The greatest Brazilian musician of all time.

I hesitated a lot before deciding on the title above. I pondered to myself: but, geez, Brazil is a breeding ground for immense musicians, to state the obvious. We have as many musical stars as we do in football. Brazil is the country of football and music. We had the erudite Carlos Gomes and Villa-Lobos, incomparable; the carnival-loving Chiquinha Gonzaga, original and funny; we had the genius Pixinguinha, we have exceptional pianists like João Carlos Martins, we had Tom Jobim, Baden Powell, Naná Vasconcelos... wouldn't it be too audacious to choose just one as the best? Brazilian concert pianists are always in the musical Olympus, all over the globe. Men and women. I would certainly be ridiculed, whatever my choice. And who am I to make it, I who know absolutely nothing about music—besides listening, of course, for more than sixty years. I open a brief parenthesis.

When I was about 12 years old, I was interviewed on a program called "The Listener Chooses the Music," or something like that, hosted by Enzo de Almeida Passos on Rádio Bandeirantes, which was located in a tiny building near the Municipal Market, not in Morumbi. My card was drawn, and I had to justify my choices live on air. I could barely reach the microphone on the table. The host was puzzled. He couldn't understand how a kid like me had chosen such tasteful adult songs, like "I Can't Stop Loving You" by Ray Charles and "Momentos" by Agostinho dos Santos.

Continuing.

I only met Hermeto Pascoal once. I think it was back in the dinosaur era. I interviewed him at Estúdio Eldorado, on one of the upper floors of the building with a giant clock on the roof, where the newsrooms of [the newspaper/publication] were located. Estadão and Jornal da Tarde.

What I saw then I'll never forget. At one point, he started fiddling with the strap of his guitar case and, suddenly, from that banal and unremarkable metallic object, manipulated by his thick fingers, a harmonious and rhythmic melody sprang forth. I only believed it because I was seeing it. The interview could have ended there. Without words. His words were the notes.

Hermeto was not the man of seven instruments, but of... n Instruments. He wasn't just an incredible pianist, like so many talented Brazilians, a marvelous saxophonist, like so many talented Brazilians, a drummer, a flautist, etc.; he created his own instruments out of nothing, he played anything, he was the alchemist: from anything that produced a sound, he made an orchestral instrument. That was it, Hermeto was an orchestra, a virtuoso with a Stradivarius or a can opener. There has never been anyone like him or even close.

He left behind a great body of recorded work, thankfully, and an even greater unrecorded one, which remains in the memory of those who knew him, like me, at that meeting in Eldorado Studio.