B u s k e r

O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o

[duration 17:14] all rights reserved

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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link: otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)

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"Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is practiced all over the world by men, women and children and dates back to antiquity. People engaging in this practice are called street performers or buskers.

Through his perspective as a contemporary artist, Otacílio Melgaço reveals a extremely peculiar scenario of music that, supported by its exuberant iconoclasm, he imagines to populate the streets of the whole world. One of them - after all, he would have to point to some colors, fragrances, nuances, textures, accents. In the present case, flirting with what was called Fusion, but in original denotation, coined about fifty years ago. For this, the junction of a panorama already decoded by history and the insertion of the vision of a perpetual ´enfant terrible´, elements such as randomness, unconstrained improvisation, however (and paradoxically) a well-defined skeleton behind a chaotic and continuous curtain too.

Observe closely at the chaining, the concatenation of strings, winds, keys, percussions, noises, hands clapping (eventually, allusion to the interaction with the audience) in a broadly articulated and synchronous stream. Gradually, what seems indiscernible is filtered, albeit there will always be an univocal confluence. The ´filter´ ceases to be a mechanism of contradistinguishment to become a means of recognizing how much the ´fissions´ of an organicity interpenetrate masterfully. Although, can we detach the whole from its portions, the macroscopic fixity/stability from microscopic vibration/oscillation? If I may compare, here is the fundamental question on which the quantum world is based: how can the electron be a particle and wave at the same time? Is valid the metaphor: the breedings of Otacílio, analogously, allows us to auscultate this!

One gargantuan detail: O.M. proposed to his guests that, when they walked the streets of their cities, would make a ´field research´. Not in an occasional but exclusively focused way. Mission accomplished by Melgaço himself, of course. So, all were inspired freely by the real buskers and its various modi operandi. Consequently there was a balance amidst the capture of a dynamic ´aura´ coming from the boulevards, squares, subways ... and the ventilated affirmativity of the identity of each participant.

There have been performances in public places for gratuities in every major culture in the planet, dating back to antiquity. For many musicians street performance was the most common means of employment before the advent of recording and personal electronics. Prior to that, a person had to produce any music or entertainment, save for a few mechanical devices such as the barrel organ, the music box, and the piano roll. Organ grinders were commonly found busking in the old days. Emphasizing the corporal expression and the beautiful smile of the ´demoiselle´ (precious characteristics for the choice of Melgaço), that's the source of the album cover (an organ grinder in Paris, 1898–99). Busking is common among some Romani people, who are called ´gypsies´, a description that is no longer socially acceptable in some societies. Romantic mention of Romani music, dancers and fortune tellers are found in all forms of song poetry, prose and lore. The Roma brought the word busking to England by way of their travels along the Mediterranean coast to Spain and the Atlantic Ocean and then up north to England and the rest of Europe. In medieval France buskers were known by the terms troubadours and jongleurs. In northern France they were known as trouveres. In old German buskers were known as Minnesingers and Spielleute.

We would take many characters to tell this long tradition ... In short, many are the examples throughout the chronologies and geographies. And forms: ´Circle shows´, ´Walk-by acts´, ´Stoplight performers´ ...

Folk music has always been an important part of the busking scene. Cafe, restaurant, bar and pub busking is a mainstay of this art form. Two of the more famous folk singers are Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez. The delta bluesmen were mostly itinerant musicians emanating from the Mississippi Delta region of the USA around the early 1940s and on. B.B. King is one famous example who came from these roots.

The insubordination of the hippies of the 1960s occasionally staged ´be-ins´, which resembled some present-day busker festivals. Bands and performers would gather at public places and perform for free, passing the hat to make money. The San Francisco Bay Area was at the epicenter of this movement – be-ins were staged at Golden Gate Park and San Jose's Bee Stadium and other venues. Some of the bands that performed in this manner were Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape and Jimi Hendrix.

One man bands have historically performed as buskers playing a variety of instruments simultaneously. One man bands proliferated in urban areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries and still perform to this day. A current one man band plays all their paraphernalia acoustically usually combining a guitar, a harmonica, a drum and a tambourine. They may also include singing. Many still busk but some are booked to play at festivals and other events.

Among others, the Melgacian creation seems to me to find echoes in these last three references:

A noticeable folk situability in the outstanding use of acoustic guitar;

A certain elan of the be-ins (through the zestful flux of Busker and its boosters interrelationships) that suggested, under the mantle of counterculture: personal empowerment, political decentralization, communal living, ecological awareness, ´higher consciousness´, radical liberalizing sense etc.;

A fluid esprit of ´Do It Yourself´, as if the sound wall highlighted in the composition record was the outcome not only of the sum of cell interpretations but as if (the impression is excitingly evident) every execution was of several-instrumentalists-in-one. And an-other. And another. And ...

(...)

In conclusion: it´s indeed enchanting this displacement that Otacílio makes of an innermost proscenium for a genuinely collectivist habitat. Countless times the musician with contemporary roots (contemporary classical) remains in an ivory tower, in a zone of comfort; in onanistic acts next to his ´equals´. Ultra-postmodern, or rather, timeless ... Mr. Melgaço, in its idiosyncrasy, makes the dismantling of any unnecessary hermeticism; makes the demolition of any isolationist pedantry; extrapolating the naturalness of languages in their peculiarities, makes the collapse of prejudiced boundaries which propagate the segregatory bifurcation of the so-called erudite (mainly the avant-garde) and the popular. Anywhere, from concert halls to city streets, can be the ideal niche (each with respective attractives) for the music omnipresently to flow and always contribute to breaking barricades (and false altars) amongst peoples, paradigms, cultures ... And, to our delight, O.M. never forgets to serve as an instigating example of this." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)

"As an introduction, a plastically ´mystical´ perception. Then, in total immersion in a (wild) urban environment, until about four minutes long, everything is ... (how should I say?) ... s-m-a-s-h-u-p! After that, although the simultaneity of sounds persists, we´re clarifying sonic layers that become, up to a certain limit, more neat. Such conformation will be the backbone of the phrenetic Piece. At the end, the cycle completes until we return to an intimate atmosphere and, at long last, the silence. [Even the still or the noises that will be around you, when the seventeen minutes and fourteen seconds of Busker are fulfilled.]

In addition to the fascinating motif of this anarchistic work (the artist having the street as stage), in my point of view there´s a no less fascinating parity with an album by John McLaughlin. My Goal's Beyond, its third; originally released in 1971 on Douglas Records in the US (after the jazzy Extrapolation and the psychedelic Devotion). There, the McLaughlinian music is strongly influenced by the culture of India, and was dedicated, at that time, to his spiritual leader, Sri Chinmoy. Firstly as a vinyl: the side one has two longer Pieces for the whole band, including soprano saxophone, flute, violin and Indian percussion. The side two features eight short compositions (three standards and five originals) brought to light solely by J.M. on acoustic guitar. [I refer exclusively to the one, in which are contained two tracks (the subdivision of a single): Peace 1 and Peace 2.]

O.M. has always been an admirer of the British guitarist's progenies since before his crucial landing in the US to play with Miles Davis. Primarily, to be more exact, interested in his albums (& of those in which he participated) of the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. I raise the hypothesis that Busker is a mirror (of the Peaceful face) of My Goal's Beyond. I mention the word ´mirror´ because, in fact, for me they´re independent, authentic, very personalistic proles that, through different origins and epochs, communicate with each other bewitchingly. [Of course, an enigmatic fantastic speculum that could appear in an offspring of Lewis Carroll (which, through the looking-glass, makes everything even more captivating.)] And, even if by way of curiosity, drawing some parallels will be quite constructive now.

The structure of Peace (I & II) is easily apprehended, each sound vehicle has its place and its role. Plus: melody, harmony, bars/measures open to impromptu ... all conventionally follow the Western prescriptions of the genre, yet with the enticing oriental airs. And this contributes to the composition confirming its beauty and spell. On the other hand, Mr. Melgaço performs a sort of melting/thaw of this. In Busker, there are no more frontiers between the applicability of any instrument (technical empiricism) and, in determined passages, the delimitations (among themselves) of their timbres! It´s not only about ´how´, but also about ´what´.

If our hearing has a tendency to sift through sounds, to try to discriminate and to categorize them for better understanding, Otacílio corrupts this ´logic´ and induces us to further refine it (as a challenge to arrive at results that are not hostages of the same ´logic´) or to go a step further and change our way of absorbing music, in a more (literally) conjunctural manner - more open and lined with an ample concept of unicity.

Both Peace (I & II) and Busker reach their goals and go beyond. The transfusion of an audible Indian lineage that has an undeniable and mesmerizing mysticism (a propos, the interpenetration betwixt our western and oriental impressions that only in art achieves such wonderful/promising fruits); the implementation of expansive dynamics that ferment performative cinetisms; the balanced spatiality for each instrumentalist to exercise his ´voice´ without there being a hierarchy of aesthetic or egoic values; an engaging equalization amid the physical, mental (and, for some, spiritual) supports of capturing a cultural expression in its wide range of possibilities, and so on. Nevertheless, what approximate such sonic spawns is as valuable as what distinguishes them.

In the early 1970s (as a matter of fact, since the previous decade), it was very common people in general to commit with Eastern philosophies, doctrines, and religions. John was no exception. Alongside another guitarist, Carlos Santana, became a disciple of Chinmoy Kumar Ghose (1931 - 2007). He was an Indian spiritual leader who taught meditation in the West after moving to New York City in 1964. Chinmoy established his first meditation center in Queens, New York, and eventually had 7,000 students in 60 countries. The prolific author, artist, poet, and musician, has also held public events such as concerts and meditations on the subject of inner peace. Chinmoy advocated a spiritual path to God through prayer and meditation. He also advocated athleticism including distance running, swimming, and weightlifting. He organized marathons and other races, and was an active runner, following a knee injury, weightlifter.

Inside of My Goal's Beyond (it was on this album that McLaughlin took the name ´Mahavishnu´), J.M. wrote a poetic inscription to him:

´To my Revered Guru

I humbly dedicate the music in this record.
He is my constant source of joy and inspiration.
His love for me and all his other children is boundless.
As well as being a king of kings, he is also the supreme musician incarnate, though he plays no ordinary instrument.
His instrument is the living soul.
First he tunes it and from there he is able to sing and play the song, of which all other songs are but variations.
And that song is God's endless love for man.

Mahavishnu John McLaughlin´

Otacílio Melgaço did not go through that. He´s a free spirit, a free thinker; it´s not in his nature to be some kind of ´follower´ - of either type. It´s a distinct historical cut, the context is quite different. In part, the personalities too. Notwithstanding when I read heartwarming phrases like ´his instrument is the living soul´ and ´first he tunes it and from there he is able to sing and play the song, of which all other songs are but variations´, I can not fail to reflect on how superbly they translate the works of this restless, surprising, provocative, visceral and simultaneously so aggregating, magnetic, ubiquitous and metaphysical Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist.

Now hear this: Busker,
the Melgacian floating point,
the heart of things ...

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Music
Spoken
Here." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)

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I - The term busking was first noted in the English language around the middle 1860s in Great Britain. The verb to busk, from the word busker, comes from the Spanish root word buscar, with the meaning "to seek". The Spanish word buscar in turn evolved from the Indo-European word bhudh-skō ("to win, conquer"). It was used for many street acts, and title of a famous Spanish book about one of them, El buscón. Today, the word is still used in Spanish but mostly relegated for female street sex workers, or women seeking to be set up as private mistress of married men;

II - Performances are anything that people find entertaining. Performers may do acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, and ventriloquism.

Some notable (who once were street) performers:

Josephine Baker, Benjamin Franklin, Tyrannosaurus Rex members Marc Bolan and Steve Peregrin Took, Violent Femmes;

III - The discographic album My Goal's Beyond was later reissued by Douglas/Casablanca (1976), Elektra/Musician (1982), and in 1987 by Rykodisc on CD and LP;

IV - As far as is known, J.M. is no longer a disciple (neither adopts the prefix Mahavishnu) but, not in a proselytizing or stereotyped way, brought to his life (beyond the relationship with meditation, yoga etc) a holistic view seriously linking music and spirituality;

V - Mahavishnu (Devanāgarī : महाविष्णु) is an aspect of Vishnu, the Absolute which is beyond human comprehension and is beyond all attributes. In Gauḍīya Vaishnavism, a school of Vaiṣṇavism, the Sātvata-tantra describes three different forms, or aspects, of Vishnu as Mahavishnu, Garbhodakśayī-Viṣṇu and Kṣīrodakaśāyī Vishnu. The term Mahavishnu is similar to Brahman and Almighty Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead. This means that the Absolute truth is realized first as Brahman (impersonal aspect) then as Paramatma (personal aspect) and finally as Bhagavan (incarnate perfection). So bhakti (loving devotion) goes to Bhagavan, Krishna (the Avatar of Vishnu, Narayana). In this way, bhakti surpasses even yoga, which is aimed at the Supersoul, Paramatma. Mahavishnu is the Supersoul of all living beings (jivaatmas) in all material universes. It is also often used interchangeably with Vishnu to indicate reverence, as the prefix "Mahā" exalts the noun to which it is attached. It is believed that Adi Parashakti has been created by Maha Vishnu to maintain the Material Universe. So Parashakti is working under the direction of Maha vishnu. So all the Gods including Shiva, Parashakti, Brahma are considered as the Part of Maha Vishnu Expansion.

Mahavishnu is said to lie in the causal ocean or the Karanodak. He puts the seed of this material universe in Mahāmāyā by glancing at her. Mahāmāyā remains the ever obedient material energy of the Supreme Lord. All the natural elements including sky, fire, water, air and land are created along with mind, intelligence and false ego.

After this, Mahavishnu enters each of the many universes so created (seeds emerging from the pores of His skin) as Garbhodaksayi Vishnu, who lays down in each and every of these individual material universes (Brahmandas). It can be interpreted that Garbodakshayi Vishnu is the collective soul of all souls in a particular material universe and that Mahavishnu is the collective soul of all souls in all of the material universes.

From Garbodakshayi Vishnu then emerges Brahmā who is the secondary creator (due to his need to meditate to create planets in the material universe) of the planetary systems within particularly this material universe (Brahmanda);

VI - Otacílio owns his Mahashiva Orchestra, which is still (not only, but it is) a homage to Mister McLaughlin (who, for a long time, led the Mahavishnu Orchestra). Check out some of the Melgacian albums (starting from this band formation):

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/oca-otac-lio-melga-o-and-the-mahashiva-orchestra-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-01-16-11

melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/le-taj-mahal-noir-otac-lio-melga-o-the-mahashiva-orchestra-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-01-12-39

VII - As already explained, "maha" (mahā) means "great". Unlike the already existing case of Vishnu and such prefix, Mr. Melgaço creates this expression ("Mahashiva") by analogy therefore, becoming his (musical) aspect of/for that divinity.

Shiva (lit. the auspicious one) is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being within Shaivism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.

Shiva is the "destroyer and transformer" within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma and Vishnu. In Shaivism tradition, Shiva is the Supreme being who creates, protects and transforms the universe. In the goddess tradition of Hinduism called Shaktism, the goddess is described as supreme, yet Shiva is revered along with Vishnu and Brahma. A goddess is stated to be the energy and creative power (Shakti) of each, with Parvati the equal complementary partner of Shiva. He is one of the five equivalent deities in Panchayatana puja of the Smarta tradition of Hinduism.

At the highest level, Shiva is regarded as formless, limitless, transcendent and unchanging absolute Brahman, and the primal Atman (soul, self) of the universe. Shiva has many benevolent and fearsome depictions. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya. In his fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also known as Adiyogi Shiva, regarded as the patron god of yoga, meditation and arts.

The main iconographical attributes of Shiva are the third eye on his forehead, the serpent around his neck, the adorning crescent moon, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the trishula as his weapon and the damaru. Shiva is usually worshipped in the aniconic form of Lingam. Shiva is a pan-Hindu deity, revered widely by Hindus, in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
quotes have Wikipedia as a source...

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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.