ralph Towner
• Contando Estórias, 1994
• Storytelling, 1995
• Contando Estorias, 1995
• Inclassificable, 1995, with Andy Sheppard and Steve Lodder
• Fragments: Modern Tradition, 1997
• Contaminação, 1999
• Saravah compilation, 1999
• Fragmentos, 2001, Dominio Público
• Minha Loa, 2002, João de Souza Leão, Pedro Amorim, Don Cherry, Kiko Klaus, Erasto Vasconcelos and Guga e Murilo
• Vasconcelos e Assumpção - isso vai is repercussão, 2004, Itamar Assumpção
• Vasconcelos, Salis, Consolmagno - Vasconcelos, Salis, Consolmagno, 2005

Film scores

• Amazon Mika Kaurismäki, 1991
• Because Why by Arto Paragamian, 1993
• Tigrero by Mika Kaurismäki, 1994
• O Backlands the Memorias of José Araújo, 1996
• Quase Dois Imaos / Almost Brothers by Lucia Murat, 2004

Lexigraphic entries

• Ian Carr et al Jazz Rough Guide Metzler, Stuttgart 1999; ISBN 3-476-01584- X
• Wolf Kampmann, Loeb Classical Jazz Encyclopedia. Stuttgart, Reclam, 2003; ISBN 978-3-15-010528-3
• Martin Kunzler, Jazz Encyclopedia Vol 2 Reinbek 2002; ISBN 3-499-16513-9