Creolizing Chopin

Tom Zé gives a wonderful demonstration of “creolization” is this 1991 interview. After he won a music festival with his song “Silêncio de Nós Dois”, a newspaper claimed he had plagiarized the music from Garcia Lorca. This wasn’t true (he says,) but the accusation prompted him to compose a song that was nothing but plagiarism — entirely made up of music and words from other people. In this clip, Tom Zé shows how he appropriated the harmony from Chopin’s étude No2 and re-mixed it with a rythm from popular Brazilian music to create the melody for a new song “Se o caso é chorar” (which won the next year’s festival)

Here is a transcription of what he is saying (thanks, Guilherme)

bom a… o primeiro plágio é a harmonia que é do Estudo Número 2 de Chopin… que a harmonia é essa…
(plays the harmony)
que vocês aliás já conhecem na Música Popular Brasileira só batida um pouquinho diferente que é assim.
(plays the rhythm)
É do Estudo Número 2 de Chopin.
(the two together)
“A insensatez que você fez
Coração tão sem cuidado”

(he then continues on to explain where he ‘borrowed’ every phrase in that song. See the full 5-minute interview – pure Zé)

Zé is neither the first nor the last musician to appropriate other people’s music and lyrics (for a masterful treatment of the history of re-mix – and much more – stay tuned for Aram Sinnreich’s upcoming dissertation.) But this 30-second clip is a wonderfully concise way to get the point across in a presentation.

Tom Zé is an iconic figure for us at the abaporu project, and a terrific guide as we explore appropriation. In 1963, he met Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso in Salvador when they were hatching Tropicalismo. Zé joined them (along with Gal Costa, Nara Leão, and Os Mutantes) to record the album/manifesto Tropicália, which features his song “Parque Industrial.” Tropicalismo directly built on the Antropofagia movement of the late 1920’s, which had been launched by Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto Antropófago… itself inspired by Tarsila do Amaral’s painting Abaporu. So, we are in excellent company.

There is a lot of easily accessible Tom Zé music on the net. A free download of his 1976 LP “Estudando o Samba” is available via the always excellent Loronix blog (many thanks to Josh Kun for pointing out that treasure trove of ‘forgotten music’). More recent albums can be streamed from Trama, or David Byrne’s LuakaBop.

Recommended reading: Josh Kun’s 1999 interview of Tom Zé in the Boston Phoenix: Plagiarize This!

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