By Josef Woodard | Published January 2022
Among guitar legends, Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete has long been semi-hiding in plain sight, a natural virtuoso and distinctive stylist championed by many, yet failed to achieve due lofty status. To the Brazilian tool of the nylon-string guitar, Sete brought a vulnerable, raw and sophisticated approach — an electric intensity, sans amplification. He possessed an ever-active (sometimes hyperactive) musical mind, attached to quicksilver, spidery fingers.
Thankfully, this superb new compilation of live tracks from Seattle’s Penthouse in the late 1960s — assembled by master archivist Zev Feldman for Tompkins Square — should help rectify Sete’s stature in the jazz and broader music world.
What makes the three-disc set special are twin attributes, as something at once sweeping and intimate, offering a fuller measure of what set him apart than some of his tidier studio recordings. We hear Sete, in clean, you-are-there fidelity, moving smoothly or brusquely (he expertly melded the two) through nearly 30 tracks. Avant-folk icon John Fahey was an acolyte, and his poetic essay about Sete for Guitar Player magazine is featured in the booklet.
Sete’s musical range roved from Brazilian favorites — Antonio Carlos Jobim, Baden Powell, Luis Bonfa’s “Black Orpheus,” and originals — to standards, Spanish guitar repertoire, a pinch of decidedly unfussy Bach and Sete’s interpretive charisma throughout. Highlights include inventive recreations of “Satin Doll,” his chordal arabesque around “Corcovado,” a vibrant shake-up of “Meditação” and a bittersweet take on Villa-Lobos’ “Prelude No. 3 in A Minor.”
Samba In Seattle offers a dive into Sete’s raw goods in hearty portions — ample evidence that this outlier deserves a more central spotlight in the guitar pantheon.
Samba In Seattle: Live At The Penthouse (1966–1968): Consolação; Meditação; Prelude No. 1; Soul Samba; Deve Ser Amour; Valsa de Uma Cidade; Garota de Ipanema; Malagueña; The Shadow Of Your Smile; Satin Doll; Spanish Dance No. Five; Prelude No. 3 In A Minor; Manhã de Carnaval; A Felicidade; Samba de Orfeu; Samba de Avião; Valsa de Uma Cidade; Asturias; Partis In E Major, BWV 1006a III. Gavotte ‘en Rondeau; Trizteza; Corcovado; Deve Ser Amour; Consolação; O Barquinho; One Note Samba; Satin Doll; Recuerdos de la Alhambra. (2:35:12)
Personnel: Bola Sete, guitar; Sebastião Neto, bass; Paulinho Magalhães, drums.
Ordering Info: tompkinssquare.com
