Baden Powell de Aquino was born on August 6th, 1937 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father was a scouting enthusiast and named him after Robert Baden-Powell. Baden Powell was a guitar virtuoso who developed his own style: a unique blend of bossa nova, samba, Brazilian jazz, and Latin jazz.
To celebrate the genius of Baden Powell, Giovanni recorded a version of "Samba em Prelúdio" (written by Powell and by Vinicius de Moraes) from the album "Canto on Guitar" (1971).
There's a funny story from when Powell and de Moraes were writing the song together. De Moraes thought that Powell had taken the melody from somewhere else, saying “This is clearly Chopin!” Powell denied that he had copied it, to which de Moraes replied, “In that case, Chopin forgot to compose this song.”
In this video, we counted 12 Giovannis! Yes, the multi-talented Giovanni surprised us again and plays and sings every note, including the bass, drums, piano, vocals (in Portuguese) and of course, the guitars! The recordings were made in all three TAGA locations: Roppongi, Sendagi and Yokohama.
Enjoy!