With the just-released recording of his Seattle band's first concert, Jovino Santos Neto pays homage to 30 years in the Seattle area. In a recent visit to the KNKX studios, he talked about his Northwest connections and the magic of live performance.
Growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Santos Neto first heard live music from bands that would "play in the gazebos on Sunday nights.”
“I would walk and hear the music, and all I saw was a little window, and I was too scared to go up there,” he said.
Santos Neto’s growing passion for music eventually brought him to his mentor, Brazilian master musician and composer Hermeto Pascoal. Pascoal helped develop a fusion of jazz and samba and rose to international fame in the early '70s for his work with Miles Davis.
“My very first gig with Hermeto, I rehearsed for a whole week,” Santos Neto said. “We didn’t play any of the songs we rehearsed.”
“What Hermeto did was to teach us to trust our intuition, because our intuition is never wrong," he said. "If you can go to the source and drink that water from where it comes up, that’s what it is."
This lesson has become the foundation of Santos Neto’s music.
Santos Neto recently retired after more than a quarter-century teaching at Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts. The bass player for this session performance, Tim Carey, also teaches at the institution.
With the newly released Mais Que Tudo: Live at Kerry Hall, 1995, Santos Neto and his fans look back at his first concert with that Seattle band, which included Hans Teuber on the saxophone, Chuck Deardorf on the bass and Mark Ivester again played percussion.
“When I listen to it, I get blown away,” Santos Neto said. “It was like you’re cooking these beans in the pressure cooker and suddenly go, ‘Pssssshhh!’ The energy of our very first chord of the very first song, it came out with such power. You know when they christen a new ship with a champagne bottle? That was us!”
Santos Neto and his band, which also includes longtime collaborator Ben Thomas on vibraphone, recently performed in front of a rapt audience at the KNKX studios, their music bursting with life and love. Ivester played the drums, 30 years after the recording. Two of Santos Neto's older compositions, “Two Friends, True Friends,” and “Feira Livre," joined the new original tune, “Na Umbigaga Da Vida,” for this exclusive session.
There will be much more Santos Neto to enjoy later this year with two more live album releases. On Halloween, Jovino Santos Neto Quinteto will open for Latin Grammy-winning flutist Nestor Torres at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute for the Earshot Jazz Festival. In the meantime, put on your dancing shoes and enjoy this KNKX studio session.
Musicians:
- Jovino Santos Neto - piano, melodica
- Ben Thomas - vibraphone
- Tim Carey - electric bass
- Mark Ivester - drums
Songs:
- Two Friends, True Friends
- Na Umbigada Da Vida
- Feira Livre
