Arrigo Barnabéinterviews and texts

• video interviews •

• interviews •

• texts and videos on Arrigo Barnabé •

«Arrigo made history, for these purposes, with his albums "Clara Crocodilo" and "Tubaroes Voadores". He invented its own way of using twelve-tone series, shifting the tonal center of the songs, but shaking them with convulsive and rhythmic repetitions, in a strange mixture of shards of Arnold Schoenberg music with James Brown, mixed with Baudelaire and concrete poetry, comics and police radio programs. What may seem exotic, freak or mere symptom of time, it does not take into account the consistency and the genius of musical imagination and performative skills of Arrigo. Which, among other things, is its unsuspected capacity as a melodists, I would say just like Jobim».

Zé Miguel Wisnik

«In the early 80's Arrigo Barnabé cast a seminal, revolutionary and provocative album called Clara Crocodilo.
Arrigo's music is not easily digestible and therefore do not expect it to be pleasing to you all.
It is really revolutionary for blowing the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg with elements of jazz, brazilian music, opera, spoken voice, etc., creating a very brazilian urban nightmare.
In the early 80's Brazil lived the last moments of military dictatorship and society was testing its limits forcing the opening. The work of Arrigo Barnabé is very brave not only musically but also politically.
I consider myself privileged to have attended 3 shows of this band. Those were times that we were waiting for the police to enter any time.
I believe that Arrigo Barnabé music is so important to Brazil as was that of Astor Piazzolla to Argentina. Arrigo in terms of revolutionary and creative music is certainly the most important brazilian musician of the twentieth century.
Unfortunately so-called brazilian culture could never really understand the complexity and intelligence of his work.
If understood, being a conservative mob, tried to ignore it. But back to this very brazilian urban nightmare I was hearing the title song called Clara Crocodilo and no doubt realized this nightmare persists today...»

Antonio Celso Barbieri

Vanguarda Paulista @ AKAMU website

Wikipedia: Arrigo Barnabé, Clara Crocodilo, Tubarões Voadores, Desmundo, Cidade Oculta

Video "Elis Regina fala sobre Arrigo Barnabé, Tetê Espíndola e Itamar Assumpção" programa "Jogo da Verdade" apresentado pelo jornalista Salomão Ésper, na TV Cultura (5-1-1982)

Article "O serialismo e o atonalismo livre aportam na MPB: as canções do LP Clara Crocodilo de Arrigo Barnabé" by André Cavazotti - Revista de Performance Musical - Volume 1 - Universidade federal de Minais Gerais (2000)

Programa o "Som do Vinil" by Charles Gavin - Canal Brasil (2007):
1. History of "Clara Crocodilo"
2. History of "Clara Crocodilo"
3. History of "Clara Crocodilo"

"O Encontro de Tom Jobim & Arrigo Barnabé" - por Paulo Jobim, Arrigo Barnabé & Daniel Taubkin (maybe 2008)
Paulo Jobim interviewed by a journalist in reference to his father's views on music's future in which Paulo reveals that one day, Antonio Carlos Jobim, very excited by the novelty of both recent audition and acquaintance, adressed his son humming a song he had just written, inspired by Arrigo Barnabé and made mention of him as a natural and genuine example of the continuance of his musical path.

HQ Memoria - Tubarões Voadores, a HQ que virou música by Nikki Nixon (24-11-2009)

1. Especial Clara Crocodilo (2010)
2. Especial Clara Crocodilo (2010)

Tubarões Voadores - O Dia que Arrigo Barnabé Musicou os Quadrinhos de Luiz Gê by André Rocha (29-6-2011)

Clara Crocodilo e as imagens urbanas de São Paulo na década de 1970 by Juliana Wendpap Batista (2012)

Video Arrigo Barnabé, Lupicínio Rodrigues e a Vanguarda Paulista by Nelson Motta - Jornal da Globo (13-7-2012)

O universo de "Clara Crocodilo": história & música no LP de Arrigo Barnabé by Juliana Wendpap Batista (2013)

Arrigo Barnabé dá vida nova ao clássico "Clara crocodilo" by Carlos Albuquerque - Jornal O Globo (13-3-2014)

Review "Algo além" - by José Miguel Wisnik - Jornal O Globo (2-8-2014)
«As it is known by who followed the movements of the 1970s to 1980, Arrigo and Tatit are the two key figures of the "Vanguarda Paulista". Both questioned from inside the brazilian song structure in the way they melodize, harmonize and relate lyrics to music. They are in quest of an evolutionary fate of the Brazilian song language, what would be the next step after Bossa Nova and Tropicália».

- Video Programa "Passagem de Som" - USP (5-7-2015)

Breve História - Arrigo Barnabé part 1 - Rede Minas TV (17-7-2015)
Breve História - Arrigo Barnabé part 2 - Rede Minas TV (17-7-2015)

Article "Arrigo Barnabé: 70 anos de Vanguarda" by Lucas Vieira (2021)

• texts by Arrigo Barnabé •

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