Ivinho

Ivinho played a foundational role in the pop and rock sound that developed across Brazil’s Northeast throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a movement that later produced Alceu Valença, Zé Ramalho, Ednardo, and others. As a virtuoso guitarist he shaped Northeastern pop and rock while performing in the seminal groups Tamarineira Village and Ave Sangria. He later joined Alceu Valença’s band and contributed to recordings by Ednardo, Xangai, and Vital Farias. The peak of his career arrived with a solo set at the Montreux International Jazz Festival in 1978, consisting almost entirely of spontaneous improvisations delivered alone on 12-string guitar; the performance was captured and issued as Ivinho Ao Vivo on Warner. His entry into music came in 1966 with the dance band Os Selvagens. In 1972 he entered Tamarineira Village before moving to Ave Sangria, two groups central to the psychedelic seventies and major influences on the Northeastern pop aesthetic. While with Ave Sangria he played every instrument except drums on the album Ave Sangria, released by Continental in 1974. He then became a member of Alceu Valença’s band and, together with three other former Ave Sangria musicians, appeared at TV Globo’s 1975 festival Abertura. After Montreux, Ivinho descended into a chemical dependency that destroyed his mental stability and removed him from the music scene, so that his planned second album, Caçador de Frutas on Continental, was never completed.