Biography
Moacir Santos ranks among Brazil’s foremost arrangers for the way he reshaped the nation’s harmonic vocabulary during the 1950s. Although long underappreciated, his influence ran deep: the list of musicians who studied with him in the 1960s includes Paulo Moura, Oscar Castro-Neves, Baden Powell, Maurício Einhorn, Geraldo Vespar, Bola Sete, Sérgio Mendes, Dom Um Romão, João Donato, Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Dori Caymmi, Airto Moreira, and Flora Purim, among many others. In 1968 Santos joined Henry Mancini’s team of cinema composers; four years afterward he issued his debut American release, The Maestro, which earned a Grammy nomination. Subsequent albums followed: Saudade in 1974, Carnival of the Spirits in 1975, and Opus 3, No. 1 in 1979.
A composer and arranger whose voice remained unmistakably Brazilian, Santos is best known for “Nanã,” written with Mário Teles and later recorded more than 150 times by artists such as Herbie Mann and Kenny Burrell, and for the twelve-part suite “Coisas.” He also collaborated with Vinicius de Moraes on “Triste de Quem,” “Menino Travesso,” “Se Você Disser Que Sim,” and “Lembre-Se,” prompting the poet to salute him in “Samba da Benção.” Santos supplied the arrangements for the 1963 album by Vinicius de Moraes e Odete Lara and scored several films, among them Love in the Pacific, Seara Vermelha—an adaptation of Jorge Amado’s novel directed by R. Aversa—Ganga Zumba for Cacá Diegues, O Santo Médico for Sacha Gordine, and Os Fuzis for Ruy Guerra.
Santos first encountered music in Pernambuco as a member of the local band Flores do Pajeú, where he studied with bandmaster Paixão and, at fourteen, began performing on saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, banjo, guitar, and drums. He left home two years later and worked throughout northeastern Brazil until 1943, when he secured a post at Rádio Clube de Pernambuco. In 1945 he entered the Band of the Military Police of Paraíba, stepping into the tenor and clarinet chair of Rádio Tabajara da Paraíba’s jazz band after Severino Araújo departed for Rio de Janeiro. Two years later he was named conductor of that ensemble.
Santos moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1948; his first engagement was at the gafieira Clube Brasil Danças, where he remained for eighteen years, progressing from saxophonist to conductor and arranger. One month after arriving he also joined Rádio Nacional as solo tenor with the Orquestra do Maestro Chiquinho, a position he held until 1967. Having studied with Hans Joachim Koellreutter and later served as his assistant, Santos was invited in 1951 by Rádio Nacional’s A&R director Paulo Tapajós to become one of the station’s regular conductors and arrangers.
In 1954 he relocated to São Paulo to lead the orchestra of TV Record. Returning to Rio two years afterward, he resumed duties at Rádio Nacional while assisting Ary Barroso in the A&R department of the Rozemblit label and conducting for Copacabana Discos. At the height of his Brazilian success, Santos released his first solo album, Coisas, in 1965; that same year he composed the soundtrack for Love in the Pacific and received a government-sponsored trip to attend its New York premiere. He was inducted into ASCAP in 1966 and left Rádio Nacional the following year.
After settling in Pasadena, California, Santos taught privately until Horace Silver brought him to wider attention. In 1985 he inaugurated the I Free Jazz Festival in Rio de Janeiro alongside Radamés Gnattali. The President of Brazil named him Oficial da Ordem do Rio Branco in 1996; that same year a tribute concert honored him at the Brazilian Summer Festival held at Ford Theater in Los Angeles. Mário Adnet and Zé Nogueira transcribed Santos’s original scores for a double-CD set, Ouro Negro, issued in 2001 with contributions from Milton Nascimento, João Bosco, Joyce, João Donato, Djavan, Gilberto Gil, Ed Motta, and Santos himself. The album debuted with a concert at Teatro João Caetano that was later reprised at that year’s Free Jazz Festival.
A composer and arranger whose voice remained unmistakably Brazilian, Santos is best known for “Nanã,” written with Mário Teles and later recorded more than 150 times by artists such as Herbie Mann and Kenny Burrell, and for the twelve-part suite “Coisas.” He also collaborated with Vinicius de Moraes on “Triste de Quem,” “Menino Travesso,” “Se Você Disser Que Sim,” and “Lembre-Se,” prompting the poet to salute him in “Samba da Benção.” Santos supplied the arrangements for the 1963 album by Vinicius de Moraes e Odete Lara and scored several films, among them Love in the Pacific, Seara Vermelha—an adaptation of Jorge Amado’s novel directed by R. Aversa—Ganga Zumba for Cacá Diegues, O Santo Médico for Sacha Gordine, and Os Fuzis for Ruy Guerra.
Santos first encountered music in Pernambuco as a member of the local band Flores do Pajeú, where he studied with bandmaster Paixão and, at fourteen, began performing on saxophone, clarinet, trumpet, banjo, guitar, and drums. He left home two years later and worked throughout northeastern Brazil until 1943, when he secured a post at Rádio Clube de Pernambuco. In 1945 he entered the Band of the Military Police of Paraíba, stepping into the tenor and clarinet chair of Rádio Tabajara da Paraíba’s jazz band after Severino Araújo departed for Rio de Janeiro. Two years later he was named conductor of that ensemble.
Santos moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1948; his first engagement was at the gafieira Clube Brasil Danças, where he remained for eighteen years, progressing from saxophonist to conductor and arranger. One month after arriving he also joined Rádio Nacional as solo tenor with the Orquestra do Maestro Chiquinho, a position he held until 1967. Having studied with Hans Joachim Koellreutter and later served as his assistant, Santos was invited in 1951 by Rádio Nacional’s A&R director Paulo Tapajós to become one of the station’s regular conductors and arrangers.
In 1954 he relocated to São Paulo to lead the orchestra of TV Record. Returning to Rio two years afterward, he resumed duties at Rádio Nacional while assisting Ary Barroso in the A&R department of the Rozemblit label and conducting for Copacabana Discos. At the height of his Brazilian success, Santos released his first solo album, Coisas, in 1965; that same year he composed the soundtrack for Love in the Pacific and received a government-sponsored trip to attend its New York premiere. He was inducted into ASCAP in 1966 and left Rádio Nacional the following year.
After settling in Pasadena, California, Santos taught privately until Horace Silver brought him to wider attention. In 1985 he inaugurated the I Free Jazz Festival in Rio de Janeiro alongside Radamés Gnattali. The President of Brazil named him Oficial da Ordem do Rio Branco in 1996; that same year a tribute concert honored him at the Brazilian Summer Festival held at Ford Theater in Los Angeles. Mário Adnet and Zé Nogueira transcribed Santos’s original scores for a double-CD set, Ouro Negro, issued in 2001 with contributions from Milton Nascimento, João Bosco, Joyce, João Donato, Djavan, Gilberto Gil, Ed Motta, and Santos himself. The album debuted with a concert at Teatro João Caetano that was later reprised at that year’s Free Jazz Festival.
Albums
Singles
