arXter
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big fan of Brasilian music, i found this yesterday on a Brazilian site and had my friend Antonia help out with the translation. cheers, A. written less than a month ago.
http://jbonline.terra.com.br/extra/2008/08/29/e29087530.html
Brazilian musicians recall working with Jackson
Ricardo Schott, Jornal do Brasil
29/08/2008
RIO - Since the launch of Off The Wall, the record that inaugurated the career of Michael Jackson at Sony, Brazilian musicians have attended the singer's studio on many occasions. The most common of them is Rio percussionist Paulinho da Costa, who has been residing in Los Angeles since the early 70s, participating in every one of the singer’s albums since 1979. During the recording of Thriller, he recalls the singer as being a very nice person, and found him “open and relaxing” to work with. This is echoed by US-based Brazilian Antonio Moogie Canázio who in the early 90s had engineered the recording of Sergio Mendes’s Brasileiro album, ended up being invited by Jackson’s engineer, Bruce Swedien, to take care of some songs from Dangerous - which had hits such as Black Or White, and Remember The Time. He recalls:
– “During the sessions, Jackson was extremely dedicated to his work. It is a detail that is quite antagonistic, if you take into account every success and all the power it garnished” – he tells the Jornal do Brasil, by telephone, from Los Angeles, saying that even his idol at the time was the engineer/producer Bruce Swedien. – “He commanded a very good team, very united and with enough time and space to try and find new things, even within a Pop framework.”
Another Brazilian who has worked sessions with Jackson was Lauder de Oliveira, then percussionist of the American pop group Chicago. Lauder worked on the album Destiny (1978), one of the last of the Jacksons with the youngest brother, and ended up being a witness to a moment of rupture in the history of the singer, who shortly thereafter would succeed enormously.
– “I had no pressure, but there was a lot of expectation on [Michael], so that the group is now produced by Quincy Jones, who was then his producer” - Oliveira says, impressed with the gap between the past and present of Jackson. – “The guy I knew in 1978 was humble and shy, and sought opinions from everyone. I never imagined that he would want to turn white or something.”
Two other Brazilians, composers and singers, shared their stories and concluded that relations with the king of pop could have changed their working lives. In 1986, singer-songwriter Djavan received a request from the then Jackson producer, Quincy Jones, to write a song for the singer's next album, Bad (1987). At the time, Djavan and Jones were related professionally: the composer had some of his songs produced by Quincy. The author of Oceano had already crafted the melody for Jackson, and received a letter from Michael himself, but only to apologise.
– “Jones had asked me eight months in advance, imagining how the music would sound like, but he only sent for me to work right at the end of production of the disc. It was the Pop business but still very farfetched, inappropriate for me” - says Djavan, who is a fan of Thriller, Jackson’s classic, an album that was revolutionary. – “It is unbeatable. Michael has that notion of how to go pop and yet not be trivial.”
Despite that the professional contact has not yielded anything, Djavan still recalls seeing the singer, when needed to go to Los Angeles to find Jones. At the time, he was working on Bad at Sunset Sound studio.
– “He was in the studio, watching a cartoon on TV, laughing a lot. And he was painted in red, like a gangster” – he recalls, pointing out a detail that also drew his attention – “Jackson seemed like a startled bird, looking a bit shy and nervous at us to his side, and when I looked at him directly, his eyes turned back!”
Ivan Lins was another Brazilian to almost write for Jackson, for his Thriller album. Differences between the singer, his partner Vitor Martins and one of Quincy Jones’s lawyers prevented him from making the final cut. He composed a song with lyrics in English by Rod Temperton.
– “The lawyer wanted to give us a pothole and we spent eight months fighting. We didn’t even know if they actually heard the music” - says the singer, who personally met Jackson in 1981 in an unusual situation: the king of pop was one of the guests at a dinner part in the home of Quincy Jones in Los Angeles. – “He played with Jones’s daughters, completely unaware of anything else. The (singer) Patti Austin told me he was always shy and that when he had to go on stage, he needed a push.”
http://jbonline.terra.com.br/extra/2008/08/29/e29087530.html
Brazilian musicians recall working with Jackson
Ricardo Schott, Jornal do Brasil
29/08/2008
RIO - Since the launch of Off The Wall, the record that inaugurated the career of Michael Jackson at Sony, Brazilian musicians have attended the singer's studio on many occasions. The most common of them is Rio percussionist Paulinho da Costa, who has been residing in Los Angeles since the early 70s, participating in every one of the singer’s albums since 1979. During the recording of Thriller, he recalls the singer as being a very nice person, and found him “open and relaxing” to work with. This is echoed by US-based Brazilian Antonio Moogie Canázio who in the early 90s had engineered the recording of Sergio Mendes’s Brasileiro album, ended up being invited by Jackson’s engineer, Bruce Swedien, to take care of some songs from Dangerous - which had hits such as Black Or White, and Remember The Time. He recalls:
– “During the sessions, Jackson was extremely dedicated to his work. It is a detail that is quite antagonistic, if you take into account every success and all the power it garnished” – he tells the Jornal do Brasil, by telephone, from Los Angeles, saying that even his idol at the time was the engineer/producer Bruce Swedien. – “He commanded a very good team, very united and with enough time and space to try and find new things, even within a Pop framework.”
Another Brazilian who has worked sessions with Jackson was Lauder de Oliveira, then percussionist of the American pop group Chicago. Lauder worked on the album Destiny (1978), one of the last of the Jacksons with the youngest brother, and ended up being a witness to a moment of rupture in the history of the singer, who shortly thereafter would succeed enormously.
– “I had no pressure, but there was a lot of expectation on [Michael], so that the group is now produced by Quincy Jones, who was then his producer” - Oliveira says, impressed with the gap between the past and present of Jackson. – “The guy I knew in 1978 was humble and shy, and sought opinions from everyone. I never imagined that he would want to turn white or something.”
Two other Brazilians, composers and singers, shared their stories and concluded that relations with the king of pop could have changed their working lives. In 1986, singer-songwriter Djavan received a request from the then Jackson producer, Quincy Jones, to write a song for the singer's next album, Bad (1987). At the time, Djavan and Jones were related professionally: the composer had some of his songs produced by Quincy. The author of Oceano had already crafted the melody for Jackson, and received a letter from Michael himself, but only to apologise.
– “Jones had asked me eight months in advance, imagining how the music would sound like, but he only sent for me to work right at the end of production of the disc. It was the Pop business but still very farfetched, inappropriate for me” - says Djavan, who is a fan of Thriller, Jackson’s classic, an album that was revolutionary. – “It is unbeatable. Michael has that notion of how to go pop and yet not be trivial.”
Despite that the professional contact has not yielded anything, Djavan still recalls seeing the singer, when needed to go to Los Angeles to find Jones. At the time, he was working on Bad at Sunset Sound studio.
– “He was in the studio, watching a cartoon on TV, laughing a lot. And he was painted in red, like a gangster” – he recalls, pointing out a detail that also drew his attention – “Jackson seemed like a startled bird, looking a bit shy and nervous at us to his side, and when I looked at him directly, his eyes turned back!”
Ivan Lins was another Brazilian to almost write for Jackson, for his Thriller album. Differences between the singer, his partner Vitor Martins and one of Quincy Jones’s lawyers prevented him from making the final cut. He composed a song with lyrics in English by Rod Temperton.
– “The lawyer wanted to give us a pothole and we spent eight months fighting. We didn’t even know if they actually heard the music” - says the singer, who personally met Jackson in 1981 in an unusual situation: the king of pop was one of the guests at a dinner part in the home of Quincy Jones in Los Angeles. – “He played with Jones’s daughters, completely unaware of anything else. The (singer) Patti Austin told me he was always shy and that when he had to go on stage, he needed a push.”
