Hermeto Pascoal

The Sorcerer

Hermeto Pascoal Oliveira da Costa was born on June 22, 1936 in Olho d'Água das Flores, Alagoas, and died on September 13, 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, aged 89. He was nicknamed o Bruxo, the Sorcerer, and the Mad Genius. He learned the button accordion from his father, played flute from age seven, and was self-taught on piano, woodwinds and percussion; the Boston Globe says he turned professional at ten and joined a Recife radio house band at 14. He used bath toys, teapots, tuned water bottles, bicycle pumps and his own beard as instruments. In the 1950s he went to Rio and São Paulo, and from 1960 played saxophone with the Som 4 (Conjunto Som 4, Continental, 1964), then the Sambrasa Trio with Airto Moreira and Humberto Clayber (Em Som Maior, 1966), and Quarteto Novo with Airto, Heraldo do Monte and Theo de Barros, whose 1967 album EMI released. Quarteto Novo backed Edu Lobo on "Ponteio" at the Third MPB Festival.

In 1969 he went to the US at Airto Moreira and Flora Purim's invitation, and his debut Hermeto (Cobblestone, 1970) featured Airto, Purim, Joe Farrell and Googie Coppola. Miles Davis recorded his "Igrejinha", "Nem Um Talvez" and "Selim" on Live-Evil (1971), and reportedly called him one of the most important musicians on the planet. A Música Livre de Hermeto Pascoal (1973) won the APCA trophy for best popular music soloist. Slaves Mass (Warner Bros., 1977), produced by Moreira and Purim, has Ron Carter, Raul de Souza and, as the credits joke, live pigs. In 1977 he formed a permanent group, with Nenê on drums, Pernambuco on percussion, Itiberê Zwarg on bass, Rose Marie Pidner on percussion and vocals, Jovino Santos Neto on keyboards and the saxophonists Cacau de Queiroz and Nivaldo Ornelas, and recorded Zabumbe-bum-á (1979), Cérebro Magnético (1980), Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo (1982) and Lagoa da Canoa (1984).

Pascoal wrote one piece for every day of the year from June 1996 to June 1997, including February 29, collected as Calendário do Som, 366 handwritten pieces. He said he was 100 percent intuitive and did not premeditate anything. His 2019 Latin Grammy was for best Portuguese language roots album, and Juilliard gave him an honorary doctorate in 2023. The documentaries Hermeto Campeão (1981) and Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira (1985) preceded Pra Você, Ilza (2024). Wynton Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra have covered him. Setlist.fm lists about 150 setlists, and he played Jazz in Marciac on August 7, 2025.