🎸 Bola Sete — “Brejeiro”
From Autêntico ! (1966)
The opening track of Bola Sete’s 1966 album Autêntico ! is “Brejeiro,” a well-known composition by the Brazilian pianist and composer Ernesto Nazareth. 🇧🇷🎶
Bola Sete performs the piece with his New Brazilian Trio:
🎸 Guitar — Bola Sete
🎸 Bass — Sebastian Neto
🥁 Drums — Paulinho da Costa
The arrangement is built around Bola Sete’s guitar, with bass and drums providing the rhythmic foundation.
Paulinho da Costa’s drumming has a light, agile quality that suits the piece particularly well. Bola Sete’s guitar carries the melody while incorporating the rhythmic character of Brazilian music with a distinctly jazz-oriented harmonic approach.
What we hear is a meeting of Brazilian musical traditions and the sound of jazz in the 1960s.
And to understand “Brejeiro,” it is worth going back to the composer who wrote it more than seventy years earlier.
🎹 Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth was born in Rio de Janeiro on March 20, 1863, and died in 1934.
He was a pianist and composer whose music occupies an important place in the development of Brazilian urban music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Nazareth began studying the piano at an early age. His mother, who was herself a pianist, gave him his first lessons. After her death, he continued his studies with Eduardo Madeira and later with the French piano teacher Lucien Lambert.
His musical world was not limited to European classical music.
He studied composers such as Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven, while also absorbing the popular music of Rio de Janeiro, including polkas, waltzes, and lundus.
These different influences gradually became part of his own musical language.
Chopin, in particular, had a significant influence on him.
Yet Nazareth did not simply reproduce European piano music.
He took the technical and harmonic vocabulary of the piano tradition and combined it with the syncopated rhythms and musical language of Brazil.
The result was something distinctly his own.
His compositions stand at an interesting point between the concert tradition and Brazil’s popular urban music.
🎼 “Brazilian Tango”
One detail about Nazareth is particularly important when discussing his music.
He generally referred to his own compositions as “Brazilian tangos.”
Today, many of his works are regarded as an essential part of the Choro repertoire. But during Nazareth’s lifetime, the boundaries between the various forms of Brazilian urban music were not as clearly defined as they are today.
The word “Choro” itself did not necessarily carry the same precise genre definition that it does now.
In late 19th- and early 20th-century Rio de Janeiro, musicians were developing their own ways of playing European forms such as polkas and waltzes, incorporating Brazilian syncopation and rhythmic phrasing.
Nazareth became one of the most distinctive composers to bring this Brazilian rhythmic language into sophisticated piano music.
His music could be technically demanding, harmonically rich, and at the same time deeply connected to the musical life of Rio.
That combination helped make his compositions important to later generations of Brazilian musicians.
His works eventually became part of the Choro tradition and continue to be performed today.
🎵 “Brejeiro”
“Brejeiro” was published in 1893.
It became one of Nazareth’s best-known compositions and an important example of the style he called Brazilian tango.
More than seventy years later, in 1966, Bola Sete recorded the piece with his New Brazilian Trio.
That distance in time is part of what makes this recording interesting.
Nazareth originally conceived “Brejeiro” as a piano composition.
Bola Sete takes the same musical material and approaches it through the guitar, bass, and drums.
The change in instrumentation naturally alters the character of the piece.
Nazareth’s piano writing often contains several rhythmic and harmonic elements working simultaneously between the two hands.
Bola Sete translates that material into the language of the jazz guitar, retaining the melody and Brazilian rhythmic identity while giving the piece a different instrumental setting.
The result is not simply a reproduction of the original piano piece.
It is a reinterpretation through the musical vocabulary of the 1960s.
🎸 Bola Sete’s “Brejeiro”
Bola Sete’s guitar is at the center of the arrangement.
He treats the melody rhythmically, incorporating chords and accompanying figures into his playing rather than presenting the tune as a purely melodic line.
Sebastian Neto’s bass and Paulinho da Costa’s drums complete the trio.
Da Costa’s light, nimble drumming keeps the rhythmic movement flowing, while the bass provides the foundation beneath the guitar.
The Brazilian rhythmic character of the original composition remains present, but the overall setting places it firmly within the sound of Brazilian jazz of the 1960s.
This is one of the interesting aspects of Bola Sete’s approach.
He does not need to radically transform Nazareth’s composition.
The melody is already strong.
Instead, he brings it into his own musical world, using the guitar and the language of jazz while preserving the Brazilian character of the piece.
🌴 From 1893 to 1966
There are 73 years between Nazareth’s “Brejeiro” and Bola Sete’s recording.
In 1893, Nazareth was writing piano music in Rio de Janeiro, drawing together European musical forms and the rhythmic language of Brazil.
By 1966, Brazilian music had gone through several major developments.
Choro had established a rich instrumental tradition. Samba had become one of Brazil’s defining musical forms. And Bossa Nova had brought Brazilian rhythm and harmony to an international audience.
At the same time, the relationship between Brazilian music and American jazz had grown considerably.
Bola Sete belonged to this later generation of musicians who moved naturally between Brazilian musical traditions and jazz.
His recording of “Brejeiro” can therefore be heard as part of a much longer musical continuum.
From Nazareth’s piano in the late 19th century to Bola Sete’s guitar in the 1960s.
From Brazilian tango and Choro to Brazilian jazz.
From the piano to the guitar trio.
The composition remained recognizable, while its musical setting changed with the times.
🎧 Listening to “Brejeiro”
When listening to this recording, it is worth paying attention first to Bola Sete’s guitar and the way he shapes Nazareth’s melody.
Then listen to the rhythmic foundation provided by bass and drums.
Paulinho da Costa’s light drumming is particularly noticeable in the way it keeps the music moving without obscuring the guitar.
What emerges is not simply an old Brazilian composition being played again.
It is a piece from the late 19th century being viewed through the musical language of the 1960s.
Ernesto Nazareth wrote “Brejeiro” in 1893.
Bola Sete recorded it in 1966 with guitar, bass, and drums.
Between those two dates lies a substantial part of Brazilian musical history.
That is perhaps the most interesting way to hear this recording:
not simply as a version of a famous Choro composition, but as one point in the long journey of Brazilian music—from the piano music of Ernesto Nazareth to the Brazilian jazz of Bola Sete. 🎸
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Bola Sete and his New Brazilian Trio. 🎶
As summer slowly slips away, take a moment to unwind with warm bossa nova jazz through your favorite headphones.
Let the rich acoustic guitar, gentle bass, and subtle Brazilian rhythms fill the room as the evening settles in. 🌅
A great pair of headphones can make you hear familiar music in a whole new way.
🎧 Find your favorite pair and enjoy the music the way it was meant to be heard.
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#BolaSete #BossaNova #BrazilianJazz #Jazz #Headphones #LateSummer
 The opening track of Bola Sete’s 1966){kind=link}
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