Bola Sete: Brazilian Guitarist

Introduction

Djalma de Andrade, known professionally as Bola Sete (Rio de Janeiro, July 16, 1923 – Greenbrae, California, February 14, 1987), was a Brazilian guitarist and composer.

Formed in the world of choro, samba, the radio regionais (small string-based ensembles that backed singers and soloists on Brazilian radio) and the nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro, he later built a major international career, carrying elements of Brazilian guitar playing into American jazz and into a range of instrumental music settings.

Formative years

Bola Sete was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up in a family of modest means, but one surrounded by musicians and string instruments. As a child he began playing cavaquinho and later the guitar.

Among his relatives was the guitarist Jorge Santos, who would later join Waldir Azevedo's regional. This household exposure to samba, choro and string instruments played an important part in his formation. Bola Sete later broadened his studies, taking up the concert repertoire and formal guitar technique as well.

The stage name Bola Sete dates from the early part of his career and is generally associated with the black seven ball in billiards.

In his youth he frequented the area around Praça Tiradentes, an important center of Rio's cultural life, where theaters, dance halls, cabarets and variety houses were concentrated. It was in this setting that he began to establish himself professionally in music.

Rádio Nacional

During the 1940s, Bola Sete played in the ensemble attached to the program Trem da Alegria, led by Lamartine Babo, Yara Salles and Heber de Bôscoli.

The experience helped open the way to Rádio Nacional, where he worked on some of the station's leading music programs.

On Um Milhão de Melodias he was part of the plucked-string section of Radamés Gnattali's Orquestra Brasileira, working alongside musicians such as Garoto and Zé Menezes.

He also took part in Música em Surdina, directed by Paulo Tapajós, with Zé Menezes and Chiquinho do Acordeon, and in Chorando as Mágoas, accompanying the clarinetist and saxophonist Luiz Americano together with the guitarist Norival Guimarães.

This period at Rádio Nacional put Bola Sete in direct contact with some of the foremost instrumentalists, composers and arrangers in Brazilian music at the time.

From Rio's nightlife to an international career

Alongside his radio work, Bola Sete performed intensively in the nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro, especially in Copacabana and downtown.

He appeared at venues such as Casablanca, Beguin, Cangaceiro, Ma Griffe, Plaza and Little Club. During some of these engagements he accompanied Dolores Duran, then early in her career.

Nightclub work demanded command of very diverse repertoires, an ability to improvise and the speed to adapt accompaniments and arrangements on the spot. That experience shaped the versatility that would become one of Bola Sete's defining traits.

After touring South America and Europe, he began working in the United States, where he would eventually settle.

In 1962 he took part in the concert of Brazilian music at Carnegie Hall in New York, amid bossa nova's growing international visibility. In the same period he performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival, an event he would return to later on.

Bola Sete and jazz

In the United States, Bola Sete found in jazz a particularly fertile environment for his way of playing.

In 1962 he recorded the album New Wave! with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, combining elements of jazz, samba and bossa nova.

Shortly afterward he began an important partnership with pianist Vince Guaraldi. Between 1963 and 1966 the two performed regularly in California clubs and recorded albums such as Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends, From All Sides and Live at El Matador.

Bola Sete did not abandon the language of the Brazilian guitar when he entered the jazz world. His phrasing remained marked by choro and samba, while the improvisation and harmonic freedom of jazz expanded the possibilities of his music.

The independence between bass lines, chords and melodies allowed the guitar to function almost as a small ensemble. The instrument could take on rhythmic, harmonic and melodic functions at once, a quality that became one of the hallmarks of his playing.

To choro and samba, Bola Sete added elements of baião (a dance genre from Brazil's Northeast), flamenco and the concert repertoire, creating an instrumental language difficult to place within a single genre.

Choro

Before his international career, Bola Sete already had a direct relationship with the world of choro.

In 1948 he recorded Bola Sete no Choro, accompanied by Arlindo on guitars, Pinguim on cavaquinho and Pernambuco do Pandeiro, in a lineup characteristic of the regionais.

In 1952 he recorded his own choros Sem Compromisso and Tô de Sinuca with the Conjunto Todamérica.

He also recorded works by other composers connected to the Brazilian guitar, among them Meditando, by Garoto.

The agile phrasing, the ornamentation, the independence between melody and accompaniment and the weight given to rhythm would remain present even after Bola Sete began working mainly on the international jazz circuit.

His work shows a continuity between the guitar playing developed in the Brazilian regionais and the language he would later present in the United States.

The trio and the Monterey Festival

In the 1960s, Bola Sete formed a Brazilian trio with Tião Neto on double bass and Paulinho da Costa on drums and percussion.

The group brought together samba, choro, baião, jazz improvisation and the various resources of the Brazilian guitar.

It is documented on the album Autêntico!, from 1966, and on Bola Sete at the Monterey Jazz Festival, released in 1967.

On these recordings Bola Sete explores both the role of soloist and that of accompanist, using bass notes, chords, melodic lines and percussive effects to build an unusually broad instrumental texture.

Later work

From the 1970s onward, Bola Sete increasingly turned toward solo guitar and toward compositions of greater formal freedom.

In 1973 he released Goin' to Rio, dedicated to Brazil and to Baden Powell.

Two years later he recorded Ocean, one of his most singular works. The album features extended pieces, improvisation, open harmonies and a more contemplative approach to the instrument, retaining elements of Brazilian music within a highly personal language.

In the final phase of his career he also released Jungle Suite, in 1982.

Bola Sete died on February 14, 1987, in California, where he had built much of his international career.

Major works

Among his notable compositions and recordings are:

• Bola Sete no Choro
• Sem Compromisso
• Tô de Sinuca
• Baião da Bahia
• Meditando, by Garoto
• Choro nº 1
• Ocean
• Goin' to Rio
• Jungle Suite

Selected discography

• Bola Sete no Choro – 1948
• Sem Compromisso / Tô de Sinuca – 1952
• Meditando / Baião da Bahia – 1953
• Aqui Está o Bola Sete – 1957
• Bola Sete em Hi-Fi – 1958
• Bossa Nova – 1962
• New Wave!, with Dizzy Gillespie – 1962
• Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends – 1963
• Tour de Force – 1964
• The Solo Guitar of Bola Sete – 1965
• The Incomparable Bola Sete – 1965
• Autêntico! – 1966
• Bola Sete at the Monterey Jazz Festival – 1967
• Goin' to Rio – 1973
• Ocean – 1975
• Jungle Suite – 1982

Sources

• Instituto Casa do Choro. Acervo Memória do Choro and documentation on Bola Sete.
• Instituto Moreira Salles. Discografia Brasileira and sound recordings of Bola Sete.
• MELLO, Jorge Carvalho de. "Djalma de Andrade (Bola Sete)." Dicionário do Acervo do Violão Brasileiro.
• RAYS, Luís Gustavo Carvalho Alonso. A trajetória musical do compositor brasileiro Djalma de Andrade, Bola Sete. Master's thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2006.
• FEATHER, Leonard. The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties. New York: Horizon Press, 1966.