Tonight there was a heavy storm in Skopje. The lightening, thunder and wind were pretty scary...! Best antidote to fear? Thinking of beauty, music, and inevitably, Tom Jobim! This chain of thought led me to the bookcase where my Bossa Nova sources are preciously kept for the rainy days... and the sunny ones too :-) "A onda que se ergueu no mar", by Ruy Castro, is one of those books, a reference for the stories that I love sharing with the public during the Bossa Nova shows. And honestly? Rather than just talking about it, here goes an extract so that you can understand why thinking of Tom and reading about him keeps the fear of storms away...!
"Every time Tom opened the piano, the world became a better place". Even for just a few minutes, it became more harmonic, more melodic, more poetic". All individual or collective woes seemed smaller because at that moment there was a man producing beauty. What resulted from his gesture of opening the piano - a note, a chord, a song - was so charged with excellence, sensitivity and wisdom, that all of us, his listeners, exposed to its creation, also improved as human beings." (translated from "A onda que se ergueu no mar", p.29, Ruy Castro, 2011, Companhia das Letras)
"Todas as vezes que Tom abriu o piano, o mundo melhorou. Mesmo que por poucos minutos, tornou-se um mundo mais harmônico, mais melódico e poético. Todas as desgraças individuais ou coletivas pareciam menores porque, naquele momento, havia um homem dedicando-se a produzir beleza. O que resultasse de seu gesto de abrir o piano - uma nota, um acorde, uma canção - vinha tão carregado de excelência, sensibilidade e sabedoria que, expostos à sua criação, todos nós, seus ouvintes, também melhorávamos como seres humanos." (in "A onda que se ergueu no mar", p.29, Ruy Castro, 2011, Companhia das Letras)