Marcus Tardelli (photo) recreates the work of guitar player Guinga in a record that reveals the diversity of his music Sidimir Sanches

Sidimir Sanches

 

Thick as thieves Rio - Marcus Tardelli has a vocation for being soloist. When he started playing at the age of 7, his main teachers were the records and tapes from which he learned the music by intuition. Being a self-taught musician, it was this lonely coexistence with those melodies that helped to built up the great musician he turned out to be. All this talent is conveyed in Unha e Carne (As thick as thieves), his first solo album, recorded through Biscoito Fino. In 2001 the guitar player joined Maogani quartet, whose characteristic is the sonority that mingles the spontaneity of the choro (small popular music groups that perform waltzes, sambas, etc.; also the music they play [Translator’s note]) groups to classical technique. That was where he met composer and guitar player Guinga, and the starting point of a friendship that was enhanced by musical complicity. “I see him as my son, at the same time, the father of my music. Tardelli is the greatest violin player Brazil has ever produced. He is technically perfect. I believe there are no impossible boundaries when he wants to reach a deeper interpretation”, Guinga declared. Unha e Carne was born from a simple conversation between them, in the middle of last year. Tardelli was getting ready for a solo flight, and the composer was thinking of recording an album with his work. There was so much mutual confidence that Guinga suggested that Tardelli’s opening album concentrate on his own –Guinga’s- work. This way he endorsed the interpreters’ signature on a work that has popular sonority, yet classical in refinement and sophistication. Guinga’s presence, who shared the musical production with Tardelli, can be heard throughout the whole record. “Guinga’s music travels through Brazil’s different musical scenarios. It goes from samba to choro, from baião to frevo (Two Brazilian popular dances and songs [Translator’s note]). And my references are completely diverse. I grew up listening to serenades, I always heard bossa nova, jazz, samba. For me, everything is melody, different roads towards learning”, Tardelli explains. The record starts off with Baião de Laca, followed by the waltzes Igreja da Penha, Cine Baronesa and the introspective Constance. Capital, Dichavado and Cheio de dedos are choros with influences from urban sounding swing, that show Guinga in his most Carioca (born in Rio de Janeiro. [Translator’s note]) expression, as well as in Mingus Samba. The waltz Unha e Carne, after which the record is named, wasn’t in the original selection, however, during the recordings Guinga was so ecstatic with the interpretation of his work, that he composed it and dedicated it to Tardelli. “This music makes this a sacred meeting. It is simple tribute I make to him”, he explains. He defines it as a “merry-go-round waltz”. A baiõ medley (Influência de Jackson, Nítido e Obscuro, Geraldo no Leme, Pra Jackson e Almira, Chá de Panela and Dá o Pé Loro), that draws a clear picture of the arid Nordeste area of Brazil; a sequence of choros (Choro-Canção, Choro-Tango and Choro-Réquiem, the last one written in memory of the mother of his buddy Aldir Blanc); and two frevos, Vô Alfredo and Henriquieto completes the list. The album respects Guinga’s musical essence. It privileges the different phases of a composer that understands like few others the sophistication that can be found in Brazilian popular demonstrations. And Marcos Tardelli grasps all of this, so much so, that he interprets with authority and authorship the meanders of a music that is classical par excellence. The reason for this might be the compatibility of their points of reference and mainly, the mutual comprehension of their respective proposals. And in relation to the artistic complicity, that is the crucial basis for the record.
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Sidimir Sanches Journalist and music critic in Río de Janeiro Brazil .