Night of April 5th, 1998, Sesc Vila Mariana, São Paulo. 645 people had the privilege of listening to João Gilberto. The concert was a voice and guitar show witnessed with attention and respectful silence, except for a few moments when the artist invited the audience to transform into a choir. It was an honor for Sesc to have provided such an extraordinary moment. It is even more gratifying to expand the experience now to thousands of listeners. The release of this Relicário: João Gilberto (ao vivo no Sesc 1998) adds to the list of those true rarities that are the recordings of the singer’s live performances.

The audio and image recording of part of the program is part of the policy for preserving the institutional and affective memory of Sesc SP. Many pieces of this documental collection have the potential to become works of general interest. In the case of João Gilberto’s concert, we were pleasantly surprised to find an exceptionally well-done recording. The clear and clean sound is the consequence of a happy conjunction of factors, starting with the highest technical demands from the perfectionist musician and going through the exquisite work of the sound technicians at the Sesc Vila Mariana theater, which had just been inaugurated.

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the performance, we have released the remastered recording, available on streaming platforms and in physical format. After all, this is a work of great historical value, which should not only be widely disseminated, but also kept, by all lovers of Brazilian music, who recognize the prominent and founding role of the father of Bossa Nova and reinventor of samba.

The album inaugurates the Relicário collection, composed of shows recorded in our units, records that are part of our documentary collection. The release of the album reinforces the institutional commitment to value the country’s intangible heritage and to democratize access to cultural assets. I invite everyone to listen, all at once, to these 36 songs in the voice and guitar of the wizard from Juazeiro, a nickname coined by Caetano Veloso, who knew how to describe the artist’s mastery in singing the cream of MPB: “Better than this, only silence. Better than silence, only João”.

Danilo Santos de Miranda, director of Sesc São Paulo

About Relicário: João Gilberto (Ao vivo no Sesc 1998), you may also read:

• What King Am I?, by Kamille Viola
• The bossa of samba or The – radical – recreation of samba, by Carlos Rennó