A Memory of Egberto Gismonti at Brazil’s MIMO Festival in 2014

Lately I’ve been listening to Egberto Gismonti, one of Brazil’s greatest composers, as I’m working on a piece for DownBeat about a new tribute album to him by virtuoso clarinetist Eddie Daniels. It reminded me of a night in 2014 when I saw Gismonti give a thrilling SRO performance in a church in Paraty, Brazil, as part of the MIMO Festival.  I never got around to posting the article I wrote about that night for DownBeat: here it is.

After the concert, I was invited to go to dinner with him and a group of MIMO staff. He told me about a concert he had given some years earlier attended by his mother and aunt, in which he chose not to play a famous song of his called “Palhaço” (which translates as “Pagliaccio” or “Clown”). As he took his bows, some audience members demanded the song, a fan favorite, repeatedly yelling, “Palhaço, Palhaço!”  His mother and aunt, apparently unfamiliar with the song, took umbrage. Later they told him,  “How can they be so disrespectful! You played so beautifully!” The video below starts slowly, but hang on.