<\/p>\n
Hermeto Pascoal, the innovative Brazilian composer famed for his blend of jazz and traditional music, has died at the age of 89.<\/p>\n
The self taught multi-instrumentalist rose from child poverty to international fame – with Miles Davis calling him the most “important musician on the planet”.<\/p>\n
He was “surrounded by family and fellow musicians,” a statement announcing his death says. It did not give details.<\/p>\n
Pascoal wrote more than 2,000 instrumental pieces and continued to arrange music and record artists well into his 80s.<\/p>\n
The artist was primarily a pianist and flutist, but also played saxaphone, guitars, drums, and accordions – and frequently incorporated household objects into his work.<\/p>\n
While recording his debut album Slaves Mass for Warner Brothers in 1976, he brought a pair of live pigs into the studio.<\/p>\n
Born on 22 June 1936 in a rural settlement north-east of Alagoas, he was unable to work outside with his family because of his albinism, and taught himself music while spending his days indoors.<\/p>\n
Aged 10, he began playing at dances and weddings, before going on to play forr\u00f3 and other traditional Brazilian music across the region.<\/p>\n
In the late 1950s, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and discovered the city’s jazz scene, performing in nightclubs and joining a radio orchestra.<\/p>\n
His blend of jazz and traditional folk styles sparked the attention of Brazil’s biggest stars in the genre.<\/p>\n
The singer Elis Regina performed with Pascoal, as did and percussionist Airto Moreira.<\/p>\n
The latter accompanied him on a tour to the US, where he was introduced to Miles Davis.<\/p>\n
But despite earning the respect of luminaries in the jazz world, Pascoal rejected the label as a jazz musician, and said he owed as much to Brazilian music like chorinho and samba.<\/p>\n
“When they think I am doing one thing I am already doing something else… It’s very liquid,” he told Jazz World in 2022.<\/p>\n
Pascoal’s family announced his death on his Instagram page on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It urged people “to let a single note ring – from an instrument, your voice, or a kettle – and offer it to the universe” if they wanted to honour him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hermeto Pascoal, the innovative Brazilian composer famed for his blend of jazz and traditional music, has died at the age of 89. The self taught multi-instrumentalist rose from child poverty to international fame – with Miles Davis calling him the most “important musician on the planet”. He was “surrounded by family and fellow musicians,” a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[371451,371452,371211,24982,367072,354130],"class_list":["post-2021050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-brazilian-music","tag-child-poverty","tag-hermeto-pascoal","tag-jazz","tag-miles-davis","tag-traditional-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hermeto-Pascoal-the-wizard-of-Brazilian-music-dies-at-89.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}