There is no English guitar, no American, no German or French. But Portuguese guitar – that does exist. It is, in a manner of speaking, an endemic variety within the genus of plucked instruments – a species that does not occur anywhere else and the appropriate living conditions for it are not found anywhere else either. It is enough when three notes are played on it and everyone knows: here comes Fado, the great, soul-stirring national music of Portugal.
Portuguese guitar plays an important role in the Júlio Resende Fado Jazz Ensemble, but its bandleader is actually a pianist – a jazz pianist. And this is a really unusual occupation in Portugal. Júlio Resende played at the 2024 Hamburg International Music Festival with his unusual quartet line-up – piano, double bass, drums plus Portuguese guitar – and the audience was enraptured by its unique blend of Fado and improvised music.
In this »Elbphilharmonie Talk«, he talks about his career, the status of jazz in Portugal, his very specific way of playing the piano and about his role models. Of course, he also talked about the Carnation Revolution in which the Portuguese peacefully got rid of their dictatorship in April 1974 and thereby also the horror of colonialism. This is half a century ago. The programme that Júlio Resende had brought to Hamburg was called »Sons of Revolution«, apt for the 50th anniversary of this coup. In so doing, he expressly paid homage to the generation of his parents, who had succeeded in liberating their country in the remote southwest of Europe from the yoke of dictatorship without a drop of blood being shed.
