Badi Assad

Badi Assad, whose name is pronounced Bah-Jee Ah-Sahj, works as a Brazilian fingerstyle guitarist, vocalist, composer, and percussionist whose sound draws together Brazilian folk and MPB with classical, jazz, and additional world traditions. Prepared guitar methods frequently appear in her work to produce distinctive timbres, while her singing moves between English and Portuguese. Worldwide attention arrived via the 1994 Chesky release Solo. She later joined Universal to issue 1998’s Chameleon. The 2003 collaboration Three Guitars, recorded with Larry Coryell and John Abercrombie, preceded an extensive sold-out tour. After those dates she delivered the charting 2004 album Verde and the 2006 album Wonderland on Deutsche Grammophon, then stepped away from recording for six years. Both the 2013 return Amor e Outras Manias Crônicas and 2014’s Between Love and Luck appeared on the Quatro Ventos imprint she founded. Following the English-language Hatched in 2015 she completed a book before resurfacing in 2020 with Around the World on Ropeadope. Chesky later supplied a remastered edition of Solo in 2021.

Born Mariângela Assad Simão in São Paulo state, she grew up in Rio de Janeiro inside a notably musical household. Father Jorge Assad worked as a watchmaker and master bandolim player; her mother performed as a singer; and her older twin brothers Sergio and Odair Assad formed the internationally recognized guitar duo known as the Assad Brothers. Nieces Clarice Assad, active as pianist, composer, and arranger, and Carolina Assad, a singer, complete the family circle. Piano lessons began at age eight, yet at fourteen she switched to guitar in emulation of her brothers. When Sergio and Odair turned professional, the task of accompanying their father passed to Badi, who accepted it with enthusiasm. Further training at the University Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro led to a first-place finish in the 1984 Young Instrumentalist Contest.

Her first professional appearance occurred in 1986 as a member of the Guitar Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro under conductor Turbio Santos. That same year she both sang and acted in Tatiana Cobbett’s musical Mulheres de Hollanda, drawn from the writings of Chico Buarque. A 1987 tour with guitarist Françoise-Emmanuelle Denis under the Duo Romantique banner took her through Israel, Europe, and Brazil. In 1988 she created and performed the solo piece “Antagonism,” combining guitar, vocals, acting, and dance.

The limited Brazilian pressing of her debut album Dança dos Tons appeared in 1989 in an edition of two thousand copies; a 2003 reissue added bonus tracks and retitled the collection Dança das Ondas. Alongside already refined guitar work, the record introduced her practice of generating percussive effects vocally, a technique that later became habitual. Relocating to New York, she secured a contract with Chesky Records and recorded the international debut Solo in 1994 under the production of brother Sergio; the earlier 1995 album Rhythms, featuring percussionist Cyro Baptista, had actually preceded it on the label. Guitar Player’s editorial staff named her Best Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitarist, while readers voted the album among the year’s strongest releases. The 1997 instrumental Echoes of Brazil followed and received favorable international notices.

Co-written and produced with musical and life partner Jeff Young, formerly of Megadeth, the 1998 album Chameleon appeared on the Polygram-distributed I.E. Music label. It earned critical praise, reached the top of world-music charts in Germany and Holland, and was selected by JAZZIZ readers as Best Brazilian Album of the Year. Shortly afterward Assad developed focal dystonia that severely restricted her playing, resulting in nearly two years away from the instrument; she also ended her marriage and returned to Brazil during the same interval.

Once recovered, she resumed activity through collaborations, appearing on Nowhere with Young in 2002 and contributing to the expanded reissue of Dança das Ondas. The same year brought the Chesky trio project Three Guitars alongside Larry Coryell and John Abercrombie; the group toured to sold-out houses, with her polyrhythmic approach consistently highlighted. Signing with Deutsche Grammophon’s Edge Music imprint, she released the well-received Verde in 2005, supported by a septet that included percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and niece Carolina Assad on vocals. Wonderland followed in 2007, an ambitious project inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland that reinterpreted progressive pop material by Eurythmics, Vangelis, and Tori Amos, among others, with Carolina serving as one of the arrangers. The album placed on the BBC’s year-end list and became her first international best-seller. After touring she gave birth, resettled in Brazil, and began a six-year recording hiatus focused on motherhood.

She eventually resumed releasing music independently, launching the Quatro Ventos label and issuing the 2012 comeback Amor e Outras Manias Crônicas. In July of that year she performed the complete Verde repertoire, accompanied solely by voice, guitar, and kalimba, for twenty-three dancers from the Bahian Dance Company of the Municipal Theater (BTCA) at the Venice Biennale. The charting 2013 album Between Love and Luck contained thirteen tracks, all but one written or co-written by Assad. January 2014 brought a commission from the Guitar Festival Marathon in New York to curate the festival and compose a score for the 1934 silent Chinese film The Goddess, which she performed live at Merkin Hall. Rolling Stone later listed her among the world’s Top 100 Guitarists, and she won the U.S. Songwriting Competition in the World Music category that year.

Privately released in 2015, the children’s album Cantos de Casa preceded a German edition of Amor e Outras Manias Crônicas issued by O-Tone Music under the translated title Love and Other Manias. Genesis at the Crossroads, the Chicago-based global peace-building organization, invited her participation in the Saffron Caravan multicultural ensemble alongside Moroccan vocalist Aaron Bensoussan, Arab-Israeli oud master Haytham Safia, and Venezuelan percussionist Javier Saume Mazzei; she contributed guitar and vocals while also serving on round-table panels addressing arts and conflict transformation and teaching music and peace-building curricula at the Genesis Academy Summer Institute for youth from conflict zones.

The 2016 album Hatched presented radically rearranged covers of well-known pop songs including Lorde’s “Royals,” “The Hanging Tree” (the Hunger Games theme co-written by author Suzanne Collins with composer James Newton Howard and the Lumineers’ Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz), Mumford and Sons’ “Little Lion Man,” and Skrillex’s “Stranger,” together with three new originals; reviewers praised its inventive and sensitive treatments.

Following extended touring, Assad wrote the book Volta ao mundo em 80 artistas (“Around the World with 80 Artists”), an autobiographical survey of musicians drawn from every continent—among them Chico Buarque and Björk—that expanded a series of early-2000s guest columns originally published in Top Magazine and added newly composed essays. December 2020 saw the release of Around the World on Ropeadope; recorded by Ricky Fataar at Historic Studio in Berkeley, California, the ten-song collection served as a sonic counterpart to the book, presenting solo arrangements in multiple languages of material by Lenine and Braulio Tavares, Björk, Alt-J, and additional originals. Chesky Records supplied a remastered Solo in 2021.