Ederaldo Gentil

Ederaldo Gentil

From: Salvador, Bahia, Brasil.
Style: samba
E-mail: ederaldogentil@ederaldogentil.com


Ederaldo Gentil, born July 7, 1943, was the boy wonder of Carnival in Bahia. Living in the Salvador neighborhood of Tororó (his family having moved there from the neighborhood of Dois de Julho) he became something of a house composer for Carnival samba school Filhos de Tororó until he quit the school in 1969 following a dispute. Sweet revenge! The following year -- 1970 -- saw every Carnival school but the Filhos de Tororó marching to a song composed by Ederaldo Gentil!

Ederaldo went on to see his music recorded by a host of Brazilian greats, including Jair Rodrigues, Alcione, and Leny Andrade, but, with the shift in the music of Bahia's Carnival to the mixed bag known locally here as "axé music", he went from being an acknowledged force behind real Bahian music of substance to a representative of a less popular and commercially unviable style (samba; would you believe it?!). It was too much for him and in the early 90's he sank from site, rarely leaving his apartment in the Salvador neighborhood of Vila Laura. He lives there in seclusion to this day.

Ederaldo's song "Luandę" is undoubtedly the most eloquent hymn to miscegenation ever composed, and a no-less-eloquent hymn to samba-chula in Salvador's neighborhood of Nordeste de Amaralina is his song bearing that name.