A Path with Light

Music made visible

Two days ago, I had the honor or opening the show of my musical mentor, 87-year old Hermeto Pascoal at the Neptune Theater in Seattle. My quinteto played before, then I joined Hermeto’s Grupo on melodica and we ended the evening all together on the stage. Here’s an excerpt of the show’s finale, when we played Hermeto’s mambo Irmãos Latinos:

Today, after one day of recovery from the immense amount of musical energy that flowed on the Neptune stage, I was gardening and saw this scene under a rhododendron in bloom:

This image conveys a lot about how music flows. You can see how light creates a path through the fallen blossoms. All elements in this picture are not fixed, tomorrow everything will be different - light, blossoms, grass, shadows. This is our work, our job and our joy as musicians: to capture the invisible flow of sounds and to impart meaning to it, adding notes, grooves and spaces to create a shape, an invisible form that gives musical meaning to what we do.

Hermeto is a mentor, not just to me, but to several generations of musicians from all over the world. To host his amazing Grupo, with whom I played for 15 years in Brazil and around the world in the town that has been my home for the past 30 years was incredible, a reunion that was shared with the hundreds of people who came to hear us that night. This hug is a symbol of that re-union:

I hope you enjoy this moment. I will share more videos soon.

Thanks for reading and listening!

Jovino