By José Oliveira & Rosine Alleva – Rock At Night EU Editors
ROCK AT NIGHT travelled to the South of France to meet this beautiful lady.
Interview
RAN– Your third album, a tribute to the seventh art, has just been released, just as the Cannes Film Festival has awarded its Palme d’Or. How to describe it? Where did this inspiration come from?
Do Montebello– The fact that the album appears at this time of the Palme d’Or award in Cannes is pure coincidence but it’s a nice wink. Beyond a single homage to Cinema songs, the album B.O PARADISO is a celebration of life which is like a film where our memories parade. Certain cinema songs take us back to very specific eras and just by listening to the first few bars, we are projected into a time outside of time. The one where we rewind the film of our lives. This album is a cascade of memories.
RAN– How did the recording sessions go and where did you record this work? Who were the guest artists?
Do- The days we devoted to recording the twelve themes that make up the album were wonderful, fraternal, friendly in many ways. We recorded at Studio de Meudon, a magnificent setting just a short distance from Paris.
At the artistic core of this album, composed of musicians who have accompanied me for many years, have been added two artists for whom I have very sincere admiration. These are respectively the singer Julia Sarr who crafted, with her voice which touches me infinitely, the choruses on the themes “Nature boy”, “The circle game”, “Augustou” and “Novembre” and the pianist Fred Soul who performed with finesse both on the piano and on the Fender-Rhodes on several themes of the album.
RAN– Marc Berthoumieux, your virtuoso accordionist, was entrusted with the role of arranger and director. I guess this challenge has somehow boosted you. What were the reasons for this choice?
Do- I confirm that my collaboration with Marc Berthoumieux was stimulating and exciting. To meet the challenge of being an arranger and artistic director for a phonographic project, you must know how to listen with extreme finesse to what the artist wants at a specific moment in his journey. Marc Berthoumieux has this quality of listening coupled with unparalleled creativity. As a singer-songwriter, I particularly appreciate the place he gives to the words of a song in a subtle connection with the music. His keen sense of musical placement is just magnificent. The arrangements he made for the album B.O PARADISO are tailor-made.
RAN– Among a whole range of standard film titles, what are the reasons that led you to choose those included in this beautiful work?
Do- What defines a repertoire choice relies on so many parameters. In fact, the choice of standards was made in correlation with the compositions which appear on the album and which we co-created with Sergio Farias, Hervé Morisot and Marc Berthoumieux. These themes have real cinematography and referenced memories. From this observation, When we look closely at the standards of the B.O PARADISO album, we detect three major themes: memories, freedom and love.
The choice of themes for this album deliberately draws from an international repertoire where standards in French, English and Brazilian are harmonized. This album, these standards also celebrate eclectic composers such as Henri Mancini, The Korgis, Philippe Sarde, Joni Mitchell, Luiz Bonfá, Michel Legrand, Charlie Chaplin but who have, in common, to highlight what I love passionately: the melody.
RAN– Compared to the two previous albums, does this album represent a new turn in your career?
Do- I would say that it is a new landscape, that it reveals another part of my musical research. You know, I have the feeling that each of my albums is the fruit of an infinite quest. I remember a phrase from the Aveyron painter Pierre Soulages which, in my opinion, can also qualify the work as musical creation. He says, regarding his painting, that ultimately “the work lives from the way we look at it”; we can totally transpose it to music. Music lives from the listening we give it.
B.O PARADISO is through Cinema songs and compositions that I feel are cinematographic, an interior light on a moment in my life, perhaps in your life too.
RAN– Beyond the cinematic plot presented in this album, why include “Everybody Got To Learn Sometime”, a track by the group The Korgis and “The Circle Game” by the goddess Joni Mitchell?
Do- But why not? What a joy to be able to approach these themes in complete freedom. They are such beauty. The more time passes, the more I become convinced that a song chooses you as much as you choose it. And then, you have to reread the texts of these songs. What power. What a truth above all.
The essence of life is contained in the words of “Everybody’s got to learn sometime” and in those of “The circle game”.
Integrating music into my repertoire that is associated with Pop and Folk without leaving Jazz and MPB (popular music from Brazil) is incredibly invigorating.
I am very unfaithful you know, except in love!
RAN– You have a busy schedule for this second half of 2024 and a few concerts already announced for 2025. What do these two concerts already scheduled for Paris, represent for you? Playing at the Aquamour Festival in Venice in 2025 must have a very special resonance too right?
Do- How do you feel as you approach a romantic date? Well we feel feverish, passionate, lost, bubbling, impatient, admiring, moved but the most precious thing is that we feel ALIVE.
The concerts planned in Paris give me wings and I am delighted to find the whole musical tribe on the stage of the Studio de l’Ermitage to share these songs with the public. In the fall, we will present B.O PARADISO in Occitanie at Cordes sur ciel on October 4, 2024 and at the Saint-Pierre auditorium in Toulouse on October 5. Then we will be on stage again at the Studio de l’Ermitage as part of the Jazz sur Seine Festival.
All dates will be announced on my website
The year 2025 promises to be full of great events which should take us to Luxembourg and indeed to Italy, more precisely to Venice where the Aquamour Festival does us the honor of inviting us.
We will also be in concert as part of the Parc de Sausset in the Paris region and we will also find magical places in Occitanie.
Meeting the public again is Paradise!
RAN– Thank you for having us in this wonderful place for our interview. We wish you a fantastic release concert in Paris on the 18 June and all the success you deserve!
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I was born in Portugal and lived the Sixties exploring the great UK Rock magazines: "The New Musical Express" and "Melody Maker". Ray Charles and Pat Boone were my father’s fav. I became “The Great Pretender”. Cliff Richard was our Elvis Presley. As a beach boy, with my first guitar, I met a beautiful French girl on the beach! It was the Summer of 69!! We got married and rock music was our dowry. In France, I became a Wine Genetic Research Scientist. One of my works contributed to the decoding of the genome of the vine! As a rock journalist, I’ve worked twenty years for the Portuguese and Brazilian Rock Press. I ‘ve interviewed so many great artists. Then, one day I met FRANK ZAPPA! I got into trouble for introducing my wife to "Uncle Meat"!
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