SAN DIEGO — Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis publicly disagreed about a number of music-related topics. But the two jazz trumpet superstars were of the same mind when it came to Brazilian music giant Hermeto Pascoal, whose death Saturday at the age of 89 robs the world of a singularly gifted and daring sonic innovator.

The notoriously difficult-to-please Davis called Pascoal “the most impressive musician in the world” after recording with him. Davis was so impressed that he featured three of Pascoal’s compositions on “Live-Evil,” Davis’ epic 1971 double-album.

Marsalis was even more effusive when he presented Pascoal with an honorary doctorate in music in 2023 at New York’s Julliard School of Music.

“You are known universally as ‘O Bruxo,’ ‘the sorcerer’,” Marsalis said. “Every musician who has worked with you throughout your long career has been forever touched by your magic. You are a towering, central figure in the history of Brazilian music, though your influence and creativity are felt in every corner of the world…

“Even though your sight is impaired by congenital myopia, you are a compulsive composer with a constant flow of fresh ideas which you write on paper napkins, concert programs, hats (like the one you are wearing today), and that you draw like artwork on the walls that you pass. Every day, anyway, anywhere and everywhere, you write with intensity and with a burning, unquenchable fury.”

Pascoal summarized his work more simply, saying: “I don’t play one style, I play nearly all of them!”

It was a statement of fact, not a boast. So was his devotion to giving himself up entirely to his work.

“Music for me is like diving into the sea, and I dive in with all my body and soul,” Pascoal told me in a 1989 Union-Tribune interview. “I give myself totally to it, and sometimes I like to shake things up and shock people,”

Mixing lesser-known Brazilian styles such as frevo, chorinho and baiao with jazz, contemporary classical music and anything else that resonated with him, Pascoal and his band created lithe, swirling melodies, dense orchestrations and unexpected polyrhythmic accents. His compositions glided from exceptionally intricate arrangements to free-form flights of fancy and back again with remarkable grace, fluidity and pinpoint dynamic precision.

Pascoal performed masterfully on keyboards, saxophones, bass clarinet, accordion and an array of other instruments. He was also able to achieve a deep musicality by blowing into tea kettles, partly filled glass bottles and even “playing” his formidable beard. His concerts, which could stretch up to five hours, sometimes featured ,miniature electric trains traversing the stage and barnyard animals that wandered freely among the musicians to provide spontaneous aural and visual counterpoint.

“I would compare the development of my concerts to when you look at the sky at dusk and the stars are just starting to appear,” Pascoal said his Union-Tribune interview. “This is how it is on stage. You see, my band are the little stars that start to appear, and I am another star that joins with the others, and it all flows from there.”

The flow of his music made waves with fellow performers and audiences around the world.

Accordingly, Davis and Marsalis were not the only high-profile musicians who happily sang Pascoal’s praises in Union-Tribune interviews in the late 1980s.

“Hermeto is a genius. He is a monster musician,” top Brazilian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins said. “For me, he is absolutely the best Brazilian musician.”

Jazz bass great Charlie Haden was similarly wowed.

“When my band was touring in Brazil, Hermeto invited our saxophonist, Ernie Watts, to his house so that Ernie could hear Hermeto’s band rehearse,” Haden said. “While the band was rehearsing, he wrote a wonderful new song for Ernie, at the same time his band was playing a completely different song a few feet away … He’s amazing.”

As far as Pascoal was concerned, it was predestined that he would devote his life to music.

“I was a musician even before I came to this world; I already had the musical gift,” Pascoal told me in our 1989 interview. “The most important sound I made was the first cry when I came out of my mother’s womb. That was the moment I knew I would be a musician.”

Pascoal’s music was performed by such varied artists as trumpet icon Davis, the Marsalis-led Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, saxophonist Kamasi Washington and a good number more.

But nothing compared to hearing Pascoal and his band — who were billed as Grupo — perform his music in concert, as I was fortunate enough to do in 1989 at New York City’s Town Hall in 1989 and at Elario’s in La Jolla in 1991. Both were spellbinding experiences that exuded joy and adventure in equal measure, prompting me and other attendees to repeatedly grin and shake our heads in wonder and awe.

Pascoal’s adroit use of electronic sampling pre-dated hip-hop’s use of sampling by years. Then again, much of what he did throughout his career was ahead of its time. He remained vital even after the release of his “Pra Você, Ilza,” which last November won a Latin Grammy Award in the Best Latin Jazz/Best Jazz Album category.

Pascoal’s music happily defied categorization.

“For me, there is no musical solution for jazz, as there is no musical solution for bossa nova. They’re closing themselves off, and they have no way out,” he told me in 1989.

“But I have the way out, which is to play good, universal music. Mingle, bring other things into music and always be refreshing. You have to change every day. You cannot keep (using) all the same formulas and repeat them over and over, because then you die.”

Here is our complete 1989 interview with Hermeto Pascoal.

Brazilian artist finds music in all that he does

By George Varga, The San Diego Union-Tribune

April 2, 1989

“I know I will never meet anyone like me,” said Hermeto Pascoal, the masterful Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader hailed by Miles Davis as “the world’s most impressive musician.”

A 52-year-old albino with a thick white beard and elbow-length white hair, Pascoal indeed looks and sounds like nothing ever heard before.

Brilliant, innovative, uncompromising and unpredictable, he is a walking anomaly — a visionary so distinctly original that audiences often are baffled and bedazzled by him and his music. And for good reason.

After all, this is an artist who:

Usually performs for three to five hours at his concerts in Brazil and Europe, where he often has squealing pigs, chickens and other animals wandering around the stage as barnyard counterpoint to his music;

Employs everything from pans filled with rocks to sewing machines and toy trains in his music, as illustrated by his recent composition for four toy trains, piano and piccolo;

Has recorded two pieces in which the melodies, harmonies and rhythms are synchronized to a recording of a Brazilian radio sports announcer’s broadcast of a soccer game;

Not only has total command of piano, flute, tenor saxophone, accordion, synthesizer and bass clarinet, but also creates virtuosic music on such unlikely “instruments” as a teakettle and half-filled beer bottles;

Despite being self-taught, has composed highly regarded works recorded by everyone from the Berlin Symphony Orchestra to the late jazz great Gil Evans;

Rehearses with his band eight to 10 hours daily, playing a changing daily repertoire of 50 of his compositions (by some estimates he has more than 1,000 compositions to his credit);

While recently making a solo piano album, recorded 51 hours of music in three days.

“Hermeto is a genius. He is a monster musician,” top Brazilian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins said recently.

“I don’t think there’s any instrument he can’t play well and with great creativity. I am jealous of him, because he’s absolutely free with himself, he’s disconnected from the music industry and he does exactly what he feels. He simply plays. For me, he is absolutely the best Brazilian musician.”

American jazz bassist Charlie Haden, who is equally enthusiastic, recalls a memorable example of Pascoal’s creativity.

“When my band was touring in Brazil, Hermeto invited our saxophonist, Ernie Watts, to his house so that Ernie could hear Hermeto’s band rehearse. While the band was rehearsing, he wrote a wonderful new song for Ernie, at the same time his band was playing a completely different song a few feet away … He’s amazing.”

Pascoal, who resembles a cross between a Latino Santa Claus and Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, regards his talent as a gift from God. As might be expected of a man who proudly proclaims that “music is my religion,” his conversation is infused with the same spiritual passion and joy as his music.

“I would compare the development of my concerts to when you look at the sky at dusk, and the stars are just starting to appear,” he said, smiling. “This is how it is on stage. You see, my band are the little stars that start to appear, and I am another star that joins with the others, and it all flows from there.”

During a lengthy interview in a Manhattan hotel suite last month, Pascoal discussed his work with unflagging enthusiasm. His answers were translated from Portuguese by keyboardist Jovino Santos Neto, who, like each of his five bandmates, has worked with Pascoal for more than 10 years.

“I was a musician even before I came to this world; I already had the musical gift,” Pascoal began. “The most important sound I made was the first cry when I came out of my mother’s womb. That was the moment I knew I would be a musician.”

Born and raised in the rural farming village of Lagoa de Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoes) in the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas, Pascoal was unable to follow his father into the fields to work because of his acute sensitivity to the sun as an albino. To this day, he wears sunglasses at all times.

As a boy, Pascoal recalls building makeshift flutes from leaf stems and playing them under a tree. Each day he returned to the same tree at the same time, until he eventually attracted a large number of birds that would respond to his flute playing with their own whistling.

“I also went to the marshes where there were frogs, and played music with the frogs,” he said, continuing the story. “And I would go to where the horses were. At the beginning, of course, they were scared and would run away. But I went back every day at the same time, playing my flute more and more, until, gradually, the horses would come to where I was playing.”

The budding Dr. Doolittle of music soon graduated to a bamboo flute and then a hurdy-gurdy, before taking up piano. He was rebuffed when he tried to gain admittance to a music school because of his impaired vision. Pascoal subsequently became his own teacher, often learning by intuition or “in my dreams.”

Throughout his school years, he was harassed relentlessly because he was albino. However, Pascoal does not seem scarred by the experience.

“I always thought I was the most beautiful person in the world, and the nicest looking girls in school were always my girlfriends,” he said. “And all these other guys who thought they were beautiful, they were only beautiful on the outside. They never did anything about their minds or souls. I’ve always liked myself very much, and I’ve always been very sure of myself.”

Pascoal moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1966, where he formed Quarteto Novo with percussionist Airto Moreira and guitarists Heraldo de Monte and Theo de Barros. Three years later, he moved to New York, where he collaborated with Miles Davis on the trumpeter’s epic “Live-Evil” album.

He returned to Brazil in 1973, where he has led critically acclaimed bands ever since. Like pioneering American artists such as Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor, Pascoal is the master of his own musical universe, a richly diverse aural cosmos where all styles converge to form an exotic whole.

In his music, one hears long, flowing melodies combined with darting harmonies and intricate polyrhythms. As dense and complex as a symphony one moment and as simple as an ancient folk tune the next, Pascoal’s compositions are exceptionally well crafted and balanced. They draw from numerous international sources, but are unmistakably his.

“Jazz music has spread all over the world, but it’s become stale, like bossa nova,” said Pascoal, who performed here in 1976 at Encinitas’ La Paloma Theater with percussionist Moreira and singer Flora Purim. “For me, there is no musical solution for jazz, as there is no musical solution for bossa nova. They’re closing themselves off, and they have no way out.

“But I have the way out, which is to play good, universal music. Mingle, bring other things into music and always be refreshing. You have to change every day. You cannot keep (using) all the same formulas and repeat them over and over, because then you die.”

Pascoal has a dozen albums to his credit. The five most recent are on Brazil’s Som Da Gente label, including his new solo piano outing, “Por Differentes Caminhos” (“On Different Roads”), recently released here.

The two albums he recorded for U.S. labels — 1970’s orchestral opus, “Hermeto,” on Cobblestone Records, and 1976’s “Slave’s Mass” (featuring bassist Ron Carter and Weather Report/Genesis drummer Chester Thompson) on Warner Bros., are highly prized by collectors. Some other Pascoal albums can be found in record stores specializing in Latin American imports.

“Quality is more important to me than quantity. I like to leave a space between my records,” he said.

Pascoal, the father of six and grandfather of eight, estimates he has composed more music than he can play “in this lifetime.”

Having recently given two well-received concerts at New York’s Town Hall, both solo and with his band, Pascoal is eager to establish himself with American listeners. He hopes to launch a major tour here next year that will include several West Coast dates.

“Music for me is like diving into the sea, and I dive in with all my body and soul. I give myself totally to it, and sometimes I like to shake things up and shock people,” he said, pointing a finger for emphasis.

“I really don’t care if people remember me or not. But I want them to never forget my music.”

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