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José Gomes Filho, known as Jackson do Pandeiro (the King of Rhythm), was an important instrumentalist, composer and singer who recorded a series of forrós and sambas and helped popularise northeastern culture.
Jackson do Pandeiro the King of Rhythm popularised the dizzying rhythmic division and sharp metrical lyrics.
“Chiclete com Banana”, the best-known song in Jackson do Pandeiro’s repertoire, did not make “that” hit at the time of its release in 1959.
Jackson’s style, which was born a hundred years ago in deep Paraíba, took shape in Campina Grande and left Pernambuco to conquer the world, was already on people’s lips.
“O boogie-woogie de pandeiro e violão” hit the ears of fans as another humorous tirade by the singer.
Jackson do Pandeiro e Almira Castilho03:11
100 anos de Jackson do Pandeiro12:01
Jackson do Pandeiro História04:13
Chiclete com Banana02:15
Jackson do Pandeiro canta Sebastiana
Gradually, it fell into oblivion. Until 1972, when it resurfaced with the status of an avant-garde tropicalist song in the voice of Gilberto Gil. Today it is an absolute classic.
“Jackson do Pandeiro is one of the greatest loves I have. That I had, have and will always have”, says Gilberto Gil.
“An artist with the typical northeastern verve of the culture that was born from the intertwining of rural life and some medium-sized cities, such as Campina Grande, which began to develop from the 1930s and 1940s.”
Alagoa Grande, where José Gomes Filho was born (who, before becoming Jackson do Pandeiro, was Zé Jack and Jack, influenced by the gangster actor Jack Perrin), left in his memory “a hunger that gives you a headache”. And also the river fishing trips and the coconut rodas, in which his mother, Flora Mourão, was the most respected singer.
It was from the coconut – a genre whose “uniformity lies in the absence of uniformity”, in Mário de Andrade’s definition, that is, one expects one thing from the singing and another comes – that he influenced much of Brazilian popular music in the second half of the 20th century, with echoes and tambourines to this day.
“While Luiz Gonzaga popularised the baião, xote and xaxado, Jackson do Pandeiro projected coco, the northeastern samba, with dizzying rhythmic division and sharp metric lyrics,” says music critic Tárik de Souza.
“Jackson do Pandeiro, with his partner Almira Castilho, injected humour and mischief into the rich cultural legacy of his region.
He spread through tropicalism, influenced the later generation, of Alceu Valença, Elba Ramalho and Zé Ramalho, the mangue beat, from Nação Zumbi and Mundo Livre S.A., the baque solto of Lenine and Lula Queiroga and the retrofitted coco of Cascabulho and Silvério Pessoa,” Souza points out.
Epithets usually don’t go amiss – Jackson was the King of Rhythm.
Also the Orchestra Man. He played everything – ganzá, reco-reco, zabumba, tambourine, harmonica, accordion, piano. If he had to play jazz or blues on the drums, no problem.
But it was on the pandeiro that he excelled. His virtuosity in mastering the instrument of choice has become legendary.
“Jackson do Pandeiro is to Brazilian music as Mané Garrincha is to football.
He painted the seven the same as Botafogo’s number seven. He sang and played the pandeiro, going back and forth from the back line, until he hit a goal or sent the round in the fuzuê of the small musical area”, compares historian Luiz Antonio Simas.
In the excellent biography “Jackson do Pandeiro: O Rei do Ritmo“, by Fernando Moura and Antônio Vicente, the conductor Moacir Santos – who was saxophonist of the jazz band of Rádio Tabajara, in Campina Grande, performing alongside our pandeirista – says that “Jackson was much more than a rhythmist”.
“He had an expansive capacity, transforming his musical thought into rhythm. Some choros I did at that time he memorised and gave me all the details, singing. Then he would teach the melody to the accordionists,” Santos adds.
As a singer, in the early years of his career, Jackson do Pandeiro mirrored Manezinho Araújo, author of “Como Tem Zé na Paraíba”, from whom he inherited the short-brimmed hat worn on the side.
But his definitive influence punctuated the carioca accent, the spiky metrics and the breques: Jorge Veiga, the Caricaturist of Samba.
And there was no way out: he had to finally travel to Rio de Janeiro. Afraid of aeroplanes, he came by ship. His first impression on seeing the city: “Homi, it looks like a couscous tray!”.
Author of the tribute “Bate um Balaio or Rockson do Pandeiro”, João Bosco highlights the fascination that the artist exerts on the popular layers.
“On holiday, I took the family and we went to a deserted beach in Espírito Santo. We were listening to Jackson do Pandeiro when a bloke appeared selling beer and freshly made barbecue.
He stopped everything, didn’t work anymore and stayed all night listening to the cassette tape, which went to the end and back to the beginning, in a motor-continuous that only Jackson’s music is capable of.”
Short, thin, with a cafuzo complexion and a sparse moustache, Jackson had a horror of hair. Particularly since the emergence of the Jovem Guarda singers in the 1960s, when the yee-ye-ye began to cast aside the moaning of the emu.
Alceu Valença and Geraldo Azevedo, two hairy Pernambucans, knew this well.
When they invited the Paraíba native to sing “Papagaio do Futuro” at the 1972 International Song Festival, they almost slammed their faces in the door. But Jackson, upon hearing the embolada, approved the audacity of the youth.
“In 1979 I was in Paris, missing Brazil, and I listened to Jackson directly. Inspired by those auditions, I made ‘Coração Bobo'”, recalls Alceu.
“When I got back, I invited him to sing the song with me at the Tupi Festival.
Originally the verses read: ‘The heart of the afflicted / Explodes inside the chest’. Jackson proposed the modification: ‘O coração dos aflitos/ Popcorn inside the chest’. Much better.”
But, as critic Tárik de Souza assures us, “in the patriarch’s hundred years, this coconut tree still gives coconut”.
The fame of Jackson that came on rails
At the same time that his mother Flora Mourão was playing coconut rounds with the zabumbeiro João Feitosa, of whom Jackson had already “learnt how to beat the man”, Alagoa Grande was becoming more cultural with the news that came on the railways.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Brejo region of Paraíba, about 130 km from João Pessoa, was an economic hub in the northeast, boosted by the arrival of the train that began to strengthen relations between the interior and the big cities, and an important cultural centre.
“There were many farmers and mill owners there, interested in promoting culture,” explains economist Martinho Campos, referring to the exchange that the region had with Recife, where books, newspapers, music and artistic companies arrived.
And it is in this new scenario that the hitherto Zé Jack is (in)forming.
Releases on Jackson do Pandeiro’s centenary
Researcher Rodrigo Fauor is preparing the reissue of discs recorded at Columbia and CBS. In 2016, Faour organised the box set “O Rei do Ritmo”, which brought together 235 tracks by the singer
The undated documentary “Jackson: Batida do Pandeiro”, by Marcus Vilar and Cacá Teixeira, features unpublished interviews with Almira Castilho, the singer’s wife, and Geraldo Correa, a childhood friend of the pandeirista.
King of Rhythm Jackson do Pandeiro – Biography and History
Northeast Tourism Guide