Baden Powell

Baden Powell

Born: August 6, 1937
Died: September 26, 2000
in Varre-Sai, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Baden Powell de Aquino (6 August 1937 – 26 September 2000), known professionally as Baden Powell, was a Brazilian guitarist. He combined classical techniques with popular harmony and swing. He performed in many styles, including bossa nova, samba, Brazilian jazz, Latin jazz and MPB. He performed on stage during most of his lifetime. Powell composed many pieces for guitar, such as "Abração em Madrid", "Braziliense", "Canto de Ossanha", "Casa Velha", "Consolação", "Horizon", "Imagem", "Lotus", "Samba", "Samba Triste", "Simplesmente", "Tristeza e Solidão", and "Samba da Benção". He released Os Afro-sambas, a watershed album in MPB, with Vinicius de Moraes in 1966.

Baden Powell de Aquino was born in Varre-Sai in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, a Scouting enthusiast, named him after Robert Baden-Powell. When he was three months old, his family relocated to the Rio suburb of São Cristóvão. His house was a stop for popular musicians during his formative years. He started guitar lessons with Jayme Florence, a famous choro guitarist in the 1940s. He soon proved a young virtuoso, having won many talent competitions before he was a teenager. At age fifteen, he was playing professionally, accompanying singers and bands in various styles. He was fascinated by swing and jazz, but his main influences were in the Brazilian guitar canon.

In 1955, Powell played with the Steve Bernard Orquestra at the Boite Plaza, a nightclub within the Plaza Hotel in Rio, where his skill got the attention of the jazz trio playing across the lobby at the Plaza Bar. When Ed Lincoln needed to form a new trio, he asked Powell to join on guitar to become the Hotel Plaza Trio. Powell brought in Luiz Marinho on bass and a fourth member of the "trio": Claudette Soares on vocals. Powell, Lincoln, and their young musician friends took part in after-hours jam sessions, gaining notice in the growing Brazilian jazz scene.

Powell achieved wider fame in 1959 by convincing Billy Blanco, an established singer and songwriter, to put lyrics to one of Baden's compositions. The result was called "Samba Triste" and quickly became very successful. It has been covered by many artists, including Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd in their seminal LP Jazz Samba.

In 1962, Powell met the poet-diplomat Vinicius de Moraes and began a collaboration that yielded classics of 1960s Brazilian music. Although bossa nova was the prevailing sound at the time, Baden and Vinicius wanted to combine samba with Afro-Brazilian forms such as candomblé, umbanda, and capoeira. In 1966 they released Os Afro-Sambas de Baden e Vinicius.

Powell studied advanced harmony with Moacir Santos and released recordings on the Brazilian labels Elenco Records and Forma, as well as in the French label Barclay and the German label MPS/Saba (notably, his 1966 Tristeza on Guitar). He was the house guitarist for Elenco, and of the singer Elis Regina's TV show O Fino da Bossa.

In 1968, Powell joined with poet Paulo César Pinheiro and produced another series of Afro-Brazilian-inspired music, released in 1970 as Os Cantores da Lapinha.

Powell visited and toured Europe frequently in the 1960s, relocating permanently to France in 1968. ...

Source: Article "Baden Powell (guitarist)" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Movies for Baden Powell...

Pixinguinha: Um Homem Carinhoso
Title: Pixinguinha: Um Homem Carinhoso
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 11, 2021
Type: Movie
The life of legendary Brazilian musician Alfredo da Rocha Vianna Filho, better known as Pixinguinha.
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Garoto - Vivo Sonhando
Title: Garoto - Vivo Sonhando
Character: Self
Released: September 10, 2020
Type: Movie
A prodigy of stringed instruments, a pioneer of Bossa Nova, a modernizing master of the guitar: Aníbal Augusto Sardinha, better known as Garoto (1915-1955), is one of the hidden pillars of Brazilian music. Woven by rare archival material, personal diaries and testimonies, this documentary reveals his influence and the artistic conflicts of an avant-garde artist in the golden age of Brazilian radio.
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Memórias do Grupo Opinião
Title: Memórias do Grupo Opinião
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: May 15, 2019
Type: Movie
Follows the story of Opinião, a theatre group created in 1964 during the early Brazilian dictatorship period to oppose the government through artistic performances. Considered the first left-wing response to the dictatorship, the group gathered now famous Brazilian artists such as Nara Leão, Maria Bethânia, João do Vale and Millôr Fernandes.
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Vinicius de Moraes
Title: Vinicius de Moraes
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 1, 2005
Type: Movie
To celebrate the life and the work of a multifaceted creator – playwright, poet, partner of the most important names of Brazilian pop music and, above all, an enlightened character of the Brazilian cultural history - director Miguel Faria Jr. gathered an incomparable cast of partners, singers, friends and rare images from the archives recalling Vinícius’ genial simplicity, with the spontaneity, the humor, and the freedom of a person chatting over a bar table, exactly how the eternal Vinícius would enjoy.
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Viva Volta
Title: Viva Volta
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: October 21, 2005
Type: Movie
A documentary on Brazilian trombone player Raul de Souza who, since 1996, has lived in Paris and suffers because he goes unnoticed, unrewarded in his native land. With the sound of his trombone for a background, the film takes him back to Bangu, in Rio de Janeiro, and retraces his trajectory.
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Coisa Mais Linda - Histórias e Casos da Bossa Nova
Title: Coisa Mais Linda - Histórias e Casos da Bossa Nova
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: January 1, 2005
Type: Movie
Documentary about the birth of bossa-nova, in Brazil, and the major stars of this musical style.
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Velho Amigo - O Universo Musical De Baden Powell
Title: Velho Amigo - O Universo Musical De Baden Powell
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 2003
Type: Movie
Documentary on Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell.
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Title: Numéro un
Character: Self
Released: April 5, 1975
Type: TV
A French variety show.
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Title: Midi Première
Character: Self
Released: January 6, 1975
Type: TV
Midi Première is a French variety show presented by Danièle Gilbert, directed by Jacques Pierre and broadcast from January 6, 1975 until January 1, 1982 on TF1. The program was generally broadcast between 12:15 p.m. and 12:55 p.m., then giving way to the 1:00 p.m. TV news. However, the broadcast schedule could change, depending on the guests, and the setting where the recording of the program was shot. Certain performances by artists who have become cult like the one where Ringo jostles with a demonstrator in interpretation (1977), that of Dalida with the title There is always a song with the soundtrack that does not start, twice, at the right speed (1978), Claude François and his Clodettes, who, in the provinces, are unable to join "the set" in order to interpret his song, the latter being taken by the crowd of delirious fans (summer 1977) . The group Supertramp performed there with the title "Dreamer" on March 8, 1975.
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Title: Le Grand Échiquier
Character: Self
Released: January 12, 1972
Type: TV
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O Tempo e o Som
Title: O Tempo e o Som
Character: Self
Released: January 1, 1970
Type: Movie
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Saravah
Title: Saravah
Character: Self
Released: January 31, 1969
Type: Movie
Documentary about Brazilian music circa 1969, with extremely rare scenes, such as the only color footage of Pixinguinha, images of João da Baiana, one of the fathers of Samba, Maria Bethânia rehearsing at Barroco nightclub, Baden Powell playing his acoustic guitar, Paulinho da Viola showing his masterpiece "Coisas do Mundo, Minha Nega", that he had just finished, and Márcia, a singer from São Paulo.
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Mar Corrente
Title: Mar Corrente
Character: The Violinist
Released: June 30, 1967
Type: Movie
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The Girl from Ipanema
Title: The Girl from Ipanema
Character: Self
Released: May 26, 1967
Type: Movie
Chronicles the life of a 17 year-old girl living in the upper-class Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood of Ipanema. Márcia lives a life of parties and spend her days among bohemians, musicians and intellectuals. While seeming happy in the outside, she's extremely anguished inside. Based on the famous song by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes.