Image via Riot Act Media
Adrian Spinelli recently wished a happy DJ Koze album release day to all who celebrate.
When he entered the Lodge Room for soundcheck ahead of the second of his first ever two Los Angeles shows in 2022, Hyldon got approached by the venue’s behemoth security guard.
“That was you who sang here last night, right?” The guard asked the Brazilian soul music legend. Hyldon wasn’t sure what the imposing man was about to say to him and wondered if something was up. But what the man said to him came completely out of left field: “You made me cry yesterday when you sang the song from City of God. I love that song.” The massive security guard then gave Hyldon a teary-eyed hug, dwarfing the singer in the process.
What the security guard felt, is what a lot of us did when we discovered the magic of “Na Rua, Na Chuva, Na Fazenda (Casinha de Sapê).” Released in 1974, it’s one of the most immaculate songs in the Brazilian music canon; a love song that transcends generations through the pristine poetic lyricism that’s a hallmark of Brazilian expressiveness. But even for me, who grew up in Brazil and moved to L.A when I was a kid, it wasn’t until my teenaged expat self became enamored with the film City of God in 2002 (and its soundtrack), that I found out who Hyldon was.
Originally from Salvador, Bahia, Hyldon became a fixture in the late ’60s and ’70s rise of Black music in Rio de Janeiro, where he wrote and recorded alongside Tim Maia (widely considered as the most influential figure in Brazilian soul). As a producer for PolyGram in the early 1970s, he made Azymuth his go-to session band, effectively lighting the torch for the pivotal jazz-funk trio’s prolific career. Hyldon’s hands are all over the building blocks of the careers of these artists, who are revered as true prestige Brazilian acts by record collectors and tastemakers far and wide.
As Gil Scott-Heron had Brian Jackson as his right hand man, you can’t really paint a complete picture of Tim Maia’s earliest (and perhaps best) work without Hyldon’s name coming up again and again. But while Hyldon’s own Na Rua, Na Chuva, Na Fazenda album is a bonafide classic, his solo career was also marked by a stark disenfranchisement with the labels and industry who gate-kept it. It’s why beginning in the early 80s, Hyldon went dormant and ceased to release music following four illustrious solo albums that showed an uncompromised mastery of the global sound of soul, funk and MPB (an ubiquitous acronym for Brazilian Pop Music).
Yet the re-telling of Hyldon’s career and life story is only now, finally coming to fruition following the release of Hyldon’s recently-released album in Adrian Younge’s Jazz is Dead series (Hyldon JID023.) The album sees Younge and Azymuth’s Ivan “Mamão” Conti (before he died in 2023) laying down the arrangements for new lyrical compositions from Hyldon. Taken as a whole, these songs come across like the journal entries of a mystical, existential travelling romantic who’s been in celestial flux for decades, before finally landing his ship back atop the coastal jungle cliffs of Rio De Janeiro looking out at the infinite horizon over the sea.
Hyldon has lived in Rio de Janeiro for most parts of his life and today, calls the unspoiled coastline of Recreio dos Bandeirantes in Rio’s west side home. On a video call from his home in Recreio, the maestro sat down for an intimate two hour conversation, where he told the story of his life and times through eight essential records. Many of these songs appear on Jazz Is Dead’s “Hyldon – Beyond The Hits” playlist, which is an important companion to this conversation.
Below, you’ll find a condensed and translated version of the stories that Hyldon shared. He delves into his beginnings in the scene adjacent to Jovem Guarda (a ’60s TV show that was Brazil’s version of Soul Train meets American Bandstand), how he found his niche as a professional artist, meeting and working with the Brazilian music luminaries like Tim Maia, Raul Seixas, Cassiano, Azymuth, and eventually falling out of favor with the music industry machine. Like his very personal and evocative music that’s as much about Brazilian culture as it is about himself, Hyldon’s recollection of these tales is epic.
I lived in Niterói until I was 16 and my Mom wanted to move back to Bahia. So I stayed back in Rio and went to live with my cousin Pedrinho, who was a guitarist in this rock band called The Fevers. They were a backing band for Roberto Carlos TV shows like Jovem Guarda and Roberto Carlos à Noite. I’d hang with them singing and playing guitar. They were great and recorded with people like Wilson Simonal and Jorge Ben. They were one of these bands that everyone wanted to play with.
I’d go with my cousin everywhere. All the bailes, to Jovem Guarda. He’d take me to the label studios where they were recording: CBS, Sony, Odeon, you name it. All these recording sessions would be with the studio orchestras there and such, and one day at a recording the guitarist was absent. So the singer, who knew me and knew that I had my band in Niteroi, Os Abelhas, was like, “Put Hyldon on it!” The vibe of the guitars at the time was this “chacundum, chacundum” or “tchá, tchá” and they were missing a rhythm guitar, so I did it on the recording. It was cool like that.
I played on a red, semi-acoustic Gretsch guitar and from that day on, I became like the official reserve guitarist for The Fevers. I was already composing and had an in with these labels and from there, started having an opportunity to show my songs to them and have access to these studios.
I wrote this song. I had a girlfriend from Minas and her name was Gioconda. I remember I’d post up in a phone booth and keep dropping coins in it to call her up. La Gioconda is also the name of a famous opera and I had the record from it. I ended up giving it to my vocal lessons teacher because I didn’t have any money and she gave me lessons for free. Professora Fernanda. She taught a lot of primment artists like Ney Matogrosso and actors too. She told me not to tell anyone that she didn’t charge me. And then one day long after she died I ran into an actor whom she taught and he goes, “She never charged me either.”
Someone who really inspired me to study music to get better was Tim Maia. He had this diaphragm exercise for singing and I was like, “I need to study if I’m going to make my own record.” I started hearing a lot about Tim from Cassiano, around the time when he was leaving our band, Os Diagonais, and going off on his own. We were driving around a lot and touring and I started listening to a lot of Tim Maia. I remember the song “Primavera,” that Cassiano wrote and we used to play at our shows and Tim grabbed it for his album. A few of the songs we were playing ended up on that first Tim Maia album. At that point, I just really wanted to get to know Tim and show him some of my songs.
Our friend Camarão made it happen and we went off to the Phillips/Poydor studio and there was Tim, sitting in a chair outside of a room where Elis Regina was recording. Tim was super nervous before going into the booth to record with her. Back then, working with Elis was a surefire passport to fame. But I was pressing him to listen to some of my songs, even though he was all super nervous to go in there and record with Elis. Still he goes, “Let’s find a room to hear these songs of yours.” He started off singing his song “Jurema” and the whole room felt like it was shaking. That voice! And then he hands me the guitar and says, “Your turn.” Just like that, on the spot. So I figured I’d play the blues. I had “Gioconda” in mind. He had this way of closing his eyes, tilting his neck and listening. I guess I learned how to listen in that way from him. I played another and then he was like, “Great song man…Really great song. But with that name? It’s not gonna sell any records.” I guessed that was it for now. So I left and he went into the booth with Elis Regina and I went on with my life. Until…
I was at CBS Studios (now Sony) one day and I bumped into Raul Seixas. I met him when he came to Bahia and my cousin Pedrinho had produced his first album as Raulzito e os Panteras. The band’s record didn’t really do well and Jerry Adriani, who was a big part of Jovem Guarda, got him this gig as a producer. Raul was like a full-on exec, before his solo career and such. He was working as Jerry’s lead producer and told me he was looking for something different for Jerry. He says, “Do you have anything different for him to record? Something outside of the box?” And of course I knew what song I had in mind and he asked me what it’s called. When I told him it was “Gioconda,” Raul immediately said he liked the name. We went to his office, I grabbed a guitar and played it for him and he said it was exactly what he was looking for. “It’s on the record already!” And it ended up on Jerry’s album.
In 1971, I was already listening to a lot of American artists like Stevie Wonder, Bootsy Collins and Marvin Gaye. Tim got in touch with me to come and play with him and we recorded and composed a song called, “I Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” off of his second album.
I really wanted to be creating sounds and not copy them. So many people at the time were just copying elements of American sounds or trying to recreate them; from records that never came out in Brazil or were super delayed when they finally did. This was such a simple song where I was inspired by certain breaks and even lyrical themes. Just three chords and the lyrics were so simple. This was like my swan song in that regard though before I really dove into my own music.
I was given a book by a mentor called “On the Suffering of the World” [“As Dores do Mundo” in Portuguese] by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, that really helped guide me early on. It’s a book I’ve given to young artists over time who’re starting out, maybe looking for advice on how I write what I do and whatnot. I tell them to read the great poets or in some cases, philosophers. But I turned to this book a lot myself, especially when I was in love and trying to make sense of the world around me.
I used to go on these walks with a musician friend, Luis Wagner Lopes. There’s a tunnel in Rio that goes from Botafogo to Copacabana. And when we walked through the tunnel, you can’t really talk because all the cars passing by are so loud. So on this portion of the stroll through the tunnel, I just started writing the song in my head. When we got to the other side, I told him I had written a song. And he goes, “sing it.” I did and on the spot, he told me that it was a hit and it would bring me much prosperity.
It was just missing a hook, though. When I got back to Luis’s place, I kept looking at the copy of the book I had given him. He retired to his room and I stayed where I was, grabbed a guitar and started playing what I wrote in the tunnel to not forget. I looked at the book and the words just came to me: “As Dores Do Mundo.” I’m also working on a documentary right now with the same title as the book and the song.
I already knew Alexandre [Alex Malheiros; of Azymuth and I remember once he brought me and Cassiano to his bandmate Ivan Conti’s (Mamão) house in Tijuca. Mamão played us the Stevie Wonder “Yester-me, Yester, You, Yesterday” record that he had just gotten and we spent all afternoon listening to it and to the bassline on the B-side, “I’d Be A Fool Right Now.” That’s how I first met Mamão and from then on, I was bringing those guys aboard when I was producing. I was like 21 or 22 years old and artists already trusted me to bring the right people in around them.
Erasmo Carlos called me once to put a band together for a tour through South America and I called on them to travel with us. When I recorded with Wanderléa, I had Mamão and Alexandre play with me then and then later on the tour too. Whenever we recorded bass, drums and guitar parts together, it was just a look we gave each either and we were on the same page.
And that’s how I recorded my first album. The first single was “Na Rua, Na Chuva, Na Fazenda.” I already had like 20 different arrangements for the album but the label only wanted to record a single record with a B-side. It took years for the album to finally come out, because they just kept delaying it. And I was ticked off and always fighting the label from the jump.
There’s a saying I have with some of the musicians who I’ve played with over the years that a song can have legs. But sometimes, it has wings and it can fly. That’s kind of what happened with this song and with the movie City of God [in 2022]. I got a call saying that the director, Fernando Meirelles, wanted to use this song. He then sent a lawyer to talk to me who said “Fernando says we can do without all of the songs we’ve picked for the soundtrack besides this one.” It was because when the song plays in the film, it marks this shift in 1973 that felt very much like that time right when the song was recorded. The film was depicting harder drugs coming into the foray at the favelas and you can see even the colors on the screen shift as the song plays. It all really sparked a movement in Brazilian film and my songs were used in many more films thereafter.
That song really tells a story and a version of it in Finnish topped the charts in Finland for six months. When we were playing in the States, young crowds knew the words and I know a lot of it is because they loved the movie. Some people even thought my name was “City Of God.”
This was a song I wrote when I dreamt of going to the States and visiting Los Angeles. But when I finally had made my money and was ready to take the trip, I decided that I wanted to see my idols. My Black people and the Black music greats. So I went to New York instead; to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. I then went and saw Marvin Gaye at Radio City Music Hall and I stayed in the US for seven months.
When I came to play in Los Angeles in 2022, I had never played the song here before. I sent over my sheet music to Adrian (Younge) and Drew (Lojero of Jazz Is Dead/Art Don’t Sleep) and they were like, “You have to do the brass section too!” So we put it together along with Azymuth backing me on stage. I put the arrangements together and it was the first time I played “Pelas Ruas de Los Angeles” IN Los Angeles. I was so happy.
I was listening to a lot of Tower of Power, Sly Stone and the Commodores when I put this one together. But I think there’s more Rick James’ in this one than anything else. I’ll say thi: I wrote this song at a time when I became really disillusioned with record labels and I had pretty much abandoned my career.
I moved to BĂşzios and started a new band there with me and whoever was showing up to play at this little bar a friend owned, with no electricity. It’d be like a hundred people singing in front of the sea. I wrote a few songs and this was one of them that was like a call and response vibe where I’d sing “EstĂŁo Dizendo Por AĂ!” and people would sing back to us, “EstĂŁo Dizendo Por AĂ!” Then “E eu dancei!” and they’d sing back: “Eu eu Dancei!”
This song got new life and got really big when I did this MTV program with my friend Arnaldo Antunes 10-15 years ago. We played it in SĂŁo Paulo session with a bunch of other artists. We only rehearsed the day before and the version was crazy. We had Seu Jorge, Arnaldo, CĂ©u, Karina Buhr, Edgard Scandurra, all on it. It was all over MTV in Brazil and this is another one of those songs that had some serious wings.
When I was In L.A. for my Jazz Is Dead shows in 2022, I went into Adrian’s studio when they were recording the instrumentals for this song. He played the song and for the only time in the process, I started scribbling over the sheet music. I was trying to affect a lot more about how the song should go and where it should swing. I did this bass part that he then put in the song where it goes, [singing] “Ahhhhh…eu vou pra longe…!” Super Marvin Gaye style. But that was it, I had to step away from the process. I realized that I need to trust Adrian, jump towards the abyss without a parachute, so to speak.
I never trusted anyone like this before, someone who would conduct my music. And it was an invitation to do it all that I had to accept. And I knew I wanted to do it, I just had to acclimate to his process. And ultimately, I really identified with the elements that Adrian placed in the middle of these songs; they really felt like me. And I focused on writing lyrics and melodies.
“Viajante do Planeta Azul” is about a time traveller in a spaceship who barters with natives of distant lands. The story continues in a way on the second track off of the album, “O Caçador de Estrelas.” But “Viajante” was the one song we worked on when I was there; everything else came after when I was back in Brazil. Adrian recorded the initial arrangements with Mamão and then sent them to me. Then a year later, Adrian was in Brazil, twice, to record my vocals. We both worked really hard on it all. A lot of sweat.
For four months, I cancelled every appointment, every appearance and worked on this album non-stop; just listening and writing. In the end, it only worked because we trusted each other. It was something atypical for me; an album I would’ve never imagined I’d make on my own. We’re soul brothers in music now. I’m really happy that I went to a place I’d never been before in my life, just like the traveler in the song.
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