Bola Sete - Biography
Bola Sete’s music effortlessly crossed boundaries with barely a nod of recognition. Although most would classify him as a jazz guitarist, he was as comfortable with the classical music of Villa-Lobos and Baden Powell, the Cuban-influenced jazz of Dizzy Gillespie, and the solo steel string excursions of John Fahey; not to mention his own, often unclassifiable compositions.
Bola Sete was born Djalma de Andrade in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1923. He acquired his moniker when he was the only black member of a small band; Bola Sete means “Seven Ball,” which is the only black ball on the table in the game of billiards. His earliest influences were some of the earliest jazz guitarists, among them Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian, as well as the more modern work of Barney Kessel.
As a young musician Sete traveled throughout Brazil and the Philippines, playing with a variety of small jazz bands and orchestras. He formed his own band in the late 40s, and toured with this and other combos throughout the 50s, playing in Europe and South America. At the turn of the 60s, he came to America and found work playing in the lounges of the Sheraton Hotel chain. He released his first album, Bola Sete (1962 Sinter) around this time. Through a chance meeting with Dizzy Gillespie, he began to perform with the bebop legend, and received great acclaim for his performance with Gillespie at the Monterey Jazz festival. From this point on his career in the States really took off, and he remained in America for the rest of his life. In 1965 he was named “Best New Guitarist” by Downbeat Magazine. The honor shows the great esteem in which he was held by the jazz community. But like his contemporary Wes Montgomery, Bola was equally at home performing pop tunes, albeit “converting” them, as it were, to his own non-generic style. Gillespie no doubt had an influence on him as well, particularly in his bop-styled melodic improvisations.
The ability of his music to transcend traditional boundaries meant he was able to reach widely disparate audiences, from the jazz fans to the hippie audiences who came to see him headline the famous Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, CA. While his trio music of this period is engaging and danceable, there is an easy-listening aspect to it, especially the material including the somewhat banal flute work of Paul Horn. But his best and most challenging work is his solo material. Sete used the unusual combination of a classical or flamenco guitar strung with steel strings rather than the standard nylon or gut strings. This gave him a more piercing sound than is usually derived from these types of guitars, and brought the edginess in his playing to the fore.
In the 70s, Sete’s most vocal champion was John Fahey. Prior to encountering Sete’s music, Fahey’s music, broadly speaking, could be described as a combination of finger picking styles derived from folk and blues idioms, with traditional melodies interpolated through the 20th century classical music of composers such as Bartok and Stravinsky. After hearing Sete, Fahey began to incorporate Latin styles and material into his compositions for the first time.
But beyond stylistic influence, it could be said that Sete’s biggest influence on Fahey was the way in which he confirmed for the latter the validity of his own approach to his music. He heard struggle, failure and triumph in Sete’s music. If Sete’s trio work is charming and skillful, his solo guitar excursions seek a deeper purchase on the mind and soul of the listener. It is certainly not consistently pleasant or relaxing. His rising and falling tempos, too, resemble Fahey’s in their non-adherence to any metronomic sense of time, and add to the dreamlike quality of the songs.
When Fantasy Records declined to release the exceptionally challenging and sui generis Ocean (1981 Takoma), Fahey released it on his own label. Fahey was quoted around this time as saying something to the effect that Sete’s influence affected not only his music but his life. Those who seek out Ocean should have no difficulty in understanding this; the record is a flat-out masterpiece, a work of passionate artistry to stand beside records as disparate as Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations or Monk’s Blue Note recordings; it’s that good.
It is somewhat ironic that some of Sete’s most challenging and aggressive music found a home on new age label Wyndham Hill. Jungle Suite (1985 Dancing Cat), is subtitled “impressionistic paintings and stories of hidden and magic places.” This may sound like new age clichés, but it turns out to be entirely true. The record takes the listener on a trip through sound-paintings comprised of flamenco passages, single string explorations and sections of drum-like poundings on muted strings and the guitar itself. At times Sete veers into atonal territory resembling the music of avant-garde guitarists Fred Frith and Derek Bailey.
Jungle Suite proved to be Sete’s swan song. Two years after the record’s release, he died at the age of 64. His late-life masterpiece Ocean has since been reissued as the 2CD set Ocean Memories (1999 Samba Moon Records) and incorporates the original Ocean as well as 8 previously unreleased recordings.
The best collection of his trio work is Autentico! Bola Sete and his New Brazilian Trio (1966 Fantasy) which is out of print but worth tracking down on vinyl. For his solo work, Ocean Memories is the obvious first among equals, but all his solo albums are well worth exploring.