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Do you know Jorge Ben Jor? Noo? Well, neither do I..., actually, to be honest, I inevitably know a handful of songs and I bet you've already heard at least one (that one).
So how do you get to know an artist like this in 2013? First, you type the name into a search engine, then you choose which page to get the information from; Jorge Ben, Carioca with an Ethiopian mother..., blah, blah, blah..., career start, blah, blah, blah..., esoteric period in the early seventies, blah, blah, blah... and I think that's enough for now. Then you download the entire discography, also because it's cool to have tons of gigabytes of music on the hard drive; 32 albums from 1963 to 2004. Finally, you have to decide where to start, you could start from the first and proceed chronologically but it's tedious, you could read some reviews, but who can you trust, nowadays any fool can write and be published online. So you look at the covers that often help us and sometimes deceive us... wow!! This really is a great cover, it's Flamel's engraving from 1300 and it's even colored, featuring Hermes Trismegistus and rich in alchemical symbolism.
As the doubts about the choice fade away, others emerge; how does Jorge Ben tackle a difficult theme like Hermetism in a samba-rock album?
The recurring themes in Brazilian popular music are generally light, like futebol or carnaval, and love is never missing as it is a primary source of inspiration in the hearts of men. That serious commitment typical of the best Italian songwriting is totally missing, excluding the dictatorial period where political conditions place the true artist in front of the responsibility to provide a critical image of reality, "art is a hammer and not a mirror" someone once said.
Alchemy is a mental science. The philosopher's stone, said to convert metals into gold, is actually a representation of how it is possible to transform mental states, of oneself and others, according to the seven Hermetic principles, collected by its disciples in the Kybalion, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating and important books in the Western world.
Jorge Ben's alchemy, however, takes place in an engraving on black vinyl, distilling songs whose themes have nothing to do with one another. An image of what alchemists might be, a flowered tie that becomes a magical floating garden and makes princes out of those who wear it, the cosmic origin of men according to the theories of astronaut gods, a hottie who walks by his window every day keeping him awake at night, an anthem to simple things, a magnolia arriving in the spring on a spaceship with pink velvet seats, stubbornness as a weapon for conquests, the great warrior King Zumbi dos Palmares, a spiritual for Jesus Christ, the troubles of the widow's boyfriend, the Hermetic principles, and five crucial minutes of love.
Musically, however, it presents undeniable compactness; it's the acoustic guitar that drives everything else, o violão brasileiro without virtuosity, dry and rhythmic, then Jorge Ben's voice, more serious compared to his beginnings and which at certain moments curiously expands with echoes and other spatial effects that seem to come from dub (but did dub exist in '74?), a fascinating way of interpreting Brazilian popular music, different from the Bahia tropicalism, a samba-rock of great impact and generous in pleasant sensations that manage to sustain numerous listens even for a rock opponent like me who uses and tosses pop (or just tosses it).
The feeling remains that listening to this album brings about some change in our mental state, nothing occult though, it's simply the magic of music.
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