Bastarda & João de Sousa

Fado is a genre, an emotion, a history of a nation. And an album.

Fado, by best estimates, is type of folk song that arose in Portugal in the 1820s, but was likely around for much longer. The Portuguese word “Saudade” means, loosely, the beautiful pain of remembering and the melancholy that follows. Fado is that word transmitted in sonic terms. And Fado, the album, has mutated that gorgeous darkness into one of 2021’s most beguiling albums.

Polish jazz trio Bastarda and Portuguese songwriter João de Sousa teamed up to reimagine the Fado canon. Bastarda, composed of Paweł Szamburski on clarinet, Tomasz Pokrzywiński on cello and Michał Górczyński on contrabass clarinet, have made a name for themselves by recasting genres of the past, from medieval music to jewish religious tunes, in their own beautiful brooding atmosphere. With de Sousa’s dexterous guitar and enchanting voice weaving between their mournful playing, Fado isn’t just a respectful tribute to the genre, but an evolutionary step forward, and a perfect introduction to anyone unfamiliar with the aural ennui. We chatted with Szamburski and de Sousa below.

Why did you decide to play and record the album live with no overdubs?

Paweł: For me it is an essential process to make our music - playing all together live at the same time, reacting to one another and creating an organic, natural situation - pure honest sound communication and exchange of energy. That is crucial to Bastarda’s way of work.

Our Fado album, like other three releases, was recorded live with no overdubs as well. We wanted to have this tension of musical, subtle dialog between instruments and vocal and I think it's hearable in our songs.

João: From the beginning, when we started to play, to prepare the repertoire for our first shows--which were online, streaming--there was not even a talk about doing overdubs if we would go to the studio. The magic of this type of music and our cooperation is based on many improvised moments. This reaction between musicians is only able to happen when we do the recording live with no overdubs. There’s a completely different feel to it. It has a magical aspect to it. 

 How did you meet and how did the idea for this album start?

P: João knew our work and previous albums and when he got this order to prepare Fado songs around Amelia Rodrigues heritage, from Portugal Embassy and Institute Camões, he asked us to work together.

 At the beginning I was skeptical, if our language and our specific sound fits Fado music, but when I heard João’s voice and the way he sings those songs I immediately decided to do this.

J: Michał Górczyński, apart from being my neighbor here in Warsaw, we also knew each other for a time from a party. There was a piano and I remember Michał being very interested and asking me “tell me a bit more of this Fado music.” “Could you play me an example of a song?”

I’m not a piano player at all, so I had to find the chords in the piano with Michał’s help, and I remember playing “Estranha forma de vida.” It was some time ago. Then, the pandemic. I was commissioned by the cultural Portuguese institute and embassy here in Warsaw for a live show, with Fado. I thought about different options. I didn’t want to be playing myself, I’ve been doing that for some time now. I wanted to do something different. So, I contacted Michał to see if Bastarda would be interested to do that. I was already a fan of Bastarda of their three albums they had before so I thought it would be an interesting and original take on Fado. 

João, did playing with instruments that usually don’t score Fado music change your singing style? Did you have to adjust how you delivered your notes or words?

J: Some of these songs I had been playing for a while now in my solo shows. I would say that it changed in the sense, for example, with Pawel playing the clarinet; it has this vocal quality to it, the instrument itself and the way that Paweł plays it. We wanted to have this type of dialogue between my voice and Paweł’s clarinet. In a traditional Fado setting they do this as well with the voice and Portuguese guitar. Paweł’s clarinet would have, from time to time, this role of the Portuguese guitar that is in constant dialogue with the vocal. Bastarda uses these very long, stable notes which for my singing style is also very good.  I could even sing more with this style. So, for sure it has changed. And because Michał, his role is bass, he is very steady and very inspirational, I was able to flow around my instrument, my guitar as well. I was sure I had a very secure bass. 

We wanted to play very quietly. This is something that I enjoy a lot. My singing style, naturally, with all of the band, I started to sing very quietly. The studio that Paweł chose has all these interesting microphones that can capture these small nuances not only the voice but all the instruments. I used those long notes together with the instruments and with the volume. 

The same question in reverse, did João’s voice and technique change your (Paweł, Tomasz and Michał’s) way of playing?

P: Well, it is in a way very similar to how we treat sound and build quality of our music. Subtle and powerful in the same time. Besides that - we had great social communication right away and it also helped to create good environment for that subtle sound exchange. So, everything was natural. But of course the voice itself changes the way band plays. Before I was the “singer” and I took most of the space to express melodies, and in Fado I had to give that space to João too.

“Livre” sounds like the darkest, most brooding track here. Why did you decide to open with it?

J: It’s very open, the harmony is very simple and it just opens! Lyrically “Livre” is free--something that might open the palette of the listener or the reader if you understand the words. It opens the box that all the other songs come in. 

P: In its dramaturgy it is ideal opening. First you’ve got two clarinets opening with one sound, that corresponds to our previous albums, then we hear subtle counting in Portuguese and another colour, cello and guitar enters, after a while you hear João voice that sings about, shortly: “roots, thought, death, wind, light, love, freedom” - so everything that is important, it's a statement in a way…

Then one verse of the song we show the bass line, and after the second verse I enter with the clarinet solo and João gives me the space and we show Bastarda’s sound and power.

At the end of the song, we composed melody that again shows different qualities and possibilities of the quartet and what it can sound like.

For me, perfect opening of the album!

There are non-musical touches from the woodwinds throughout the album, rushes of air, the click-clack from the instrument itself. Did that feel important to add those ambient sounds, or was it incidental?

P: Well, it was always in our language, wind instruments and the way mostly Michał Górczyński plays contrabass clarinets - have various possibilities of expression also sonoristic, and in my opinion it gives more colour and suggestive way of creating the sound and Bastarda’s musical language.

J: It’s incidental and not. These kind of tricks, let’s say, these are Bastarda type of accidents and arrangements. If one can use those things with instruments, why not use them? 

Did you aim to replicate the traditional spirit of Fado music, or did you consciously want to mutate it, make it your own?

P: What we do in our work - from the beginning first with medieval music by Petrus de Grudencz then with renaissance music of death rituals and then Hasidic Nigunim songs - we take historical, early music or folk traditional music source and we filter that music through our present, personal sensitivity. We basically want to compose and play our own music, sincere and true, going from our experience and understanding of the sound itself. With all the respect to the traditions and history of music, using its language and solutions also harmonical changes and dynamics: we make our own music.

The same happened with Fado, but here we’ve got the songs and texts and harmony that we basically didn't change at all! All we did to create our interpretation was specific sound structure and tension between us, the way we give this music is different then the traditional Fado idiom, it sounds different, but it has the same emotional impact I feel.

J: There is a wish of making it our own. A long time ago I had a period I wanted to replicate a bit too much--but it’s not me. I decided if I wanted to interpret these songs, I would do it my own. If you want traditional Fado you should go to some Casa Fado in Lisbon or even Porto. They have excellent interpreters of traditional Fado. 

All of us, in everything that we do, we try to make it our own. There were elements I would explain to the guys because I’ve been listening to Fado for a while now and study it, the spirit of this music. And being Portuguese when I listen to it, I immediately feel a special resonance for me. I would explain to the guys these are the technical elements that make it Fado, that make it special. The endings, the type of phrasing, the type of dialogue that the singer has with the instrument, in this case Paweł. But there was always a lot of freedom. We would very carefully choose what kind of harmony we would use. Or if we changed the harmony, we would be very careful. Because these structures are not so obvious, they are all connected with the words and the meter of the words. Harmonically everything is very simple. That’s one of the magic things of Fado. 

João, there’s a video of you doing “Livre” in 2018, how long have these songs been kicking around for you?

J: I did a version of “Livre” in kinda my debut, a long time ago, 2013. It was in a completely different way. I would not sing it; I would say the words and it was with another band in the west of Poland. “Estranha,” I had been playing that for some time solo. I also played “Memoria” with a band. We are talking about 8 years ago. But playing “Memoria” solo, it is not so doable. So I went for these songs that I used to play but don’t do any more.

There were others, I was even very surprised--I went for other songs that I didn’t even know, that Amália Rodrigues had sang. For example, “Gondarem” or “Cantigao De Amigo” these are songs that I proposed as new songs for me as well. 

When choosing these songs were you more drawn to the lyrics or the music?

J: I would have to say the music, though it depends. “Livre,” is a Fado Menor, the melody is a minor Fado, one of the oldest Fado around. There have been many versions of this melody with many different lyrics. The lyric that I chose is from a poet, Carlos de Oliveira, from the 50s and 60s. These lyrics have been used in other melodies; I chose this one because the metric was good. In this case, I was drawn to the lyrics. They are very simple and somehow very focused. They say a lot with very little. 

With the other songs it was the music that had to fit with this band, with these instruments. Even with the more traditional Fado like “Memoria” and “Maldição” it worked very well. Even though, when I imagined it before I thought it would be very difficult to do such a thing. But in the end, it was very rewarding to adventure ourselves into a more traditional structure of Fado. Because, for example, “Gondarem” or “Cantiga de Amigo” these types of songs they sound a bit more modern even though they are the oldest, because they are based in very, very old themes of medieval music. 

“Estranha” is slinkier, more fun, jazzy sounding song. What energy did you bring to the table for that in contrast with “Livre” and “Godarem”? Also, what was the most fun song to play for you?

J: For me, “Gondarem.” It’s the loudest, I don’t finger pick, I just strum it. I get to be a bit more wild. “Gondarem” we saw, in the beginning, it would have a rock, very punk feel. Acoustic punk! So, I had a lot of fun playing that. In contrast, “Cantiga de amigo” the vocal is not easy to maintain the tension, to save, pull back, to give little by little, every unfolding of each verse. It was fun in a different way. It was so beautiful that sometimes, the guys from the band would say this too, we would have tears in our eyes, the melody itself is so heartfelt. 

P: Well it's always good to have some contrasts and different energy in the repertoire, just to have refreshment of mindset and soundset!

“Estranha” just naturally pulled us this way, but I think all the pieces correspond to one another building a consistent album.

“Gondarem” is the shortest, an almost most brutal sounding song with the strong notes from the contrabass clarinet. What was Michał’s playing like during that recording?

P: Yes! Gondarem is a most powerful piece and Michał’s groove gave us this power on rehearsals! We heard the story behind the song from João, that there are smugglers and hustlers and contrabanda and we decided to go with this interpretation, more edgy and speed. And it also has this refreshment quality for us I mentioned before!

Was there a story or flow you wanted to achieve through the sequencing? Especially considering the last song, “Maldição” is the most tranquil sounding song?

P: When we talked about the order of the songs on album - we didn't have a deeper concept behind it, only energy of each piece and where it goes. I felt that it would nice to go up pretty fast with energy, that's why Estranha and the Gondarem - peak of power, speed and energy - just to go down in sadness and melancholy of “Com que vos” and “Cantiga de amigo” (which for me is the most beautiful song on the album). Then again we’ve got refreshment and more light fun energy in “Memoria.” “Medo” is dark and intense tale about fear, very emotional strong piece that correspond also to the beginning of the album, and at the end we just wanted to give air, light and yes tranquil mood, soft energy of “Maldição” goes that way. And here it is - Bastarda & João de Sousa Fado album, enjoy!

J: I like when albums, the body, the collection of songs have something to say as a whole. “Maldição,” for starters is a very traditional song. I like in these albums--when they end you ask for more. There’s a contrast between “Maldição” and “Livre.” If you are on repeat you go again to “Livre” which is a different sound. It has this kind of travel situation, like a story being told.  

File Under: Interviews