Bust of composer Aldir Blanc is inaugurated in Rio

Aldir Blanc is definitely back in the North Zone, the gypsy who told her fortune. However, it is not possible to say that the bard of Muda one day left the region of Rio de Janeiro where inspiration for his mythology came from, his Vila Isabel, idealized in one of the most vast works of Brazilian music – it is as if his soul had always over there, and now there’s physical proof of it, so there’s no doubt.

Exactly three years ago, a victim of covid-19, he left this plane to get to know the Moon up close – no longer by its reflection in the water tank. Now, through the work of friends and the city of Rio, a bust leaves him immortalized in one of the corners where he lived, drank, sang and poetized a new world.

The image was inaugurated this Thursday (4) in the newest street in Rio de Janeiro, Alameda Aldir Blanc, on Avenida Maracanã, between Rua Garibaldi and Rua Marechal Trompowski.

Mayor Eduardo Paes, friends-partners like Moacyr Luz and the author of the work, Mello Menezes, participated in the ceremony, the second part of which will take place on Sunday (07), with a samba circle led by musician Tiago Prata – of course, only with the songs by Aldir Blanc. The partners who were there today will return, a forceful troop.

“And that’s when, on Sunday, the statue will smile”, tells CNN the artist Mello Menezes, 58 years of friendship, album covers and many drinks next to Blanc.

The first sentence of this text is a quote from the song “Só Dói Quero Eu Rio”, by Aldir and Moacyr Luz, which is also immortalized in Alameda. Verses from this were incorporated into what the journalist Luís Pimentel prepared to be placed in the space – you can read it at the end of this article.

From the poet’s immeasurable work, the widow Mary Blanc plucked another verse that adorns the bust: “everything that is sad I make sublime”, from the song “Provabilidade em Búzios”. The song was composed in 1993 in partnership with Cristóvão Bastos, but recorded only in 2021 by Dori Caymmi.

“It’s been 58 years of living together and now I’ve brought him back, even if symbolically. Aldir was modest, reserved, he was averse to leaving the house, but he would go with me after a few drinks. Now he’s on the street”, jokes his friend Mello Menezes.

The artist sums up his friend: “everything involving Aldir has a lot of poetry”. “With each partner he had a climate, a different line. I accompanied everyone, João Bosco, Paulo Emílio, Moacyr Luz, even Alexandre Nero. I saw, with Maurício Tapajós, he won some battles for copyright. And lose to an unworthy virus. But he is there, forever”, reflects Mello Menezes.

Read the text by journalist Luis Pimentel

“Aldir came by. He lived right there. He drank in a bar that we see from here and followed a block that turned that corner. Now, look at it there: after dawn and dusk on so many streets, after singing dreams on the avenues, it is the name of a public place in Rio.

Chronicler and greatest poet of the sidewalks, crises, slopes and cities of the city, generous tree that Brazilian music planted in Rio and from it harvested hundreds of songs, dozens of partners, thousands of friends and admirers. Between Estácio, Vila Isabel, Tijuca and Muda ran, always bordering the Maracanã River, the vigorous veins of Aldir Blanc:

“Some people don’t mind, but Zona Norte is like a gypsy reading my fortune”

Maia Lacerda’s childhood took the tram and, wearing flip-flops, got off at Rua dos Artistas, where she put on shoes. She lived in a house with a yard full of fruit trees – close to master Benedito Lacerda’s flute. The backyard was used to gather friends and relatives around the pots and plates, the battery operated radio, recounting Vasco’s game. Poetry blooming there, in the shade of guava, orange, banana, mango, abiu, sapodilla, and wild lemon trees. All of this long before Aldir Blanc became one of the greatest MPB composers, published immortal chronicles in newspapers and magazines, in books that illustrate shelves with the best of carioca literature, won so many battles for the appreciation and dignity of artists and lost the war to an unworthy virus.

Parodying another great poet, the viruses and the unworthy will pass; Aldir little bird, flying free in its lane.”