Ricardo Pinheiro: making jazz happen

The Portuguese guitarist is an exemplar of globalised jazz, hustling up, out of Lisbon, work with a string of international names

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Ricardo Pinheiro

The guitarist Ricardo Pinheiro lives in bucolic Sintra, Portugal with his wife and two children. His description of the area, a gorgeous variety of woods and mountains near the ocean, with castles and villas of the imperial Portuguese nobility intact and opulent flora and fauna at the tip of one’s fingers, is mouthwatering.

However, his rather more energetic musical life takes place in his birthplace Lisbon, a half-hour drive from his home. “It is getting to be a popular place these days. It makes the Portuguese scene more interesting than it already is. Seamus Blake lived in Porto for years and regularly came over. Aaron Parks and Michael Formanek live in Lisbon. The English saxophonist Andy Sheppard has a house approximately 30 miles away from here. I’ve worked with all of them.”

Also in Lisbon, Pinheiro worked for the International Association of Schools of Jazz, the transnational course system that was founded by the elder statesman of progressive jazz, David Liebman. His association with Liebman led to 2016’s Is Seeing Believing. Furthermore, Pinheiro recorded for saxophonist Greg Osby’s Inner Circle label and is a longstanding Fresh Sound artist. His latest outing, Tone Stories, featuring saxophonist Chris Cheek, is his fourth release on Jordi Pujol’s venerated Barcelona label. Clearly, Pinheiro is a well-connected gent.

Tanned and animated, his coiffure neatly trimmed, he wears a smile that is likely to break your average cynic’s stride of cheeky assumptions. His use of the English language is strikingly proficient. “It’s my nature to be unashamed.” He giggles apologetically: “I harass people! But seriously, I’ve recorded with Portuguese and Brazilian colleagues for Challenge and Sintoma, but Fresh Sound has always been one of my favourite labels. A long time ago, I talked Chris Cheek, who recorded fantastic albums on Fresh Sound, into connecting me with Jordi Pujol and that is how my debut album Open Letter came about in 2010.”

Pinheiro has done his fair share of eclectic exercises and released Brazilian-flavoured songs, prog-jazz and jazz and poetry. 2020’s Caruma is one of the most intriguing albums of the Covid-era, a tranquil and ethereal overlapping of guitar and voices inspired by idyllic Sintra. Now, four years later, he’s got exciting prospects ahead. “I work with the Grammy-winning singer Luciana Souza and will soon release a batch of songs that features singer Maria João. She’s a great improviser. Furthermore, I guess I can give away that I’m working with Brazilian singer and composer Ivan Lins. I sent him a couple of songs. He was very enthusiastic and expressed a desire to write lyrics. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be working with one of my heroes and an icon of contemporary music.”

Yet, as Tone Stories and other assorted albums in his discography evidently make clear, the jazz standard remains a common thread in his repertoire. Pinheiro eagerly explains: “I’ve recently recorded the soon-to-be released fourth album with my soul mate Massimo Cavalli on bass and Dutch drum legend Eric Ineke on drums [an earlier one was Turn Out The Stars]. I love standards. As opposed to some people who say it’s old hat, I strongly disagree. Playing standards is a big responsibility. You don’t want to do the worst version of There Is No Greater Love or Blame It On My Youth. My yardstick is melody and harmony. I know when I’m in love with a standard when I cannot help singing it. I’m not ashamed to go back to standards and I don’t feel forced to do the hip approach and change them beyond recognition. If you have Chris Cheek aboard, you don’t need any weird arrangements. Not to mention Jorge Rossy, who in my opinion is one of the greatest drummers of all time, a painter on the skins.”

Simultaneously angular and melodious aspects are at the core of Pinheiro’s style. Coming from a family that included a grandad that listened to Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Brazilian music but had no instruments in the house whatsoever, young Ricardo proved to be the exception to the rule and fell in love with the guitar. He gorged on the heavy licks of Iron Maiden before being turned onto the giants of jazz guitar like Wes Montgomery. Pinheiro came of age at Berklee College in Boston. But the true impetus of his maturity as a jazz artist lies elsewhere. “I’m part of the first generation that is inspired by the class acts of the early 1990s: Brad Meldhau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Chris Cheek, Jorge Rossy, among others. They incorporated a lot of tradition but with a new flavour. It wasn’t Wes and it wasn’t fusion. They somehow connected these two different worlds in a natural, peaceful way. Nobody played even-eights the way Jorge did. Or used the upper part of the horn like Mark. Or employed timbre like Kurt. Brad is not only a genius of two-handed independence but the cornerstone of genuinely playing pop in a jazz vein. For someone like me, who wasn’t a big fan of fusion, the way they handled things harmonically was a revelation.”

Tone Stories is described by Pinheiro as not only a narrative of songs but a set of stories that are told with the qualities of sound of his illustrious band mates. Pinheiro himself occasionally adds effects to his non-conformist, reverberant tone. Tone Stories boasts The Peacocks, a sensuous soprano sax-led rendition of Jimmy Rowles’s classic ballad, underlined by Pinheiro’s subtle volume control, a featherlight approximation of the human voice that is most endearing. His use of extra-curricular tech was already evident on his version of When You Wish Upon A Star on 2017’s Triplicity featuring Cavalli and Ineke, a feast of acid jazz-rock that scourges the landscape between Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles and the jams of The Grateful Dead. In more gentle spirits, effects underline a couple of Pinheiro’s solo albums.

What’s the story behind his desire to innovate with tone? “Of course, everybody in the history of jazz has been concerned with tone, not least iconic guitarists like Wes Montgomery, Grant Green and Joe Pass. But effects were not invented by jazz players. A lot of jazz players listened to rock and prog-rock. At one point, I started listening to John Scofield and Bill Frisell. Furthermore, the incredible Ben Monder has been a big influence on this part of my style. I’ve been experimenting with reverb, overdrive, delay, pre-delay and volume pedal for many years. I’m always looking for the ideal sound for my songs and this involves thinking about the choice of guitar or strings or the usage of effects. But exaggeration is a pitfall. At all costs, I want to avoid obscuring the message and the melody. Melody remains all-important. If music has no melody, there’s no point in it to me.”

It seems that, in Pinheiro’s case, he also won’t accept the absence of at least a touch of melancholy, likely an outcome of his Portuguese-Brazilian upbringing. He shifts in his seat, excited at the prospect of yet another aspect of jazz discussion. “My background and jazz playing are clearly interrelated. Not only in terms of improvisation, but also in terms of composition. Sometimes I look for a certain melancholic feeling that I think springs from Portuguese and Brazilian music. Notably the fado, which at heart is a lament. As a result, not only my melodies but also my chords are pensive and bittersweet.”