By the time you finish reading this post and interview, you will know one more great Brazilian composer than you did before. That's because Luiz Millan is a well-kept secret in Brazil. Little known outside of the country, he has been writing beautiful songs for decades that have been recorded by Brazilian stars. A modest, low-key guy, Luiz writes with poetry and passion, and his songs evoke lush, bossa-nova songwriters of the early 1960s and beyond.
As with all good discoveries, this one started with an email. I've long known producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro and his wife, singer Ithamara Koorax. I first met Ithamara at a party in New York in 2008 and interviewed her a year later when she released her glorious album Bim Bom: The Complete Joao Gilberto Songbook.
Arnaldo sent the email to let me know that had just released an album he produced—Brazilian Match (Jazz Station) by Luiz Millan. All 16 of the album's songs were co-written by Luiz and feature him on vocals paired with all-star singers such as John Tropea, Lisa Ono, the French singer Clementine and the New York Voices. Musicians include David Sanborn, Randy Brecker, Mike Mainieri, Eddie Daniels, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb and Barry Finnerty. Michel Freidenson is the arranger.
Before we jump into my interview with Luiz, here's the album's opening track—Pacuíba, with Luiz and John Tropea on vocals...
The entire album is spectacular, and Luiz's songs are splendidly crafted and doused in soft bossa energy and sensuality. You'll find Brazilian Match here, or at YouTube and Spotify.
Now for my e-conversation with Luiz Millan...
JazzWax: Luiz, where in Brazil were you born?
Luiz Millan: I was born in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, on August 29, 1955. I'm the middle child, with a sister three years older and a brother eight years younger. My father was a plastic surgeon, and my mother studied history and geography in college but never went on to teach or apply her studies.
JW: How were you exposed to music growing up?
LM: My father loved music. I remember him coming home in the early 1960s with records by Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz, Dori Caymmi, Vinicius De Moraes, Gilbert Bécaud and Edith Piaf, among others. When I was 3, in 1958, bossa nova emerged with the song Chega de Saudade, by Jobim and Vinicius. I fell in love with the bossa sound right away. Later, when The Girl from Ipanema came out, I fell in love with the music even more. I then began listening to Marcos Valle, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Elis Regina, João Donato, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Edu Lobo and their songwriting partners. I remember putting their records on my parents’ turntable and later going to record stores to buy new releases by these artists. It was a great time for Brazilian popular music, with rich melodies and rhythms and brilliant lyrics.
JW: Did you hear listen only to records?
LM: Oh, no. We heard these artists on the radio all the time, too. Through their recordings, they became my teachers. But music was flourishing outside of Brazil as well. In addition to listening to the bossa nova composers, I loved the Beatles. I remember the day I bought their Revolver album, which had just been released in 1966, when I was 11. On there, I heard Eleanor Rigby for the first time and was shocked and in ecstasy. Jazz also has been part of my life, with the beautiful songs of Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Keith Jarrett, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and George Benson.
JW: When did you start playing the piano? What inspired you?
LM: I took classical piano lessons from age 4 to 8, at my mother's insistence. Bac then, I did not like classical or how it was taught. Lessons were formal and Spartan, focusing on scales and scores. Now, of course, I’m grateful for those lessons, since I gained familiarity with the instrument. I started composing at 12, and classical music is present, to some extent, in my writing. As for my inspiration, composing was an existential need. Life inspired me, along with my everyday experiences, challenges, joys and sorrows. Anyway, it was the best way I had to express my feelings.
JW: Thematically, where do your lyrics draw inspiration?
LM: My themes are related to nature, such as in Morungaba, Pacuíba, In the Grove of Jacarandas (No Bosque de Jancarandas) and Full Moon. Social issues have also been top of mind throughout my life and are in some of my lyrics, on songs such as Still Looking at the Moon (Farrapos de Lua), 21st Century (Século XXI) and May the Winds Clear the Times (Que os Ventos Limpem os Tempos). It is worth remembering that Alice Soyer, an excellent singer and composer, wrote the English lyrics for Farrapos de Lua, maintaining the same social theme as the original. The same happened with lyricists Ellen Johnson and Peter Eldridge.
JW: Growing up, did you seek out famous Brazilian songwriters?
LM: I never did. I was too shy. In the 1960s, I admired melodies and harmonies by Antonio Carlos Jobim, lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes, and the rhythm and singing style of João Gilberto. In the early 1970s, the lyrics of Chico Buarque, the elegance of Edu Lobo and the energy of Ivan Lins also had a profound effect on me. I also liked the jazzy songs of Eumir Deodato and João Donato, and the impeccable lyrics and melodies of Dorival Caymmi. There were also older composers such as Noel Rosa and Ary Barroso. My relationship with them was what came through the radio and stereo speakers.
JW: Tell me about the composing of your first song when you were 12.
LM: I wrote in a totally free and intuitive way, which I do to this day. I have no memory of my first song. I produced a huge number of songs and, for me, I through a song was good when it thrilled people who heard it. That was my goal when composing. At 15, I started writing lyrics, too.
JW: Did you take music lessons in school?
LM: I graduated from college with a degree in medicine in 1982 and worked at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine for 28 years. I was part of a psychological assistance group called GRAPAL—Psychological Assistance to Students at the School of Medicine of USP. I left nine years ago and dedicated myself to composing songs. With me, there is always a song emerging, even at the fast pace of everyday life. I work a lot, but between one appointment and another, a melody comes to my mind. I record it on my cell phone and develop the idea later or on weekends.
JW: Did you study guitar?
LM: I started studying popular guitar with Jorge Pinheiro when I was 20. It didn't work out very well. After some months, we became writing partners and the lessons stopped. The same happened with pianist Moacyr Zwarg, many decades later. We co-wrote more than 20 songs.
JW: Is there a correlation between your medical studies and music?
LM: When I was studying medicine, many people in my class were dedicated to the arts. It seemed more like a music school than a medical school. Interestingly, at the School of Medicine there was a huge group of good musicians. I learned a lot from them. We performed monthly, it was delicious. I have musical partners from that time who are still close friends, such as Plínio Cutait, Ivan Miziara, Iso Fischer and Márcia Salomão. At that time, I wrote songs with my collaborator, Jorge Pinheiro, and recorded an album entitled Ponta de Rama (1980), an independent production that brought together several composers from USP. For several weeks, we performed at a theater, the Lira Paulistana, in São Paulo.
JW: I’m curious, what made you study medicine instead of music?
LM: From the time I was little, when I barely knew how to speak, I told myself I wanted to be a doctor, a profession I loved, probably through my father. I've always loved music too, especially composing songs. I never really had skills for anything else. It's not by chance that I didn't follow my father's brilliant career as a surgeon. I also knew I wasn’t going to become a great instrumentalist. When I do play instruments, it’s just to help me compose. Other times the music comes to my mind spontaneously, without any instrument. Then I find harmony, on the piano or on the guitar.
JW: When did you start to gain serious recognition as a songwriter?
LM: From my first album, I've had the privilege of receiving favorable criticism from the media, although their praise has never had an impact on audience recognition. That's understandable, since the most appreciated musical genres today in Brazil are very far from the style of music I compose. As for my new album, Brazilian Match, I have two random encounters to thank for its production.
JW: What happened?
LM: The first encounter was with Michel Freidenson about 16 years ago. He's a fantastic pianist and arranger. We met at a show and we were introduced by my writing partner, Jorge Pinheiro. We had an immediate musical connection and became close friends. I asked him to arrange a song I had composed with Mozar Terra, a pianist who was living in France and had worked with Joyce and Caetano Veloso. The song was And the Clown Cried. The result was wonderful and became the start of my first album in 2011, Entre Nuvens, with arrangements by Michel. Since then, Michel has been responsible for arranging all of my recordings.
JW: What was the second meeting?
LM: Connecting with the brilliant music producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro, who worked with great Brazilian and international artists. This meeting took place in an unusual way. Moisés Santana, my Brazilian promoter, was releasing the album of the New York-based Brazilian drummer Vanderlei Pereira. He asked Moisés to send his album to Arnaldo. Arnaldo, in turn included my album Achados & Perdidos in the same envelope.
JW: What happened?
LM: Arnaldo receives dozens of albums a month but he was curious to listen to mine and wrote a generous review on Instagram. From then on, we started talking and he accepted my proposal to produce a new album. Arnaldo suggested the album should be released internationally, with the participation of great Brazilian and foreign musicians and singers. Hence the name of the album. Our conversations were always very intense, and when Arnaldo came to São Paulo, we had a meeting at my house and listened to many songs together. Among them was Deodato's Spirit of Summer. I've always loved that Spanish-flavored Jay Berliner solo on acoustic guitar. We also listened to Puma Branco by Marcos Valle.
JW: How much time did you spend together?
LM: Our conversation flowed in a very pleasant way until dawn, in the company of my wife, Marília, who provided a couple of lyrics for the new album. We started the Brazilian Match project with fortnightly meetings for a year, along with Michel. We formed a cohesive team, exchanged many ideas and built a project under the baton of Arnaldo, who is, above all, a great connoisseur of music, a living encyclopedia. At my invitation, the singers Ana Lee, Tuca Fernandes, Consiglia Latorre, Anna Setton, Maurício Detoni and Giana Viscardi agreed to interpret my songs.
JW: Did your medical career influence your songwriting in any way?
LM: In my opinion, music enriches my medical activity, and vice versa. There is no contradiction between these two disciplines. As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I deal with sensitivity and human emotions. There is no art that thrills people more than music, helping to mark times in their lives and to bring forward all kinds of memories.
JW: Your previous album, Achados & Perdidos, released in 2020, is special.
LM: Thank you. Unlike with my other albums, Achados & Perdidos features four songs by other composers. Brazil com S is a fun bossa nova that rock stars Rita Lee and Roberto de Carvalho had recorded with Joao Gilberto. Another was Não Pode Ser, by brothers Marcos and Paulo Valle. It was released on Marcos's second album O Compositor E O Cantor (1965). When I was 10, I'd always go off to a friend's house to listen to it. By the way, on that very same album was Samba de Verão (Summer Samba), one of the world's most recorded songs. One day my friend took the album off the shelf and gave it to me as a gift. I had been saving Não Pode Ser for years to record. Another song is Samba da Pergunta (aka Astronauta), by Pingarilho and Marcos Vasconcelos. The song was recorded often in the 1970s, '80s and '90s by João Gilberto, Elis Regina, Joyce Moreno and Tim Maia. But now, in Brazil, you rarely hear it. Tastes have changed. Coincidentally, the first Pingarilho album was produced by Arnaldo. The fourth song is Outro Cais (2014) by Eduardo Gudin and J.C. Costa Netto, a beautiful melody with great sensitivity. I was flattered when Marcos Valle, Paulo Sergio Valle and Pingarilho sent me videos congratulating me for the recordings I made of their works.
JW: Where do you live today?
LM: I still live in São Paulo, a pulsating city that's very rich, culturally. Immediately before the meeting with Arnaldo, Michel and I had already finished the project of a new album. This project was temporarily put aside, to open the space for the Brazilian Match. We intend to resume when possible. If I may, I'd like to say how grateful I am to the wonderful musicians and singers on Brazilian Match. Most of the Brazilian artists had previously recorded with me. The foreign musicians were suggested by Arnaldo, who is always looking for true icons of each instrument and interpreters of great prominence.
JW: A lot of great stars on the new album, yes?
LM: Interestingly, when I had listened to Rodrigo Lima's Saga album (2014), produced by Arnaldo, I was enchanted by Mike Mainieri's vibraphone. Then he agreed to appear on Brazilian Match. It was like a dream come true. Something similar happened when Arnaldo suggested Lisa Ono, a singer I've admired for a long time. Obviously, the presence of all participants is something unimaginable that has come true. A special thanks to Arnaldo and Michel for their unique competence, sensitivity and dedication over the course of two years needed to complete Brazilian Match. And one of the highlights of my career was to record with Brazil's legendary trombone master Raul de Souza. So I'm very proud of the album, as you can hear.
As with all good discoveries, this one started with an email. I've long known producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro and his wife, singer Ithamara Koorax. I first met Ithamara at a party in New York in 2008 and interviewed her a year later when she released her glorious album Bim Bom: The Complete Joao Gilberto Songbook.
Arnaldo sent the email to let me know that had just released an album he produced—Brazilian Match (Jazz Station) by Luiz Millan. All 16 of the album's songs were co-written by Luiz and feature him on vocals paired with all-star singers such as John Tropea, Lisa Ono, the French singer Clementine and the New York Voices. Musicians include David Sanborn, Randy Brecker, Mike Mainieri, Eddie Daniels, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb and Barry Finnerty. Michel Freidenson is the arranger.
Before we jump into my interview with Luiz, here's the album's opening track—Pacuíba, with Luiz and John Tropea on vocals...
The entire album is spectacular, and Luiz's songs are splendidly crafted and doused in soft bossa energy and sensuality. You'll find Brazilian Match here, or at YouTube and Spotify.
Now for my e-conversation with Luiz Millan...
JazzWax: Luiz, where in Brazil were you born?
Luiz Millan: I was born in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, on August 29, 1955. I'm the middle child, with a sister three years older and a brother eight years younger. My father was a plastic surgeon, and my mother studied history and geography in college but never went on to teach or apply her studies.
JW: How were you exposed to music growing up?
LM: My father loved music. I remember him coming home in the early 1960s with records by Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz, Dori Caymmi, Vinicius De Moraes, Gilbert Bécaud and Edith Piaf, among others. When I was 3, in 1958, bossa nova emerged with the song Chega de Saudade, by Jobim and Vinicius. I fell in love with the bossa sound right away. Later, when The Girl from Ipanema came out, I fell in love with the music even more. I then began listening to Marcos Valle, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Elis Regina, João Donato, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Edu Lobo and their songwriting partners. I remember putting their records on my parents’ turntable and later going to record stores to buy new releases by these artists. It was a great time for Brazilian popular music, with rich melodies and rhythms and brilliant lyrics.
JW: Did you hear listen only to records?
LM: Oh, no. We heard these artists on the radio all the time, too. Through their recordings, they became my teachers. But music was flourishing outside of Brazil as well. In addition to listening to the bossa nova composers, I loved the Beatles. I remember the day I bought their Revolver album, which had just been released in 1966, when I was 11. On there, I heard Eleanor Rigby for the first time and was shocked and in ecstasy. Jazz also has been part of my life, with the beautiful songs of Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Keith Jarrett, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and George Benson.
JW: When did you start playing the piano? What inspired you?
LM: I took classical piano lessons from age 4 to 8, at my mother's insistence. Bac then, I did not like classical or how it was taught. Lessons were formal and Spartan, focusing on scales and scores. Now, of course, I’m grateful for those lessons, since I gained familiarity with the instrument. I started composing at 12, and classical music is present, to some extent, in my writing. As for my inspiration, composing was an existential need. Life inspired me, along with my everyday experiences, challenges, joys and sorrows. Anyway, it was the best way I had to express my feelings.
JW: Thematically, where do your lyrics draw inspiration?
LM: My themes are related to nature, such as in Morungaba, Pacuíba, In the Grove of Jacarandas (No Bosque de Jancarandas) and Full Moon. Social issues have also been top of mind throughout my life and are in some of my lyrics, on songs such as Still Looking at the Moon (Farrapos de Lua), 21st Century (Século XXI) and May the Winds Clear the Times (Que os Ventos Limpem os Tempos). It is worth remembering that Alice Soyer, an excellent singer and composer, wrote the English lyrics for Farrapos de Lua, maintaining the same social theme as the original. The same happened with lyricists Ellen Johnson and Peter Eldridge.
JW: Growing up, did you seek out famous Brazilian songwriters?
LM: I never did. I was too shy. In the 1960s, I admired melodies and harmonies by Antonio Carlos Jobim, lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes, and the rhythm and singing style of João Gilberto. In the early 1970s, the lyrics of Chico Buarque, the elegance of Edu Lobo and the energy of Ivan Lins also had a profound effect on me. I also liked the jazzy songs of Eumir Deodato and João Donato, and the impeccable lyrics and melodies of Dorival Caymmi. There were also older composers such as Noel Rosa and Ary Barroso. My relationship with them was what came through the radio and stereo speakers.
JW: Tell me about the composing of your first song when you were 12.
LM: I wrote in a totally free and intuitive way, which I do to this day. I have no memory of my first song. I produced a huge number of songs and, for me, I through a song was good when it thrilled people who heard it. That was my goal when composing. At 15, I started writing lyrics, too.
JW: Did you take music lessons in school?
LM: I graduated from college with a degree in medicine in 1982 and worked at the University of São Paulo School of Medicine for 28 years. I was part of a psychological assistance group called GRAPAL—Psychological Assistance to Students at the School of Medicine of USP. I left nine years ago and dedicated myself to composing songs. With me, there is always a song emerging, even at the fast pace of everyday life. I work a lot, but between one appointment and another, a melody comes to my mind. I record it on my cell phone and develop the idea later or on weekends.
JW: Did you study guitar?
LM: I started studying popular guitar with Jorge Pinheiro when I was 20. It didn't work out very well. After some months, we became writing partners and the lessons stopped. The same happened with pianist Moacyr Zwarg, many decades later. We co-wrote more than 20 songs.
JW: Is there a correlation between your medical studies and music?
LM: When I was studying medicine, many people in my class were dedicated to the arts. It seemed more like a music school than a medical school. Interestingly, at the School of Medicine there was a huge group of good musicians. I learned a lot from them. We performed monthly, it was delicious. I have musical partners from that time who are still close friends, such as Plínio Cutait, Ivan Miziara, Iso Fischer and Márcia Salomão. At that time, I wrote songs with my collaborator, Jorge Pinheiro, and recorded an album entitled Ponta de Rama (1980), an independent production that brought together several composers from USP. For several weeks, we performed at a theater, the Lira Paulistana, in São Paulo.
JW: I’m curious, what made you study medicine instead of music?
LM: From the time I was little, when I barely knew how to speak, I told myself I wanted to be a doctor, a profession I loved, probably through my father. I've always loved music too, especially composing songs. I never really had skills for anything else. It's not by chance that I didn't follow my father's brilliant career as a surgeon. I also knew I wasn’t going to become a great instrumentalist. When I do play instruments, it’s just to help me compose. Other times the music comes to my mind spontaneously, without any instrument. Then I find harmony, on the piano or on the guitar.
JW: When did you start to gain serious recognition as a songwriter?
LM: From my first album, I've had the privilege of receiving favorable criticism from the media, although their praise has never had an impact on audience recognition. That's understandable, since the most appreciated musical genres today in Brazil are very far from the style of music I compose. As for my new album, Brazilian Match, I have two random encounters to thank for its production.
JW: What happened?
LM: The first encounter was with Michel Freidenson about 16 years ago. He's a fantastic pianist and arranger. We met at a show and we were introduced by my writing partner, Jorge Pinheiro. We had an immediate musical connection and became close friends. I asked him to arrange a song I had composed with Mozar Terra, a pianist who was living in France and had worked with Joyce and Caetano Veloso. The song was And the Clown Cried. The result was wonderful and became the start of my first album in 2011, Entre Nuvens, with arrangements by Michel. Since then, Michel has been responsible for arranging all of my recordings.
JW: What was the second meeting?
LM: Connecting with the brilliant music producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro, who worked with great Brazilian and international artists. This meeting took place in an unusual way. Moisés Santana, my Brazilian promoter, was releasing the album of the New York-based Brazilian drummer Vanderlei Pereira. He asked Moisés to send his album to Arnaldo. Arnaldo, in turn included my album Achados & Perdidos in the same envelope.
JW: What happened?
LM: Arnaldo receives dozens of albums a month but he was curious to listen to mine and wrote a generous review on Instagram. From then on, we started talking and he accepted my proposal to produce a new album. Arnaldo suggested the album should be released internationally, with the participation of great Brazilian and foreign musicians and singers. Hence the name of the album. Our conversations were always very intense, and when Arnaldo came to São Paulo, we had a meeting at my house and listened to many songs together. Among them was Deodato's Spirit of Summer. I've always loved that Spanish-flavored Jay Berliner solo on acoustic guitar. We also listened to Puma Branco by Marcos Valle.
JW: How much time did you spend together?
LM: Our conversation flowed in a very pleasant way until dawn, in the company of my wife, Marília, who provided a couple of lyrics for the new album. We started the Brazilian Match project with fortnightly meetings for a year, along with Michel. We formed a cohesive team, exchanged many ideas and built a project under the baton of Arnaldo, who is, above all, a great connoisseur of music, a living encyclopedia. At my invitation, the singers Ana Lee, Tuca Fernandes, Consiglia Latorre, Anna Setton, Maurício Detoni and Giana Viscardi agreed to interpret my songs.
JW: Did your medical career influence your songwriting in any way?
LM: In my opinion, music enriches my medical activity, and vice versa. There is no contradiction between these two disciplines. As a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, I deal with sensitivity and human emotions. There is no art that thrills people more than music, helping to mark times in their lives and to bring forward all kinds of memories.
JW: Your previous album, Achados & Perdidos, released in 2020, is special.
LM: Thank you. Unlike with my other albums, Achados & Perdidos features four songs by other composers. Brazil com S is a fun bossa nova that rock stars Rita Lee and Roberto de Carvalho had recorded with Joao Gilberto. Another was Não Pode Ser, by brothers Marcos and Paulo Valle. It was released on Marcos's second album O Compositor E O Cantor (1965). When I was 10, I'd always go off to a friend's house to listen to it. By the way, on that very same album was Samba de Verão (Summer Samba), one of the world's most recorded songs. One day my friend took the album off the shelf and gave it to me as a gift. I had been saving Não Pode Ser for years to record. Another song is Samba da Pergunta (aka Astronauta), by Pingarilho and Marcos Vasconcelos. The song was recorded often in the 1970s, '80s and '90s by João Gilberto, Elis Regina, Joyce Moreno and Tim Maia. But now, in Brazil, you rarely hear it. Tastes have changed. Coincidentally, the first Pingarilho album was produced by Arnaldo. The fourth song is Outro Cais (2014) by Eduardo Gudin and J.C. Costa Netto, a beautiful melody with great sensitivity. I was flattered when Marcos Valle, Paulo Sergio Valle and Pingarilho sent me videos congratulating me for the recordings I made of their works.
JW: Where do you live today?
LM: I still live in São Paulo, a pulsating city that's very rich, culturally. Immediately before the meeting with Arnaldo, Michel and I had already finished the project of a new album. This project was temporarily put aside, to open the space for the Brazilian Match. We intend to resume when possible. If I may, I'd like to say how grateful I am to the wonderful musicians and singers on Brazilian Match. Most of the Brazilian artists had previously recorded with me. The foreign musicians were suggested by Arnaldo, who is always looking for true icons of each instrument and interpreters of great prominence.
JW: A lot of great stars on the new album, yes?
LM: Interestingly, when I had listened to Rodrigo Lima's Saga album (2014), produced by Arnaldo, I was enchanted by Mike Mainieri's vibraphone. Then he agreed to appear on Brazilian Match. It was like a dream come true. Something similar happened when Arnaldo suggested Lisa Ono, a singer I've admired for a long time. Obviously, the presence of all participants is something unimaginable that has come true. A special thanks to Arnaldo and Michel for their unique competence, sensitivity and dedication over the course of two years needed to complete Brazilian Match. And one of the highlights of my career was to record with Brazil's legendary trombone master Raul de Souza. So I'm very proud of the album, as you can hear.
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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