Nan Vasconcelos's Saudades

The berimbau, a one-stringed musical instrument that looks like a bow from a bow-and-arrow, is customarily strung with the wire found within a car tire. When Afro-Brazilian percussionist Nan Vasconcelos set out to build his own, however, he strung it instead with a single Steinway piano string, signaling his desire to take the instrument beyond its traditional settings. Nan grew up in Northeast Brazil, surrounded by the resourceful improvisation born of necessity that the car tire wire solution symbolizes. As his long career progressed, he lived his dream to play concert halls throughout the world with his single Steinway string.

Nan painted with sound, reimagining percussion and voice to create evocative, cinematic soundscapes. This book revolves around Nan 's 1980 album Saudades, released on ECM records. It traces his early work between 1969-1979 as he lived in New York, Europe and Brazil, as he developed his approach to music-making that culminated in Saudades.