Tom Zé | |
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 Tom Zé in 2019 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Antônio José Santana Martins (1936-10-11)11 October 1936 (age 89) |
| Origin | São Paulo, Brazil |
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| Years active | 1960s–present |
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| Website | http://www.tomze.com.br/ |
Antônio José Santana Martins (born 11 October 1936), known professionally asTom Zé (Portuguese pronunciation:[ˈtõˈzɛ]), born inIrará,Bahia, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who was influential in theTropicália movement of 1960s Brazil. After the peak of the Tropicália period, Zé went into relative obscurity: it was only in the 1990s, when musician andLuaka Bop label headDavid Byrne discovered Zé's 1975 albumEstudando o Samba and then released reissues of his work, that Zé returned to performing and releasing new material.
Tom Zé grew up in the small town of Irará, Bahia in the drysertão region of the country's Northeast. He would later claim that his hometown was "pre-Gutenbergian", as information was primarily transferred through oral communication. As a child, he was influenced by Brazilian musicians such asLuiz Gonzaga andJackson do Pandeiro.[1] Zé became interested in music by listening to the radio, and moved to the state capital ofSalvador to pursue a degree. He later relocated toSão Paulo and began his career in popular music there.
Much of his early work involved his wry impressions of the massivemetropolitan area, coming as he did, from a small town in the relatively poor northeast.
Influential in theTropicália movement, Zé contributed, along withCaetano Veloso,Gilberto Gil,Gal Costa,Os Mutantes, andNara Leão, to the watershed Tropicália album/manifestoTropicália: ou Panis et Circenses (1968). He also participated in a series of concerts with the musicians. After theBrazilian military government of the 1960s began to crack down on the musicians of Tropicália, Zé moved out of the public eye and began to experiment with novel instruments and composition styles.[2] While the other major figures of Tropicália would go on to great commercial and critical success in later decades, Zé slipped into obscurity in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the early 1990s, Zé's work experienced a revival when American musicianDavid Byrne discovered one of his albums,Estudando o Samba (1976), on a visit toRio de Janeiro. Zé was the first artist signed to theLuaka Bop label and has so far released a compilation and two albums, all of which received positive reviews from critics in the United States.[1]
In 2011, he collaborated withJavelin on the song "Ogodô, Ano 2000" for theRed Hot Organization's most recent charitable albumRed Hot+Rio 2. The album is a follow-up to the 1996Red Hot + Rio. Proceeds from the sales will be donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS, HIV and related health and social issues.
Remaining true to theexperimental andDada impulses of Tropicália, Zé has been noted for both his unorthodox approach tomelody andinstrumentation, employing various objects as instruments such as thetypewriter.[3] He has collaborated with many of theconcrete poets of São Paulo, includingAugusto de Campos, and employed concrete techniques in his lyrics. Musically, his work appropriatessamba,Bossa Nova, Brazilianfolk music,forró, and Americanrock and roll, among others. He has been praised byavant-garde composers for his use ofdissonance,polytonality, and unusualtime signatures. Because of the experimental nature of many of his compositions, Zé has been compared with American musicians such asFrank Zappa andCaptain Beefheart.[4]
One of his last efforts, though, has been a return to Bossa Nova, hisEstudando a Bossa – Nordeste Plaza. Says Zé: "That music has inhabited my psyche for 50 to 60 years. Familiar and profound, yet somehow extraterrestrial in my mind. It had to come out, to be dealt with."[5]
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