“Água” (MCD), released in 1999 is the first CD in Chico Saraiva’s career. Instrumental, the CD debut consists in his own compositions and interpretations of music by great masters. In Campinas, together with classmates from Unicamp, José Nigro (bass) and Edu Ribeiro (drums), Chico formed the group Trio Água, after which the CD is named.
Even though it was a completely instrumental record, the selection of the referential repertoire points, purposely, to composers who move between the solo guitar and the song. The masters performed in this CD have been beacons to Chico’s career until now: Guinga (“Chôro pro Zé”), Tom Jobim (“Gabriela”), Paulo Bellinati (“Contatos”), and Egberto Gismonti (“Café).
Back then Chico Saraiva did not imagine bringing lyrics to his own music because the relationship with the word starts when, after releasing Água, Luiz Tatit wrote the song “Incerteza” for the guitar piece then named “Melodia para Incerteza”. The CD still counts on the guest stars Benjamin Raubkin (piano) on the track “Café” and Mané Silveira (sax) in “Melodia para Incerteza”.
The record is doubtless a milestone in Saraiva’s career: besides projecting the composer already acknowledged for his remarkable work in the first recordings, it has beckoned him down the path that would lead the musician, four years later, to be awarded the Sixth Visa Prize of Brazilian Popular Music – Composers.
“Emotion, good taste, perfect technique, unforeseeable solutions. This is our Chico Saraiva showing us other trails to the inexhaustible Brazilian guitar. Soul of a street composer, incorporated in a guitar that frequents academy. The good and old Pinho has chosen you, Chico. You will achieve a beautiful career. You are a great expert.”
Guinga, 1999
“Chico Saraiva innovates with his guitar keeping our melodic traditions perceptible. This is the delicious flavor in his compositions. Thus, Saraiva gives continuity to the villalobian lyric on the evolution route of Guinga, Tom Jobim and Edu Lobo.”
O Estado de São Paulo Newspaper – Brazil, 2000
“Arranger and composer, the instrumentalist born in Rio de Janeiro has already taken part in the Trio Corda Carol, and lately has been highly praised by experienced musicians such as Guinga, Paulo Bellinati, and Ulisses Rocha.
Carlos Bozzo Junior