Can you hear me okay? Yeah? Great.
Right. Well, we'll get this party started.
-Allow me to introduce Jeff. Jeff Harris.
-Hello.
Author of the book
we're going to present tonight.
Now, like many of you,
I hope...
...I read Jeff's article in The New Yorker
on the bossa nova rage of the 1950s,
-and I liked it so much...
-Oh, thank you.
...that I was left with a thirst for more.
So, I asked Jeff
to take things a step further.
I urged him to write a book
about that magical music
that captivated the world,
especially many of us here
in the United States.
-Now, that was the initial premise...
-Yes.
...and it was a fairly simple one.
The story, however,
-became more complicated, you could say.
-It sure did.
And in my opinion, for the better.
Well, uh, I could go on and on,
but I would much rather
have Jeff tell you all about it.
So, without further ado, maestro.
Uh, hi.
Where should I start?
Well, naturally,
after getting Jessica's offer,
I accepted it
without even a second thought.
I think mostly 'cause it included
three trips to, uh, Rio de Janeiro...
...uh, and it was an opportunity
to spend time listening to music,
which I love to do,
and gabbing with musicians
and just, uh,
wandering around my favorite city.
-Mm. Yeah.
-You know, I might even fail, I thought,
to use my return ticket and,
uh, stick around a while.
Terrific.
Well, no sooner had my article
appeared in The New Yorker
that my mailbox was just crammed
with parcels promoting
the latest music trends,
not just Brazilian,
but all kinds of world music.
I got 'em, I got 'em. Thank you.
I had five days before my flight to Rio,
so I locked myself in at home
to catch up and listen to music.
One day, a piano solo on a recording
from the '60s caught my attention.
I checked out the liner notes,
and I came across a name
which until that moment
had been unknown to me...
Tenrio Jnior.
I wanted to know who this guy was,
this piano player
that I'd never heard about.
What else had he done?
What was he doing now?
It seemed that in 30 years,
he hadn't done a single thing.
I figured he must have d*ed the way
most musicians did back in the '70s,
dr*gs or a car crash while touring.
Ah, there it is!
BOOKS AND CDS
MUSIC BOOKSTORE
EVERYONE'S SHEET MUSIC
BIOGRAPHIES-STORIES-ROGAHOS
TOQUEIRO LIBRARY - RESEARCH TABLE
FOUNDATION STONE
This one, please.
BOSSA NOVA MUSEUM
CRAVO ALBIN CULTURAL INSTITUTE
The very next day, I made plans
to have a drink with my good friend Joo,
who is one of the people I know
who knows most about Brazilian music,
and I often go to him for help.
And he gave me the names
of people that I could talk to,
and he gave me their phone numbers.
And, as he always does, he brought me
a very sweet gift of records.
...from the '60s
which had been out of print.
Impossible to find, you know?
I have this one already.
By the way, who is this pianist?
Gee, I never heard of him.
Who's Tenrio Jnior?
Tenrio was one of the top figures
of samba jazz
during the bossa nova years.
He was the jazzist
of the Brazilian pianists.
-What ha-- What happened to him?
-He d*ed. A very strange story.
He was in Buenos Aires
playing with Vinicius de Moraes,
when one night,
he disappeared just like this.
Nobody heard from him again.
Wait a minute. How do you know he's dead?
Well, it happened at the time
of m*llitary coup in Argentina.
What, was he mixed up
in politics or something?
I don't know...
No, not that I know.
Well, I'd like to know more about him.
This was Beco das Garrafas. Bottles Alley.
No! This is Bottles Alley?
This was the birthplace of samba jazz.
Why do they call it that?
Ah, because there were
so many people coming
that the neighbors couldn't sleep
and started to throw bottles
at everything and everybody.
There were just four small clubs.
Some were even hookah joints.
Over there, the Bottle's Club,
and there in front was Little's.
-You see that?
-Uh-huh.
They belonged to Alberico Campana,
an Italian immigrant
who didn't have any money.
He didn't even know
that in Brazil we speak Portuguese.
-No kidding!
-Yeah, he thought we speak Spanish.
That guy could tell you a lot of stories.
- Yeah, let's talk to him!
- There's nothing left from that time.
It was a golden age
that lasted only ten years.
It was all new kids.
The bossa nova movement
started shyly like that.
They didn't accept it right away.
It was just accepted
by the guys who made bossa nova.
It started to grow and grow.
There were 60 people inside
and a thousand people outside.
Of those thousand people,
three hundred were musicians.
That's why I think
that it was a historical thing,
because there was a radical change
in the music and what it was.
That's all, folks!
Ella Fitzgerald
did four days at Copacabana Palace
and those four days,
she left without giving an encore
to run to Beco.
Everyone who appeared in Rio de Janeiro
came to Beco.
It was a wonderful city.
Everybody was happy, joyful,
nothing happened.
Oh, yeah.
It was an
absolutely strange thing, completely new.
The lyrics were completely new,
the music was completely new,
the singing was completely new...
and it had guitar
that no one had played like that either.
Music was not made that way.
Before "Chega de Saudade"
and after "Chega de Saudade"
it was another thing,
another matter, very clear.
What is this "Chega de Saudade" thing?
I went crazy for all of that...
that way, that poetry.
That was it.
"Chega de Saudade" changed my life.
Go, my sadness
And tell her
That without her it can't be...
After that song,
nothing ever was the same.
The song was called "Chega de Saudade",
"No More Blues",
and brought together the holy trinity
of the new Brazilian sound...
Joo Gilberto,
the poet Vinicius de Moraes,
who wrote the lyrics,
and Antnio Carlos Jobim,
who contributed the music
and arrangements.
It was 1959.
The bossa nova in Brazil
and the Nouvelle Vague in France
changed the history of music and film.
And when the Brazilian musicians
hit New York City
for their legendary concert
at Carnegie Hall,
it was unstoppable.
American musicians went absolutely wild
over Brazilian music.
Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan,
Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie.
And when Stan Getz recorded
with Joo Gilberto,
they knocked The Beatles
right off the top of the charts.
Even Frank Sinatra
made two records with Jobim.
This made a lot of sense
since the precursors of the bossa nova
had been members of the Frank Sinatra
and d*ck Farney fan club in Rio
back in the '50s.
The entire world began singing
and dancing to Brazilian music.
There hadn't been anything like it
since the mambo rage of the 1940s.
Everyone talks about the influence
of the bossa nova on American music.
But bossa was influenced
by American music too,
especially West Coast jazz.
When they asked Elis Regina
which singer had most influenced her,
- you know who she said?
- No.
- She said Chet Baker.
- No kidding!
By the way, tomorrow
there's a screening of a documentary
on Vinicius de Moraes
produced by his daughter.
It could be interesting.
If you want me to stop crying
Tell time to stop passing
Time cries the same tears as me
Him and me both
In order not to make you sad
What can I do but sing?
After Tenrio disappeared,
my dad stayed for a while in Buenos Aires.
Actually, he had an Argentine girlfriend
at the time.
The next to last just before Gilda.
Another coincidence was
that the consul of Buenos Aires
when all this sh*t was going on
was my ex-husband, Rodolfo.
My dad asked him to help find Tenrio,
but it was impossible.
Has anyone ever told you about Malena?
Malena? Who's Malena? You mean his wife?
Well, not exactly.
He was married, right?
And he had a lot kids, or...
Yeah, four, and I think
they were expecting their fifth.
But he was in love with Malena too.
And why did they arrest him?
Why did they-- Why did they k*ll him?
Nobody really knows.
It seems Malena wasn't feeling very well,
and he went out to the pharmacy
to get some medicine,
and that's it, he just vanished.
He vanished. He disappeared.
I know her.
Do you want me to give her a call?
Malena? Uh...
Did-- Did you know that Tenrio was
with another woman when he disappeared?
Yes, of course.
Jeff, Gilda was Vinicius' last wife.
Just yesterday I was telling Jeff
about Tenrio Jnior.
It was a mystery,
a very distressing thing for Vinicius.
It was very difficult for a day to go by
without Vinicius talking about Tenrio
and that terrible episode.
He d*ed with the anguish
of Tenrio's disappearance.
He did?
Malena doesn't want to talk about it.
She kept quiet for 35 years
out of respect for the family,
and she's not going
to start talking about it now.
I know musicians
who were friends of theirs.
If you'd like, we could try
to locate his widow through them.
Well, you mean his wife.
Since the body was never found,
she was never compensated
as a victim of the dictatorship.
She doesn't even get a pension.
Can you believe that?
Oh, boy. Yeah.
-Hello?
-You're still here?
-Joo?
-I just met a friend
who knows Tenrio's wife, Carmen.
He told me she lives in a small village
in the middle of nowhere
and doesn't have a number.
You have to call a public pay phone
on the street. You know what I mean?
"He went missing
in mysterious circumstances..."
t*rture and m*rder.
A few days later,
I caught a flight to Tucson
to meet with Bud Shank,
one of the great figures
of West Coast jazz,
along with Chet Baker.
He was the first person to mix samba
and jazz together during the mid-1950s.
Hey!
On our way to his house,
Bud told me about those pioneer recordings
with Brazilian guitarist
Laurindo Almeida in L.A.
Just when I was in Rio,
I met-- I met a whole bunch of guys.
It was that same time I was at Carnival.
I got to Rio just the day
that Carnival started.
And, uh, I didn't know a soul in Rio.
All the time I was there,
Carnival was going on too,
so everything was...
all over the place, you know.
I mean, 24 hours a day.
So, you couldn't really judge--
Is this really Rio, or is this Rio
during Carnival, you know?
It was like going to heaven.
I never danced in the street anywhere
in my life before that or after that.
I just started wandering around,
and I walked-- I walked into a club,
which was right by my hotel.
I was very impressed
with his playing, which was also--
I found very refreshing, you know.
A more contemporary-- A younger approach.
You know, it was a delightful...
Well, imagine my astonishment
when he told me that the piano player
was Tenrio Jnior.
I never did know whether Tenrio
was his first name or last name.
Everybody called him Tenrio.
As I said, he spoke very good English.
He was, uh, an intellectual, you know.
I mean, he could talk about a lot
of subjects and especially about music.
And he was younger than Jobim
and all that bunch.
And I sure did enjoy playing with him
and we talked about samba a lot.
And he went on to tell me
that he'd wanted to bring him
to the United States to play in his band.
...which never happened.
Instead, Sergio Mendes came
and Tenrio didn't.
Sergio Mendes wanted to be a pop star.
That was evident in the beginning,
you know. I mean...
Listening to him talk,
I realized at some point he has no clue
about what happened to Tenrio.
I decided to tell him, uh,
that he had disappeared,
and that nobody ever saw him again,
and that his body was never found.
I had no idea about all that.
- That's-- That's a terrible story.
- Yeah.
Tenrio's story. Man, that's heavy.
Yeah, isn't it?
Wild story.
I really did like the guy.
And I liked him as a person.
But why Tenrio?
He drove me back to the airport,
but he didn't speak the entire way.
Two weeks later, I was back in Rio.
I've lined up
a bunch of interviews for you.
A who's who in Brazilian music.
Also, Susana de Moraes called me.
She wants you to come for dinner tonight.
Apparently, Malena has changed her mind,
and now it seems she wants to talk to you.
Malena?
Malena, the girl who Tenrio
was with in Buenos Aires.
You want to speak to her?
Yeah, of course.
But first, we have an appointment
with Ferreira Gullar.
Wh-Who's that?
Oh, he's a great poet.
He wrote "Poema Sujo." Uh, "Dirty Poem."
He was a close friend of Vinicius
and was exiled in Buenos Aires
when Tenrio disappeared.
He could tell you some interesting things,
and he lives only a couple of minutes
from your hotel.
After you drop off your bag,
we'll go to see him.
-It's okay?
-Yeah, great, let's go.
Vinicius always toured over there,
by Punta del Este and then Mar del Plata
and then Buenos Aires in the summertime.
He was living in an aparthotel
and then I went there to his apartment
and I heard a conversation
with a young lady
who was Tenrio's girlfriend
and who went in there and said:
"Tenrio hasn't come back yet."
He told us
that the girl wasn't feeling well
and that Tenrio went down to the pharmacy
to buy medicine,
disappeared and never came back.
Then Ferreira Gullar
shared something incredible.
Now the following happens:
when I arrived in Buenos Aires,
my son had a psychic problem
and he disappeared,
disappeared, ran away from home,
left home and disappeared.
I was in a state of despair
and I talked to my Argentinean friend...
A female friend of Ferreira
then told him
that she knew a clairvoyant named Hayde.
And then she tells me
the following, "Mr. Gullar,
I know you don't believe in these things.
If you want,
I can give you her phone number
so you can try to see
if she can find your son."
I said, "Okay, give me the phone."
I called her.
"I'm so-and-so, friend of Beltrana.
I'm calling you
because my son disappeared."
What's his name?
As soon as I said the name,
her voice changed pitch,
her voice got strange and she said...
He's underground.
Ferreira thought
that his son was dead,
but she reassured him that he was not.
He has no memory.
Something happened to him.
Call the Brazilian Embassy.
You'll find him there.
I said, "But, Mrs. Hayde,
I'm an exile and I can't call the embassy
without ending up in jail.
If I go to the embassy..."
Call the embassy!
Ferreira's son
had spent two days on the street
before somebody took notice.
Since he only spoke Portuguese,
she took him to the Brazilian Embassy.
They set up a cot for him,
waiting for somebody
to come and identify him.
As the clairvoyant had said,
the boy was underground.
So I told this story to Vinicius and said:
"If you want, I'll call Mrs. Hayde
so we can locate Tenrio Jnior."
I took the notebook
and turned to Mrs. Hayde.
"Mrs. Hayde,
it's Ferreira, the Brazilian."
I said, "There's another problem here.
A Brazilian pianist has disappeared."
- What is his name?
- Tenrio Jnior.
Because I had to say the name.
Only after saying the name
could she locate the person.
It is mind-to-mind contact.
I said the name, Tenrio Jnior.
When I said the name,
her voice changed again.
There is a girl by your side
who is in love with him.
Tell her to get away from all this,
to stay away,
if she doesn't want
something irreparable to happen to her.
Really?
Now, I was scared of her knowing
that the girl was there beside me.
Then I said, "Mrs. Hayde, what is it?
Where is Tenrio?"
Look, I'm unable to connect with him.
I don't want to scare you,
but his brain is not working.
He is dead or unconscious.
Right now, that's all I know.
Call me in two or three days.
I didn't wait until the third day.
On the second day, I called Mrs. Hayde.
When I called and she heard my voice,
before I said anything,
she yelled in a terrible voice,
"Mr. Ferreira, he was m*rder*d.
He was massacred!"
I went back to Vinicius' house
to tell him the news.
When I told him what Mrs. Hayde
had told me on the phone,
he remained motionless in the armchair
and the tears started
to fall from his eyes.
Then he began to say,
"My friend, my friend..."
Vinicius was apprehensive,
worried, and I even suggested,
"Buy a ticket and send this girl back
to Rio de Janeiro."
She was really quite scared.
She went there on a pleasant trip
and suddenly she was in a very big mess.
All this difficulty in finding Tenrio,
in my memory, is mixed with the coup.
I think that's the reason
why nothing was ever known,
because it didn't matter
to the Argentinean dictatorship
if it was accused
of having m*rder*d a musician,
a pianist, in the most brutal way.
And because when it was time
to return the body,
people would see
that he had been massacred,
they tried to cover it up.
That night, I went
to Susana de Moraes' home to meet Malena.
During dinner,
I inquired why she changed her mind
and decided to talk to me.
She answered,
"Because Tenrio was an artist
and did not deserve to be forgotten."
We were at the beginning
of our relationship
when things happened, right?
Nobody knew I was going there.
I couldn't say that I was there
in Punta del Este with a married man.
So, we decided to run away.
He had been invited by Vinicius.
Vinicius was doing this tour,
a summer tour that he always did.
- Go, go, go
- I won't
-Go, go, go
-I won't
-Go, go, go
-I won't
I am no one to go
In conversation of forgetting
The sadness of a love gone by...
There in Punta del Este it was great,
but he didn't have a very good head.
I think it was also
because of the situation
that he had to go back
and solve a situation that maybe,
unconsciously, he didn't want to solve.
Who are they?
This one is him with Azeitona.
Mutinho, he was the drummer.
They were the people
who played with him on Vinicius' tour.
Azeitona d*ed, but Mutinho
lives in So Paolo, like Toquinho.
Both of them.
When I arrived in Buenos Aires,
I felt an atmosphere of dread.
A completely besieged place, got it?
An emergency situation, like a w*r.
There were barricades,
machine g*ns all the time.
It was like that
wherever you went, got it?
You couldn't walk two steps
without a machine g*n above you.
But he liked to play in Buenos Aires.
He knew a lot of people. He knew Piazzola.
We went to meet Piazzola
one night in a restaurant.
But Tenrio wasn't well.
Because for him, a guy who had,
I think, five children,
a wife,
this gave him a lot of worries
in his mind.
We came back from the theater
and we had a dinner
that Vinicius was putting together
for the end of the show
in a restaurant that he always went to,
because in the morning
we would leave for Brazil.
And he says, "I'm not going at all."
Then I said,
"Okay, we're not going.
I have a bit of a headache anyway.
Go around the corner."
There was a place that sold sandwiches.
"Bring some and we'll stay here."
It was fine. I was waiting for him.
An hour goes by, two hours...
And nothing.
Tenrio went to the corner
and didn't come back.
Then I started to feel sick,
in a cold sweat.
And the next day...
Well, I didn't sleep all night long.
We all started to look for him.
Then Vinicius said,
"You're going to board."
"I'm not boarding.
I'll stay and he'll show up."
And I stayed there for about three days.
Then Vinicius boarded me on the plane.
"You'll go back
and I'll stay here trying to find him."
I went to live in Petrpolis.
My mother had a country house
and I stayed there.
I spent eight years there.
I was
a little bit in shock for a long time.
I couldn't speak.
I didn't speak for many months.
And then little by little,
I started to get back to my life
and I started doing botanical drawing,
then working with plants.
Nowadays, I'm a botanical illustrator
and people even know me well
for illustrations and everything.
It all happened very quickly.
It was a short time, four months or so.
It was more like a dream that didn't work.
But I loved watching him play.
He sat at the piano
and the world really stopped
and became enchanted when he played,
as if it were an enchantment.
His music encompassed everything.
Tenrio was special.
Very special.
I then asked Malena if anybody
who was investigating Tenrio's death,
a cop, a reporter,
had ever spoken with her.
Never, no one in 30 years.
And I'll tell you why.
Never, no one in 30 years.
Hey, buddy.
Do you have anything to write with?
Yeah, right here in my hand.
-349...
-349...
-315... 966, 6 again, 9...
-315... 6669.
It's the pay phone at the village
where Carmen lives.
-Okay.
-And here's the big news.
Joo Gilberto has agreed
to talk with you tomorrow.
Thirty minutes, but no recording.
Hey, now you owe me two dinners!
-Oh, my gosh, at least that.
-Two dinners, mister.
Two dinners!
I got there a half hour early,
and I strolled around for a little bit,
not wanting to arrive too early
or be, of course, late
for my appointment with Joo Gilberto,
the man that Miles Davis said
could sound good reading a newspaper.
I was 17
when I first heard Joo Gilberto
playing "Chega de Saudade"
in that very particular way.
I thought I had finally comprehended
modernity itself
and also the substance
of Brazilian popular music story.
It made me read literature differently,
watch movies differently,
feel life in a different way.
I mean, it changed everything.
I remembered
that Tenrio was planning to record
with Caetano when he got back
from Buenos Aires.
I always felt very reverent before Tenrio
because of his musical ability,
an ear for the gifted harmony
that Tenrio undoubtedly had.
This made me very reverent to him.
I remember a train trip I took
with Tenrio from So Paulo to Rio.
We spent the whole night talking
in the car without sleeping.
I was playing "She's a Carioca"
and I had some doubts about the harmony
and he taught me, he explained to me,
telling me the chords
and I was amazed
by that direct contact with the harmony.
She is from Rio
Just the way she walks
No one has affection to give
After Chico, Gil and Caetano,
only Milton Nascimento was left
to complete the four giants of MPB,
Brazilian popular music.
Just as I was waiting for Milton
to tell me where he was
when he heard "Chega de Saudade"
for the first time,
he surprised me
with a story out of nowhere.
I consider myself a child of cinema.
He told me that when he saw
Jules and Jim at the movies,
he was overwhelmed with emotion,
that he was unable
to fall asleep that night
and wrote three songs which would
later appear on his first album.
I think Truffaut
changed the lives of many people...
Before leaving,
it occurred to me to ask Milton
whether he had known or had
had any relationship with Tenrio Jnior,
and at the mere mention of his name,
he became quite emotional.
He was a great musician.
When we arrived at his house,
we ended up being part of the family.
He was a family man
with a lot of children,
happy only for the children
and that joy in the whole house.
That piano of his fascinated me a lot.
I wouldn't know how to define Tenrio.
He had style but the sound was different.
When this record came out
and when it arrived at my house,
I couldn't take it off
the old record player.
Tenrio played on some
of the best records of his time
but recorded only one as a bandleader
in March of 1964.
He was 23 years old.
A few days later,
a m*llitary coup put a halt
to the modernization of the country
and set in motion a dictatorship
that would last for over 20 years.
Good afternoon! Can I speak to Carmen?
Go find Mrs. Carmen!
Mrs. Carmen, phone!
I guess
it should be somewhere around here.
Carmen lived modestly.
She made and sold sweets.
No, I am still married today.
To be a widow,
there would have to be a body.
Today is like the day
after he disappeared.
Nothing was known.
Yeah.
It was my mother
who heard on television
that Vinicius' pianist had disappeared
and she came to my house to tell me.
I was expecting my youngest son
when Tenrio disappeared
and an aunt of Tenrio's
who was a psychic came to my house
to see the child
and she told Tenrio's sister,
"I thought the child was very cute,
but the father won't know this child!"
How did you meet?
I had seen Tenrio play there
at the time of the Little Club.
I used to go there on Sunday afternoons.
I used to go to Beco das Garrafas
and listen to Embalo a lot.
And we met on the penultimate day of '66.
When I was introduced to him,
I said, "Oh, you are the famous Tenrio."
We met there, we got married
and then with my last salary I received,
I resigned to get married
and I bought the rings.
And we got married like that,
jumping in the deep end
thinking that everything would work out
with God's help.
Then after we got married,
work wasn't something
that constant either.
We went through a lot of difficulties.
A lot of difficulties.
He was very radical.
He was not an easy person.
He let people down,
he agreed and didn't go,
he stopped in the middle of things
and left,
left at break time and disappeared,
stuff like that.
He could be very crazy,
but he was an extremely polite person,
a completely sweet person.
The only thing Tenrio knew
how to do was music.
I studied a photo of Tenrio,
one in which he looked
a lot like Bill Evans.
I mentioned this to Carmen,
and she said yes,
that was one of his favorite musicians.
When Bill Evans was in Brazil,
he did some concerts at the Municipal,
we even went.
After, Claudio Piolho took Bill Evans
here to the Fisherman's Bar at Barra
and Tenrio went too.
He had to go because he loved Bill Evans
and so we went there.
I remember that Bill Evans sat down,
Tenrio, me...
And Tenrio spoke English very well.
Then they started talking
and they talked a lot.
...to me, just absolutely
classic, beautiful solos, you know.
It doesn't have to be bass fiddle.
It could be anything.
It's just somebody expressing themselves
in a melodic and beautiful way.
Afterwards,
Carmen started to share with me
about the difficulties
that she encountered
following the disappearance of Tenrio.
I was trying to put myself
in her situation.
I mean, simultaneously finding out
that Tenrio had disappeared
but also that he wasn't alone
when it occurred.
Geez, I thought they'd never
had the chance to argue
or fight or separate or make up.
Before I left,
Tenrio's sons came by the house.
I remember his voice clearly,
playing piano when there was a birthday.
This thing she talked about,
playing the piano on birthdays,
I remember and this memory came to me.
But I don't have any memory like that.
I don't remember.
I remember the movement of the house
more than him specifically.
The movement of the house,
the people, I remember.
I remember the instruments,
the big basses...
The house was always full.
There were always people.
They were always playing
in the little room.
I remember the exact day
Roberto went to the airport
to pick him up from his trip.
It was Elisa's birthday.
That day,
I remember the house all tidied up.
For a long time, when
the bell rang, we expected it to be him.
From about ten to 12 years old,
we kept waiting.
After that, we had no hope in that sense.
There's no way.
Elisa wrote a letter to the president.
I don't even remember writing this.
What would it be like
if he hadn't disappeared,
if I had my father alive to this day?
How would my relationship with him,
his relationship
with his granddaughters be?
How would it be to have a father?
And I had a strange feeling
at one point,
'cause I was watching their kids
playing nearby
and I thought, "Oh, my gosh,
these are Tenrio's grandchildren,
of course, that he'd never meet."
Tenrio's story started
to interfere with my work
to the point of making me forget
about the book that I was writing.
Luckily, Joo has taken it upon himself
to remind me.
What time is it?
It's the chance of a lifetime, man.
Paulo Moura and Joo Donato,
Brazil's two greatest musicians
- recording together.
- Yeah!
It's something we doesn't
see every day, man.
Especially for a gringo like you.
Hey.
When there are no witnesses,
I'm going to kiss you.
- I won't do it in front of this guy.
- Did you understand?
Hi.
Oh, it's beautiful.
Throughout the lunch,
these two masters recalled so many stories
about bossa nova's golden age
and when Donato and Joo Gilberto,
still teenagers, arrived in Rio.
I recalled that Paulo Moura played
on Tenrio's record,
and I inquired about that.
With Tenrio, I learned a lot of things.
He was the best pianist in the city.
It was a period in which Tenrio was
one of the important musicians
of bossa nova.
I miss him a lot.
It would be so good
if he were still alive today.
And he was a great loss for our music.
His musical touch
hasn't left my ear either.
It was a very sensitive touch.
I spent a week doing interviews
for my book.
They stopped a golden age
right in its tracks.
You know, the best music in the world
was getting made in Brazil
and from one day to the next,
they just ended it.
Dictatorship and big business,
no room for new music.
They only wanted three-minute songs.
Tenrio's death was a kind of
parallel metaphor, I think,
for the death of all of Brazilian music.
And besides that,
he was the victim of two dictatorships,
in Brazil and in Argentina.
Who rose to power through m*llitary coups
backed by your country's government.
-That's it.
-Mmm.
The day before I left,
I went to talk to a musician,
a friend of Tenrio
whom Carmen had told me about,
and he had spent, uh, years supposedly
compiling many of Tenrio's compositions
for a songbook.
Tenrio, he was a gentleman.
He was very shy, spoke low.
He appeared like a lightning bolt
in Brazilian music here in Rio.
He went to Beco das Garrafas.
He played once and it was a commotion.
He was phenomenal.
To this day, he remains phenomenal.
If he didn't like something...
...he would disappear.
He thus gained a reputation
at the professional level
of being a guy who disappears.
This hindered him professionally.
And then at one point,
I was just shocked,
because all this music was on the floor.
It was Tenrio's,
and we were trampling on his compositions.
Oh, my gosh!
This here... it's Tenrio's?
Yes, they're all his. I don't compose.
(Recording)
SAUDADE - 17th December 67
Uh, thank you.
Thank you.
Hey, Jeff. It's Jessica. How are you?
I hope you had a great trip.
And I am dying to read something.
Do you have any idea when that'll be?
Oh, listen, by the way,
if you're not too jet-lagged,
there is the most amazing Cuban pianist
playing at the Village Vanguard tonight.
-But if you're too tired, don't worry...
-I'm gonna be there.
...because I can always invite someone
who's a lot sexier
and better-looking than you are. Bye.
Sexier than me?
What's she talking about?
Jessica was quite anxious
to receive an update on our book,
but at that point,
I couldn't stop talking about Tenrio,
his life and his music,
and his absurdly tragic end.
I just couldn't stop talking about him.
I've had enough!
Jeff, if you keep this up,
you're going to have trouble
finding your way home, baby.
Yeah, don't worry. I was already
pretty wasted when I arrived.
Hey, good stuff! Excellent!
Fantastic!
-Hang on, Jessica, I'll be right back.
-Just-- Oh, gosh, where are you going?
You gonna play the piano now?
Hello, maestro.
Hello, how are you?
Can you play this?
Yes, whatever you'd like.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, thank you.
Well, let's see if you like it.
Oh, amazing.
Okay, sleepyhead, time to get up!
-Here you go.
-Hi.
Breakfast of champions.
Oh, look how sweet you are. What is that?
Oh, I like you.
Listen, if last night is a complete blank,
don't worry!
There's absolutely nothing to remember.
You spent the whole night--
Mmm, God, this is good.
--talking about a m*rder*d piano player.
-What was his name?
-Who?
Oh-- Who? Oh, right. Tenrio?
Tenrio, that's right.
I wanted you to tell me about our book,
and you wouldn't stop talking
about what's-his-name.
Tenrio. It's Tenrio Jnior.
-Yeah, so nothing happened.
-Did I try to kiss you?
Listen, it's impossible to seduce someone
who thinks he's
a know-it-all Henry Kissinger.
What?
Basically, you told me we were to blame
for all the m*llitary coups
that took place in the '60s.
When I tried to defend myself,
saying I had nothing to do with them,
you refused to listen.
So, I had no other recourse
but to put you to sleep on the couch.
Oh. Oh, I see.
-You know what?
-What?
I think that's the book you should write.
What?
No, I'm halfway through the other one.
Okay, but your whole mind and interests
are centered on the story of that man.
I mean, you're-- you're possessed.
Listen to me. That is the book
that you absolutely have to write.
Hmm.
You're gonna love meeting John.
He used to write for The Washington Post.
We published his book last year,
and it's absolutely his seminal work.
What you're telling me
about this piano player
isn't in the least bit surprising.
Hundreds of thousands were m*rder*d
during those years in many countries.
As you can imagine,
the vast majority were innocent people
who weren't in any way political,
let alone subversive.
In 1954, General Stroessner
launched a coup in Paraguay.
That same year,
there was another coup in Guatemala,
where 60,000 people disappeared
during the 36 years
that the w*r lasted there.
Four hundred and forty native villages
were erased from the map
and more than 200,000 people d*ed.
In El Salvador and Nicaragua,
w*r and dictatorships
left over 150,000 dead.
Ten years later, a m*llitary coup
put an end to democracy in Brazil.
In 1971, it was Bolivia's turn.
Two years after that, in 1973,
Pinochet's coup ended
Salvador Allende's rule in Chile.
That same year, another coup ended
a long period of democracy in Uruguay.
In 1976,
after a m*llitary overthrow in Argentina,
30,000 people were never seen again.
Too many atrocities.
Your piano player was just one of many
who d*ed during Operation Condor.
Back then, none of this was known.
It was all very hush-hush. Top secret.
The governments of Brazil,
Argentina, Paraguay, Chile,
Bolivia and Uruguay held a summit
to collaborate and fight
any elements considered subversive.
They could be exiles, dissidents,
politicians, m*llitary officials,
union or student leaders.
Even the press, clergy and children.
Nobody understood why someone
who had fled their country could be k*lled
or disappear in another.
Since Latin America
was a melting pot of dictators,
no one investigated.
Only years later
did Operation Condor come to light.
When? How?
The Curia in So Paolo tried to help
the families of those who had disappeared,
and founded an office called Clamor.
One of the cases they encountered
was that of a Uruguayan woman.
Her son and his wife had taken exile
in Buenos Aires.
They were arrested, tortured and m*rder*d.
They had two young children
who disappeared.
Geez.
The grandmother
wanted to know something about them,
if there was any way to find them.
One day, they received a phone call
from Caracas.
A woman claimed
to have seen the children in the photo...
...in a square in Valparaiso.
At first,
the whole thing didn't seem plausible,
two children from Uruguay,
missing in Argentina,
spotted by a Venezuelan woman
in a Chilean square.
Even so,
they decided to follow up the lead.
VALPARAISO HIGH SCHOOL
Two days later,
the Clamor worker went back to the school,
this time with the grandmother
of the two children.
My babies, my babies!
God, I can't believe it.
Ugh, that's horrible. Pure evil.
That was the first case
that implicated three of the countries
involved in Operation Condor.
Since then, there's been
an endless stream of similar cases.
There are still people trying to find--
Or at least find out something
about their parents or their children.
All of this was done with the blessings
of the CIA and American government.
-Yeah.
-Don't get depressed.
-There have been exceptions too.
-Really?
There was an idealistic young man who,
fed up with our tendency to defend
only democracy for our country
and dictatorships everywhere else,
marched off to Cuba to fight
with the revolutionary rebels.
The young man was William Morgan,
who fought in the hills with the rebels
and became a commandant
and hero of the revolution.
So, what happened to him?
Castro had him ex*cuted by a f*ring squad
two years after the revolution succeeded.
Mmm.
A week later, I was back in Rio
and I was working on the book,
except that now
the book was about Tenrio.
I made arrangements
to meet my friend Joo for dinner.
He wanted to show me an historic site.
Here is where everything started
one afternoon in April 1956.
Jobim was working as an arranger
near here, at the Continental.
After getting off work,
he used to drop in here for a beer.
He was seated over there at that table.
Vinicius was having a drink with a friend
who knew he was looking for a composer
for his new play,
and he insisted he should meet
this kid named Jobim.
Vinicius told him that he had written
a version of the Greek myth Orpheus,
set in a favela in Rio,
and was looking for someone
that could write the music.
Hey, do you have any money?
How can you say that to a poet?
You don't say that to a poet.
With the salary he was making,
Jobim could barely make it
to the end of the month, so he accepted.
A few days later,
Vinicius went to Jobim's apartment
to listen to some of the early music
he had written.
And that is how the happiest marriage
there has ever been in Brazilian music
was born.
Vinicius-- Gee.
I'd just give anything
to be able to talk to him.
I have so many questions.
Oh, um, by the way...
I have to tell you
something about the book.
Mmm. Yeah?
My relationship
with Tenrio Jnior started on the beach.
He was a personality...
but he was really a very special person.
Tenrio was a clean person, you know?
He was an outstanding person.
If it were in medieval times,
he would be a saint.
He was very "white" as a jazzman.
He passed very quickly
and had too early an end.
He deserved to still be alive
there with us.
The greatest jazz pianist
that Brazil has had
without a shadow of a doubt was Tenrio.
And the last time...
I was with Tenrio
was exactly in my studio
and he told me he was going to play a gig
in Buenos Aires
with Toquinho and Vinicius.
I remember talking to him
about the situation in Argentina,
which was complicated.
I said, "Oh, my God, it's complicated.
Tenrio, you have to be careful."
He was wearing black pants,
a black shirt, that big black beard,
and he said, "No, it's okay,
we're with Vinicius, let's do the show."
He wasn't worried at all.
After Tenrio disappeared,
someone from Argentina called me and said,
"Roberto, I came from Buenos Aires.
I was arrested there and we met there.
He was there."
I said, "Why were you arrested?"
He said, "I don't know.
They caught me in the middle of the street
and they interrogated me several times
and I don't know.
I don't know what I'm doing here."
Tenrio played that wave very well.
And he called my attention
for the assertive approach he gave
to Brazilian music,
using the type of sound
that Bill Evans played,
and he was an excellent pianist.
Tenrio's hand was a beautiful thing
playing the piano,
his hand in the right place.
And he played very well.
I miss him.
Look, can I confess something?
We all miss him, I miss him.
He is right here.
Who I really needed to talk to
were two survivors
from the group that left
for Uruguay and Argentina,
Toquinho and Mutinho,
but they were touring outside Brazil.
Tenrio's last concert
before returning was in Buenos Aires,
so instead of waiting for them to return,
I decided to meet them at the scene
where the events took place.
I took advantage of my time
in Buenos Aires
to find some friends
of Vinicius and Tenrio.
He was young with long hair and a beard.
Being young was already a sin.
Vinicius' pianist disappeared.
I asked myself, "How did he disappear?"
You know? We still didn't understand why,
because this was just getting started.
You must have seen the footage
where Videla says...
He is disappeared. He has no entity.
He's neither dead nor alive.
He is disappeared.
He's not here.
He's neither alive nor dead.
He is disappeared.
He's not here.
That's the tremendous thing
about state terrorism.
No one can imagine it
if they didn't experience it.
The state protecting you
is the one that kills, kidnaps,
the one that makes you disappear
and the one that steals.
That's why I say that state terrorism
is more frustrating than w*r.
In the middle of the night,
you could hear,
"They snatched up so-and-so."
That's the term used, snatched.
Those monsters break in.
They all have black glasses...
...and dark suits
and they destroy a politician's home.
They came looking for Melinda.
They go to the kitchen
and there's a three-year-old little girl
in a high chair
eating with her babysitter.
- That was Melinda.
- No.
Astiz, the demon, the famous blond angel,
Captain Astiz of the navy,
he's seen kneeling on the ground...
...and sh**ting the girl in the back...
... as she runs because
they mistake her for someone else.
Was Vinicius mixed up in politics?
No. We know
which side Vinicius' heart was on,
but Vinicius had no connection
with any political group.
Vinicius was a poet, an artist.
He focused on his music,
his bottle of whiskey
and his love of people.
When Vinicius comes with his music,
it's to do something artistic
in a city that loves it.
I don't think there's any way
Vinicius would have come
with his group to play in Buenos Aires
if he had known what lay ahead.
No connection to anything...
In Buenos Aires,
I interviewed Vinicius' next-to-last wife,
Marta.
Vinicius was a man
without any type of militancy.
He believed in humanistic socialism.
That's who he was.
Vinicius would have never disappeared.
It's like Vinicius was
somehow untouchable, you know?
He seemed like a very nice, calm guy
who was on a walk with his girlfriend,
like a honeymoon,
like two lovebirds.
A tall, skinny guy with long hair.
His appearance was everything
it shouldn't be at that time.
Vinicius always remembered Tenrio
with the helplessness
of not having been able to do anything.
It was something that loomed over him
for a long time.
There have been many
people who were kidnapped and m*rder*d
that had no political activity.
In the months before the coup,
and in the months after.
To go out to buy a sandwich
at 2:00 a.m. in those days,
you had to be a foreigner.
An Argentinean would have thought
more carefully before doing that.
I was just a few blocks away
from the places that Tenrio had been to
the night that he disappeared.
The police station
was just minutes from the hotel,
and that's where Tenrio had spent
the first two nights
of his interrogation and t*rture,
before being relocated to ESMA,
FEDERAL POLICE
the Higher School of Mechanics
of the Navy.
ESMA is...
the most important clandestine
detention center in Argentina.
It's our Auschwitz
and about 5,000 passed through there.
As far as survivors,
-what is it, about 200?
- Yes.
From the early days of ESMA,
there are almost no survivors.
Thanks to the assistance
of the Secretariat of Human Rights
for Argentina,
I was able to visit
the sadly notorious ESMA.
This was where Tenrio spent
the final days of his life.
SCHOOL OF MECHANICS OF THE NAVY
It operated during the entire period
of the dictatorship
from 1976 to 1983.
The first
place he was taken was the basement,
where they did
what they called interrogations,
which was actually t*rture.
-Oh!
-Watch your head.
-Here too.
-Wow, almost hit my--
Everyone remembers being forced to crouch
or purposely be hit in the head
with that beam you see here.
-Oh, sh*t.
-They were hooded most of the time.
The main purpose of the basement
was the place where the "interrogations"
were conducted,
but it was really for t*rture.
There were benches here
where they were seated
waiting to be tortured.
The marines called it
"Avenue of Happiness."
- Oy.
- The transfer door
to take people for the flights of death,
where they were thrown into the sea.
"Transfer" was the word the marines used
for a permanent disappearance.
-Mmm.
-Jesus, Jesus.
This is what they called the "hood."
Hood?
This is where the detainees were
concentrated with the characteristic
that they had hoods on,
hence the name.
All these rooms are mainly known
as the pregnant rooms,
being a clandestine maternity ward.
The pregnant women remained hooded,
like most detainees,
until the seventh month
and then they were cared for a bit more
and brought to these rooms
where they had a bit better well-being,
let's say.
Mothers went missing
and their kids were appropriated.
That was so much the case
that the Navy had a list of people
who signed up
because they couldn't have children,
so they were hoping
to receive a child born here at ESMA.
My God. That's horrible.
NEW SHOW
SUNDAY DECEMBER 4TH 8 PM - COLISEUM
Yay! Bravo!
Tenrio was a great accompanist
and an excellent soloist.
He was very critical,
with fantastic humor.
We were leaving a paradise,
Punta del Este.
We stayed there for a month.
During that month,
he was safe with the distance from Brazil.
He was going through a personal crisis,
the holidays were ending,
he had to go back to his reality
and this crisis didn't exist
a single day in Punta del Este.
The atmosphere was very tense
in Buenos Aires.
There were tanks in the streets.
It was a b*mb
that was going to explode at any time.
But we had no idea before going there.
The police sometimes came in
and searched the rooms,
twice in the hotel we were staying at.
We're going to search.
Tenrio was wonderful.
He was a wonderful person.
Very chivalrous, very intelligent,
but also very childish.
There was something very, very pure.
He was so funny.
We laughed a lot when we played.
It was wonderful.
He brought someone else, Malena, with him.
And we knew that Carmen existed.
He must have been happy with both.
He was playing well.
He was happy, he wasn't sad.
I went to meet a friend
I met in Punta del Este
and we ate and drank wine.
Then when I was coming back,
I got a little scared.
I saw a lot of movement
and I was afraid of the police,
like everyone else.
Then I arrived at the hotel
and it was a tremendous relief.
At 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning,
Malena calls me like,
"You didn't run into Tenrio?
You didn't see Tenrio?" I say, "No, no."
Then she said,
"Because he left and didn't come back.
He went to buy me a sandwich
and he hasn't come back yet."
Then at 4:30, Azeitona arrived.
At six o'clock in the morning,
more or less,
everyone was in the hall
of the Hotel Normandie.
Everybody was worried, scared.
This friend of mine, Malena and I,
the three of us took a car...
FORENSIC MEDICAL CORPS
JUDICIAL MORGUE
...and went to the morgue,
to the hospital and everything.
We asked questions and found nothing.
We returned very discouraged,
very discouraged,
and we returned to Brazil.
For a long time afterward,
I dreamed of Tenrio.
When you see a person,
a relative, a friend who dies,
you see them, you go and take the friend.
Now when he disappears,
you never forget,
you don't forget anymore.
Yeah, right.
I started to write a melody, a song.
It's a beautiful song,
but the melody was written...
-Mutinho, I found the lyrics.
-Ah!
I looked it up on the Internet.
The melody was written by Mutinho
and I wrote the lyrics.
Pedro continued on his path
Chico asked to stay
Tenrio went out alone one night
He disappeared
No one could explain it
Other friends have gone
Maintaining their ideals
Between the truth and delusions
Some sowed nostalgia in exile
Others will never return
- We found the lyrics.
- What a beautiful thing.
This song is beautiful. I miss this song.
Asking around here and there,
I managed to locate
two friends of Tenrio...
BOOKS
OLD AND NEW
...who had arranged to meet him
the night of the concert.
But when they arrived, Tenrio
had already gone out, never to return.
He was a great guy. He was a pure guy.
He looked like a porteo.
He spoke Spanish very well.
He imitated me, "What barbarity!"
And he laughed afterwards.
He tells me, "Look, you go to the hotel
and I will be there later,
because I have to..."
We arrived at the Normandie,
we went inside and waited.
Some coffee, yes.
Tenrio will be here soon.
And I never saw him again.
I went to all the hospitals.
That night, I went to the morgue
and he wasn't there.
The headquarters for the search
for Tenrio was Vinicius' house.
We went to the hospitals
and the morgue many times,
for a whole week, because I thought,
"How is it possible he isn't here?"
I kept looking for Tenrio.
"He must be somewhere."
I kept thinking
that I could see him at any moment.
Because I realized that he had d*ed.
I started crying in a corner of the house.
We talked on the phone
to arrange to meet after such a long time,
because we had each finished working
in different places.
We arranged to meet
at the hotel where he was staying.
That would be at 2:00 in the morning,
something like that.
He arrived before me
and he went to a pharmacy
two blocks from the hotel.
I arrived at the hotel
and a friend named Nano Herrera
was waiting there.
It was 4:00 in the morning.
At half past 6:00, 7:00 in the morning,
we went to the places
he was supposed to have gone.
Nobody knew anything.
If someone saw him,
they didn't say anything.
Remember that there was also
a lot of fear.
- Yeah, yeah. Right.
- We never heard from him again.
He was a fantastic musician, fantastic.
For me, the best there was in Brazil.
If he had lived,
Brazilian music would have been different.
Because he was a very, very special guy.
As if he were chosen to do certain things.
RESTLESSNESS IN BUENOS AIRES
FUELED BY ACCOUNTS
OF FEDERAL INTERVENTION
TODAY AND TOMORROW
10:30 PM TICKETS ON SALE
NOW THE BEST OF JAZZ RETURN
"The show revealed a surprise
for many spectators,
Tenrio Jnior's brilliant performance."
VINICIUS IN BUENOS AIRES
"The pianist ex*cuted
an inspired composition...
THE PIANIST TENRIO JR.
SURPRISES THE AUDIENCE
...that denoted the most authentic
expression of modern Brazilian music."
Tenrio never got to read this review.
Back in Rio,
I hunted down relatives of Tenrio
who could tell me
about his childhood and youth.
We had a neighbor
who played
in the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra
and he was his teacher.
He had this musical gift
since he was a small kid.
He respected his father a lot,
but I think he was very attached
to his mother.
When this happened to him,
she was shaken
and had a stroke and got sick.
He really pursued it,
even through Interpol,
and nothing, nothing, nothing.
Until this Argentinean gave an interview
with Senhor magazine
and had a meeting with him
where he declared
that Tenrio was actually k*lled
inside the cell by a sh*t to the head.
And in the end,
they made it seem like a pact,
one d*ed one day
and two days later it was the other.
I often went out with him.
He would play some place,
I think Beco das Garrafas in Copacabana,
at Bottle's.
He was a person completely disconnected
from everyday life,
very disconnected from material things,
traveling in his music.
He said, "I know how to play the piano,
I don't know how to make money."
He had a way of being very Zen,
very Buddhist, without being Buddhist,
the side of a person committed
to good things, things in nature.
With a very simple life,
almost Franciscan.
He did not participate in politics.
He used to say,
"My big thrill is playing the piano,
it's not doing politics."
Tenrio and his cousin,
Luiz Roberto, were very close.
They studied medicine together
until Tenrio decided to quit
and dedicate himself to music.
His father, in a loving way,
despite being upset that he left medicine,
because his father
was proud of him becoming a doctor,
gave him a piano.
Carmen was the strong person
in the couple.
They were experiencing
great financial difficulties,
but they overcame them
in a very good mood.
So, being completely broke, he said,
"I would like you to help Carmen
in her pregnancy."
And for Carmen's last two children,
I was the one who delivered them.
For me, it was very sad
because the last one I delivered for her
after he disappeared.
One day, I was here at home
when they called
saying that there was
an Argentinean corporal,
Vallejos, in the newsroom of Isto Senhor.
Mauricio Diaz asked me to go there.
When he was reporting this,
that's when the Brazilian police arrived
saying that they had
surrounded the building.
And then they came and said,
"Don't worry, nothing will happen to you,
but let's take the Argentinean here.
Why? Because he's talking too much."
What are you accusing me of?
I did not commit any crime!
My brother
didn't have furniture in the house,
so he made cardboard furniture.
Then he wrote once saying
that he had renovated the furniture,
he had painted the furniture black
to change the environment a little.
He was very fond of yoga.
He was very fond of Hindu philosophy.
He really liked meditation
and practiced it a lot.
He played for himself.
He played very well.
Whether he had people listening or not,
he played.
There was a piano here
and the drums by my bedroom door.
So, I slept to the sound of drums,
so much so
that I can sleep with any noise.
I heard about the case on television.
On Sunday's Fantstico program,
they broke the news
that he had disappeared.
And I was very worried about my parents,
and my father didn't go right away,
because my mother had an embolism.
She was hospitalized, she got sick.
So, my father waited for her to get better
so he could go there.
He went to Interpol,
he went to the police and such,
but they didn't know anything.
The year my father d*ed,
he was called by TV Manchete
saying that there was an Argentinean,
Vallejos, who wanted to speak.
It went like this, this and this.
The only option left was his death.
I always went with my dad
to these interviews,
but this time he decided not to tell me
and went alone.
Mom fell at their house
and she was hospitalized
and Dad wouldn't stay there without her.
Then she started
having a series of things.
He d*ed on Thursday
and she d*ed on Saturday.
When I checked the dates,
I discovered that
Tenrio's parents had d*ed
right around the tenth anniversary
of their son's m*rder.
I worked for a network,
an entity called Clamor.
That's where the first information came
about a Brazilian,
a pianist of Vinicius de Moraes,
that was kidnapped in Argentina.
Then I went to Argentina
to place a paid advertisement
in the newspaper La Nacin
and then went to the hotel bar.
I went with a picture of him.
The corner was full of glass windows.
There was a restaurant,
a coffee shop
and the newspaper kiosk next door.
I went with a picture of him
and asked the man.
He remembered the fact,
"The Brazilian! That's the Brazilian!"
And the man tells me
that he was taken away by a Ford Falcon.
In Argentina,
kidnappings were usually carried out
in Ford Falcons.
I confirmed that he was kidnapped.
Do you think
he was kidnapped by mistake?
No. It is possible that he had been
mistaken for someone else,
but he was arrested
by the Argentinean political police.
It was a political kidnapping.
Ten years later, a guy named Vallejos
explained that, in fact,
Tenrio had been arrested
and m*rder*d at the Navy Mechanics' School
by Captain Astiz, "the Angel of Death."
Greenhalgh told me
that a young Brazilian filmmaker
had filmed an interview
with Vallejos years ago
while making a short documentary
about Tenrio.
The process of getting testimonials
from both the father and Carmen
took a long time.
I had to gain their trust
to be able to make the film.
The first contact was a difficult one
because he didn't want to talk.
It was a time when his wife
was still alive, she was sick.
She was in the next room
and he was extremely attentive to her.
He seemed to be a very strong person,
but this story seems to me
that it left him very broken.
As a man who served the State,
when he needed the State
to help locate his son,
it wouldn't help him.
Filming.
We didn't have any money.
It took us, I think,
something like three months
to get him to be willing
to record his interview.
Ten years later,
I decided to do a session
at the Museum of Image and Sound
in Rio de Janeiro
to remember Tenrio's disappearance.
They told me that there was a person,
a foreigner calling looking for me.
That person was Vallejos.
Then a very curious process began.
He hung up the phone.
"I'll call you in half an hour."
He left where he was and changed phones.
I'm taking these precautions
to avoid running risks.
Rogrio told Vallejos
that he was interested
in filming an interview
and Vallejos agreed.
But then, at the very last minute,
Vallejos showed up asking for money.
He wanted two thousand dollars
for the interview at the time.
I then said to him,
"Well, I left here, I got into debt,
I spent money that I did not have."
And I said, "Look, I would never
pay for your interview.
You have to do this interview anyway."
I directly participated in the arrest.
At the time, we were running
an operational group in the area,
specifically Callao
and Corrientes Avenues,
half a block away
from where Hotel Normandie is located.
16 PEOPLE m*rder*d
When we would go out
to identify subversive elements,
we first sent them to the police station
and then selected them.
Captain Acosta,
commander of the operation,
ordered that Tenrio,
along with other people,
be taken to the Navy Mechanics' School
for questioning,
convinced that he would have
communist tendencies
based on his appearance
and because he had
a musician's union card on him.
He was put in a special cell
for foreign political prisoners,
separate from the Argentinean prisoners.
After two days
at the Navy Mechanics' School,
it was reported to the Brazilian Embassy.
And we learned from the reports
the Brazilian SNI gave us
that Tenrio had no political activity,
the only thing was that he was suspected
of having communist tendencies
since he had, um, uh,
some artist and musician friends.
I was in contact with Vallejos,
and Mauricio Diaz, from Senhor magazine,
called me a day or two later.
He had decided to do the story
and wrote a ten-page story plus the cover.
The Brazilian government
didn't want us to release him
because he would jeopardize the ambassador
and many other people.
If he was released, he'd speak publicly
to the international press.
He'd say it had been like this,
this and this.
So, the only option left was his death.
How did he die?
He was sh*t in the head.
Who fired the sh*t?
Lieutenant Astiz.
While in the cell?
While in the cell, with a hood on.
-Did you witness it?
-Yes, I witnessed it.
Later, two others and I picked up his body
and put it in a black bag,
the kind used in the w*r
to store the dead and move them.
Hello!
All this time,
there was one person
that I would've given anything to talk to
and though he was dead for 30 years,
it was as if he had something to say.
I-- I-- I haven't seen it yet...
...but it seems the interview
at Vinicius' apartment did take place
-on the morning of the coup.
-Yep.
-That's why it was never broadcast.
-Yeah. Okay.
-It's in 16 mm and only one copy exists.
-Good.
From his residence in Buenos Aires,
we are going to interview
the famous Brazilian music composer
and author Vinicius de Moraes.
Well, Vinicius, the reason for our visit
is because we understand
that the pianist in your band,
named Tenrio, has disappeared.
What can you tell us about this?
Well, we are all suffering great anxiety
because it is really
such a mysterious disappearance.
We left the theater
and then I suppose that,
as he commonly did,
he went out for something to eat,
a sandwich, and he didn't come back.
How long has Tenrio been missing?
Tomorrow night will be a week.
Do you know
if he had any political inclinations?
Nothing at all. He was really apolitical.
He was a musician.
He was only concerned with music.
He lived a musician's life.
For me, it's a very painful moment
not only because he was my friend,
but also because he was
an extraordinary instrumentalist,
a human being of the best quality,
an incredibly sweet man
with great serenity,
incapable of harming anyone.
And for all those reasons,
I think his mysterious disappearance
leaves us in a state of great anguish.
We are all on alert for any phone call.
I have practically not left the house
because of this.
We are sorry
to film this story, which is quite sad,
but in any case,
we hope that you will be lucky
and see your dear friend
Mr. Tenrio again.
All that was left of Tenrio
were dispersed fragments
in the memories of a handful of people.
I'll never know
if he went out for a sandwich,
medicine or cigarettes
when he disappeared.
But when people spoke of him,
there was a virtually unanimous recall
that was repeated time and time again,
he was funny, intelligent,
pure, shy, ironic.
Here.
Among Tenrio's papers,
I had found a piece of sheet music
dedicated
to his favorite Brazilian pianist.
It's, um-- It's called "Viva Donato."
Uh, that-- that sounds like you.
There's only one Donato.
After so many atrocities,
I had almost forgotten
that Tenrio was first and foremost
a fabulous piano player.
And I think a friend,
but one whom I'd never meet
or discuss music with over a beer.
No one can do him justice.
I hope this book will rescue him,
at least momentarily,
from falling into oblivion.
Thank you.
They sh*t the Piano Player (2023)
Moderator: Maskath3