“Bernard Fines’ voice is placed, and we go as well along with it, in the middle of a crossroad with the sweet multiple influences where we feel balanced within happiness in a mist of Nougaro, Jonasz and a Brazil of yesteryear, with no nostalgia though. However, Bernard Fines is not lost in his many references, on the contrary, he explores them brightly teaming with top musicians.”
David Linx
« The bossa nova becomes my impossible dream, and after some brave attempts, I began to taste the pleasure of interpreting standards like One Note Samba, Black Orpheus and others like Meditation …
But later my path will cross the MPB, Brazilian Popular Music, more precisely in 1992 when I quit my country to go to Brazil, where I had the chance to live for twenty-two years.
A total immersion, linguistic and cultural, punctuated by the concerts in bars, in the conservatory of Curitiba, the lessons of singing and theater and of course, learning the sweetness of life …
Samba de Gringo is a reinterpretation of my Brazilian life, mentioning profound humanly themes, like: limitless love, impossible love, a sense of celebration, tolerance, friendship, the place of music in society, the basic beauty of black and white photography, the rain in the rainforest, the emotion of writing on a blank page, the deserted beaches, the concrete jungle, and of course the « saudade ».
Julio Bittencourt, with whom I had the chance to tour for eight years on the Brazilian roads, always introduced me as the most Brazilian French he has ever met. And somehow it touches me, because afterall it’s quite true.
The last but not least, I would like to thank my father, who lent me his pen, my mother, who gave me her musical ears, my wife who took me to Brazil in her suitcases, and all of my musician friends and Brazilian music lovers who taught me the art of Brazilian swing … Without you, Samba de Gringo would never have existed.
I was 15 when I discovered bossa nova in my native Ariège. My initiator was a summer camp
monitor, recently landed from Paris, with the legendary LP of Getz/Gilberto in his suitcases/luggage. Love at first sight, I’ve listened and everything became so clear: by the point of my guitar’s arm, the founding notes of everything I could glean from the ambassadors of Brazilian music in France at a time when the term world music did not yet exist: Nougaro, Lavilliers, Nino Ferrer… »
Bernard Fines
