Big Brother: Laurindo Almeida (1917-1995)

Almeida was a "big brother" to many young musicians, always available and helpful to the upcoming guitarist. I witnessed directly or indirectly many happenings in his life and would like to share some of the more important events that shaped this gentle giant. Much of this information comes from taped interviews, story-telling sessions with close friends, scrapbooks, diaries, his wife, Deltra (Didi) Eamon Almeida, as well as from the numerous items he donated to IGRA.

"I had to get old for you to discover me," this was Almeida's friendly response to the attention of the Brazilian press when he arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1987 to help adjudicate the 4th Villa-Lobos International Guitar Competition and to play at the opening concert for Rio's Free Jazz Festival at which they honored his 70th birthday. Even with musical prominence foreshadowing his career, he left his native Brazil 48 years ago to achieve international fame in the jazz, popular and classical styles, not only as a performer of distinction, but also as a composer and arranger.

Almeida's story is not the usual one for a man who became one of the world's best-known guitarists. One stares down the long list of accolades and achievements expecting to find, somewhere near the beginning, the conservatory he attended and the famous teachers he studied with in his formative years. But, as with Andrés Segovia, Almeida was his own teacher -- and his educational training ground was the radio station, recording studios and Rio de Janeiro's gambling casinos and cruise lines. With that in mind one might expect to find in him some trace of the tough street kid, the hustling young pro, the shadow of wounded pride and ancient resentments that frequently characterizes famous artists who made it up through the ranks from less than ideal beginnings. But the man was nothing if not one of the most easy-going personalities one could hope to meet -- a gentle giant among men, for whom it is worth reviving the well-worn cliché, humility.

Brazil

He was born Laurindo José de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto, September 2, 1917 in the small Brazilian coastal town of Prainha (now called Miracatu), near the port city of Santos in São Paulo State, into a large musical family with eight brothers and sisters. His first formal instruction in piano was from his mother, who was an amateur classical pianist. However, he was more attracted to his sister Maria's guitar and taught himself this instrument secretly from the age of nine by transcribing piano pieces. In Brazil at that time, the guitar was considered to be a second-class instrument, unworthy of a boy's attention. In fact, the guitar was not held in high esteem in his area because a local boy who played it had gotten in trouble, but Almeida pursued the instrument, undaunted by the local society's judgment.

Almeida and his brother moved to São Paulo when he was 12. At 15 years of age, he joined the local civil war in São Paulo State, fighting in the revolutionary army. While recovering from a war wound, he met Brazil's foremost guitarist, Garoto (Anibal Augusto Sardinha, 1915-55) who was entertaining in the hospital.

In 1935, Almeida managed to get his first radio job in Rio with Radio Ipanema. He worked with Nestor Amaral who, according to Almeida, one of the best voices and tenor guitar players in the group and later one of the lead instrumentalists with Carmen Miranda. When he first arrived in Rio he slept on the park bench for the first night until his contact with Nestor and the job at the radio station allowed him to take a room at the Bautista. After Almeida received his first payment, Nestor, who was a compulsive gambler, came into their room one late evening, relieved a sleeping Almeida of his cash and promptly lost it all to the tables. However, this did not lessen his musical opinion of this talented instrumentalist. In fact, up to his last days, Almeida said, "He had a beautiful heart."

Lindo, as he was nicknamed by his mother, wrote many songs with Nestor: "Shuca Shuca Shucalyo" (lyrics by Irving Taylor), "Zig-Zag" (a samba), "Volvere mi amor," and numerous others. The songs and instrumental works he wrote and arranged were performed and produced in collaboration with a number of prominent musicians in Brazil.

Almeida established himself as a radio artist and staff arranger, first with Radio Cruzeiro Do Sul in 1935. Besides radio work, Almeida played in clubs and led his own group for over 5 years at the Casino da Urea. During the period between 1936 and 1947, he worked with Radio Mayrink Veiga in Rio de Janeiro with such noted Brazilian artists as Garoto, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Radames Gnatalli, Carmen Miranda, and Pixinguinha (Alfredo da Rocha Viana Filho, 1898-1973). He recorded choros with Pixinguinha under the direction of Leopold Stokowski on a cruise line in 1940. With Garoto he made numerous recordings and co-authored waltzes (his first, "Ainda te Lembras de mim"), and arranged and created original sambas, choros, fox trots, samba-jongos, folk songs as well as humorous songs. Two of his sambas, "Mulato antimetropolino" and "Vocé nasceu pra ser grã-fina," were popular with the public. During this period he also worked at the Casino Copacabana starting in 1941 and at the Casino Balneario da Urca beginning in 1942. He married Maria "Natalia" Miguelina Ferreira Ribeiro, a ballerina from Porto, Portugal, whom he met at the Casino Balneario da Urca some time in 1944. His job as a performer involved playing many musical instruments -- his union card called for viola (standard guitar), guitarra or bandolim (six pairs of metal strings) banjo (4 strings) cavaquinho (like a ukulele) -- as well as writing arrangements for the group.

Though profoundly influenced by his busy schedule in the Brazilian musical environment, his only break from the routine of radio and record dates by day and casino shows at night was a six-month job playing on board the cruise ship, Cuiabá, going to Europe in 1936. Because the ship was noisy he wound up playing banjo for most of the trip. When docked in France he had the opportunity to hear the great Django Reinhart, the three-fingered gypsy guitarist who was playing with the violinist, Stephane Grapelli, at the famous Hot Club in Paris. Recounting the experience later, he joked, "It was truly a 'hot' club -- a little stinky place!", but the atmosphere did not overshadow the marvelous artistry of Django.

Among the accomplishments in Almeida's remarkably varied professional career before coming to the United States was the contribution he made to the development of a highly refined, cultivated modern choro and samba in the late 1930s by writing, performing and recording a number of them. He used to be teased about the chords he played, which were referred to as either "juicy" or "Japanese" chords, due to the inclusion of the higher dominants, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths, and the progressions that were influenced by his trip to Paris and the music of the French impressionists.

Reflecting on his self-made career in music, he quoted an old Brazilian saying: "'Necessity makes the thief.' I never had any guitar lessons. I don't know why, but I have to be my own teacher. I have always been like that -- curious to know the reason for things." He learned guitar by watching and listening to other guitarists and he taught himself music theory and arranging from various books, including Berlioz's treatise on orchestration. Almeida's auto-didactic habits led him in many directions: teaching, film scoring and even the home-tinkering-shop (if he could not find an item he needed, he would make it).

United States of America

By the time Almeida left Brazil, he was considered one of the best guitarists in Rio de Janeiro. "Johnny Peddler" ("Aldeia Roupa Branca," 1940), a song Almeida wrote about the street peddler selling many things, including love, netted him a $4,000 royalty check from RCA Victor that enabled him to relocate to California in 1947. He said, "The airplane trip from Rio to New York took 38 hours, with many stops and 12 more hours to California." "Johnny Peddler" was popularized by the Andrew Sisters, Jimmy Dorsey, Les Brown's Band of Renown and numerous others. He stayed in the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 1961. His first job in the United States was in the sound track for the Danny Kaye film, A Song is Born (1947), on which Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Nat Cole also worked. Soon thereafter, Almeida joined Stan Kenton's orchestra, staying with him as a soloist, arranger, and composer until 1952. While with Kenton, he introduced the Spanish guitar tradition within jazz, and his early recordings from this time set the standard for jazz guitarists. He was a featured soloist with Kenton's band at the Chicago Opera House, Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, making famous his own composition, "Amazonia," and the Kenton work, "Lament," written expressly for Almeida. To the United States he brought Brazilian folk/popular styles known in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s such as the samba, choro and baiao, a hybrid of several types of folk music of the Brazilian Northeast. In the early 1950s he cultivated what he then called "samba jazz," a combination of cool jazz with samba elements.

Motion Picture Industry

Laurindo can be heard performing in over 800 film soundtracks. He composed the complete scores to at least 10 major motion pictures (including the award-winning Old Man and the Sea) and contributed to many other TV and film scores for Paramount, Universal, Columbia and MGM studios. Recently, he underscored and performed the guitar part in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

Recording Industry

In 1952, under the title "The Laurindo Almeida Quartet featuring Bud Shank," Big Brother made two historic records for the World Pacific Jazz label that presaged the bossa nova. The style would burst into popularity ten years later with Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado" and "The Girl from Ipanema."

He recorded extensively for Capitol, World Pacific, Decca, Orion, Concord Records and many others, frequently promoting music of other Brazilian composers, as in his American debut recordings of Heitor Villa-Lobos's Guitar Concerto and Radames Gnattali's Concerto de Copacabana.

In the late 1980s his trio with bass and drums (Robert Magnusson and Jim Plank/ Chuck Flores) frequently featured his wife, Deltra. His guitar trio, Guitarjam (with Larry Coryell and Sharon Isbin), played at Wolf Trap and in Carnegie Hall in 1988.

Musical Groups

His first group, the Laurindo Almeida Quartet, founded in the 1950s, featured artists like Bud Shank, Harry Babasin and Roy Harte.

Compositions and Arrangements

Laurindo belongs to an elite group of Brazilian guitarists, who by composing important works for the guitar, reinstated the instrument in that country as worthy of serious musical study. Stylistically, his compositions synthesize his classical background, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, other local and national characteristics of Brazilian music, and American jazz. Laurindo believed that there exists only the thinnest line between the two styles and that it is the performer who primarily makes the distinction; if one places a rhythm section behind most of Bach's works, the result is jazz. Like Garoto, his mentor before him, he cultivated a highly chromatic harmonic and melodic language, which he used for both styles. Much of his classical music has a decidedly popular flavor and therefore is particularly accessible to audiences. Almeida explained his creative process: "I compose in a descriptive way, inspired by a picture I see in my mind, which I then paint in music...I paint everyday scenes, as mundane as the freeway over-passes I used for my Los Angeles Aquarelle Suite in six movements for guitar quartet or quintet." The movements -- North Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard, Latin Quarter, San Fernando Mission, Beverly Hills, and Harbor Freeway,each one a "mood canvas" perfectly capturing its theme -- are expressed in a musical language that incorporates many features of American Jazz, such as the sounds of Kenton's band and the blues, and a mix of Latin characteristics.

In addition, Almeida wrote over 1000 separate compositions, including over 200 popular songs such as "Choro for People in Love," "Sarah's Samba," and "Twilight in Rio." His concert works range from solo guitar music to chamber music and concerti for his chosen instrument. From 1952 he operated his own publishing company, Brazilliance, which was influential in the dissemination of Latin American Music.

Touring

He toured the world and recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet from 1963 to 1974 and again in the1990s. Beginning in the 1970s he was active with his group LA 4 (alto saxist Bud Shank, bassist Ray Brown and drummers Jeff Hamilton and Shelley Manne), which successfully combined classical music and jazz. At this time he married Deltra Ruth Eamon, Canadian-born lyric soprano who became part-and-parcel of his musical activities and his life.

Awards

Almeida received five Grammy Awards (all for classical pieces), as well as sixteen nominations in various classical, pop and jazz categories of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1961 his "Discantus" for three guitars tied with Igor Stravinsky's "Moments" for piano and orchestra for First Place in the category, Best Contemporary Composition. Almeida received an Academy Award for the score to the Oscar-winning short animated film The Magic Pear Tree (1970), for which he also performed the music. In 1977 he received the Certificate of Appreciation from the American String Teachers Association for a "lifetime of dedicated and distinguished service to the guitar in the U. S.," and then in 1983 was presented with the Vahdah Olcott-Bickford Memorial Award by the American Guitar Society for "his illustrious career as a performer and composer and his dedicated promotion of the music of the Americas...." In 1992 in London he received the Latin American & Caribbean Cultural Society Award in recognition of "his great talent as a composer and performer" and the Certificate of Honor from the Achievement Recognition Institute. In November, 1994, Almeida was honored by a Distinguished Award for Contributions to the university by CSUN President Blenda Wilson. Just before his death the Brazilian Government awarded him the Comendador da Ordem do Rio Branco, which was given to his beloved wife Deltra.

Twilight Years

When asked if he is planning to retire -- "It's like Segovia said: 'If they ask me, I'll play'." Even during the first half of 1995, a most difficult health period, he lived up to his words. In April, he drove over to California State University Northridge, Music Department to rehearse the CSUN Guitar Quartet. His last major work, Suite Brazillance, was laid out on the music stands and the students, having gone under his acute ear many times before, were anticipating the down beat. When one of the students mentioned that he looked tired, he said: "I have yet to hear this work except in my head -- one, two -- one, two, three, four!" The first week of July, he performed at the Carl Jefferson Memorial Program and, immediately after that went over to the Santa Cruz Festival with Charlie Byrd. Just two weeks before his death, he completed his last CD for guitar and harmonica with Danny Welton, entitled Naked Sea.

Until his death on July 26, 1995, Big Brother was musically active. His demise was a loss for Brazil, for the guitar, and the musical world at large. Almeida was one of those special people who was always cheerful and positive, always hopeful and grateful, a gentle giant who enjoyed what life offered, never questioning his share, bolstered by a unique sense of humor. He will be deeply missed, but the memory of this gifted musician who gave us such inspiration, this friend who cared for his friends, will keep him alive for us. Funeral services were held at the San Fernando Mission Chapel and Cemetery August 2, 1995 in the presence of his wife Deltra Eamon Almeida, her two children and hundreds of friends.

Ron Purcell
IGRA
Music Department
California State University, Northridge

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