Biography

By Sérgio Prata

1918 – On February 14 JACOB PICK BITTENCOURT is born in Rio de Janeiro, only son of Francisco Gomes Bittencourt and Polish-born Raquel Pick. He lives at no. 97 of Rua Joaquim Silva, in the district of Lapa, from where he listens to a French blind neighbor playing the violin. He doesn’t have many friends, and his playing outdoors is very limited.

1930 – His mother gives him his first instrument, a violin. But he just can’t adapt himself to the instrument fingerboard, so he starts to use hairpins to pluck the strings. After breaking several strings, a friend of the family says: “What this boy really wants to play is the mandolin.” Some days after that, Jacob gets a mandolin, bought at a store called Guitarra de Prata (Silver Guitar). It was a Neapolitan style bowl-shaped model that according to what Jacob would say later on “destroyed all my fingers, but got me started, after all.” 

Without a teacher, he grows up to be a self-taught musician, trying to repeat in the mandolin some parts of songs hummed by his mother or passersby.

1931 – From the window of his house he hears the first Choro of his life, “É DO QUE HÁ” (This is what there is to it) composed and recorded by Luiz Americano. It could be heard from the building across the street, where a director of RCA recording company used to live. “I never forgot the impression it made on me,” Jacob would say years later. He seldom leaves the house; he is really into going to school and playing the mandolin.

After school he goes to a musical instrument store called Casa Silva, located at 17 Rua do Senado, where he spends time plucking the mandolin strings.

One day, a man that had gone to the store to have his guitar fixed, hears him play and is suddenly interested in him. He gives him a card, inviting him to play at the Phillips Radio Station. When he reads the card, Jacob is amazed: the invitation had been made by the famous clarinetist Luiz Americano, composer and interpreter of the first choro he had heard.

Jacob eventually gets to the Radio Station door with a friend and guitar player, but maybe because he thinks he is not yet up to the job he gives up and tears up the card.

1933 – On December 20, still as an amateur player, he has his first presentation at the Guanabara Radio Station with a group of friends, the SERENO Ensemble. He plays the choro “Aguenta Calunga,” (Hang on, Calunga) composed by Atilio Grany, a flutist from São Paulo, which had been recorded by the author in that same year. Jacob doesn’t like his performance and decides to practice some more; at that time, he still plays by ear.

One day, at the same Casa Silva, a renowned interpreter of the Portuguese guitar, Antonio Rodrigues, hears Jacob playing the guitar. Probably the young guitar player’s striking low notes and his “choro” playing style impresses the musician, who invites him to play the guitar in his presentations.

1934 – On May 5 Jacob plays at the Educadora Radio Station, in a program called 

Horas Luzo-Brasileiras  (Portuguese-Brazilian Hours), and in the evening of the same day at the Clube Ginástico Português, accompanying the guitar player Antonio Rodrigues and fado singers Ramiro D’Oliveira and Esmeralda Ferreira. Jacob is surprised to see the interest shown by fado players in his guitar. More than that, he is invited to delicious cod fish dinners and has the chance to meet famous Portuguese artists, such as the singer Severa and the guitar player Armandinho. Good food, recognition, experience, but no wages. The fado period doesn’t last long. The mandolin calls for Jacob.

At the same time he decides that the mandolin “is really his thing” and he has to focus on it, Jacob begins his radio career. On May 27 he enters and wins a contest held at the Programa dos Novos (New Talents Program), at the GUANABARA Radio Station, organized by the newspaper called O Radical (The Radical), according to his own words on a nonprofessional basis. He beats 28 contestants and receives the maximum grade from a jury composed of Orestes Barbosa, Francisco Alves, and Benedito Lacerda, among others.

The success is so spectacular that Jacob is contracted by the radio station and starts to take turns with the already famous Benedito Lacerda Ensemble, the so called Gente do Morro (People from the Hill) accompanying the major artists of the time, such as Noel Rosa, Augusto Calheiros, Ataulfo Alves, Carlos Galhardo, and Lamartine Babo. His own ensemble, consequently, starts to be called “Jacob e sua gente” (Jacob and his people). As from there, he becomes an “habitué” of radio programs, earning his own money with shows presented by practically all radio stations. Sometimes his hectic activities lead him to play several times the same day at three different radio stations: Educadora, Clube do Brasil, and Sociedade, then located in the downtown area of Rio de Janeiro.

In the 1940 decade, the Benedito Lacerda Ensemble ranks first among the most popular, and Jacob divides his time between his job at the Court Clerk’s Office and the music, mainly playing at radio stations and accompanying fresh singers. In 1941, though, Ataulfo Alves invites him to participate in the recording of the song called Leva Meu Samba (Please take it with you, my Samba, composed by Ataulfo Alves) and the famous Ai, que Saudades da Amélia (Oh, how I miss Amélia, composed by Ataulfo Alves and Mário Lago).

1940 – On May 11 Jacob marries Adylia Freitas, his lifetime partner.

1941 – On February 3 Sergio Freitas Bittencourt is born, later to become a composer and journalist, who also acted as a jury member for several years at the Flávio Cavalcanti TV program.

1942 – On April 8 Elena Freitas Bittencourt is born, later to become a dentist - a daughter Jacob deeply cherished as a true over-protective father.

The first years are difficult, since radio waves are not enough to make ends meet for the couple. That was when the guitar player and historical composer Ernesto dos Santos – nicknamed Donga – and his wife, singer Zaira de Oliveira show their strong friendship and support to the Bittencourt couple. A support of a personal and material nature that really came in handy, according to his daughter Elena, since her mother used to say that “sometimes, when we were hungry, they would be there for us.”

More experienced and aware of the difficulties of the profession, Donga talks Jacob into applying for a Civil Servant Exam, an idea that the mandolinist promptly espouses, since he had always planned to reach a stability that would allow him to carry out his evening musical gatherings and develop his art without being forced to accompany singers and fresh singers forever, not to mention his fear of losing his independence on account of pressures of recording companies. So, because he doesn’t want to compromise with the recording industry, Jacob sits for the exam and is appointed Certified Clerk of the Rio de Janeiro Courts, but keeps playing his mandolin all the more.

1947 - Jacob releases his first album as a soloist (soon to become a smashing hit) with  the Continental record label, a 78 rpm record with a choro composed by him, TREME-TREME (A bawdy place), and the waltz GLÓRIA, composed by Bonfiglio de Oliveira, playing along with a group of musicians that used to play with him at radio stations: on the record label they are registered as CÉSAR E SEU CONJUNTO (César and his Ensemble).

1949 – He is contracted by RCA VICTOR, where he stays until the end of his career. He records 52 78 rpm records, 12 LPs (two live albums), and participates in several records of other artists, as well as other collections. He also records an LP with CBS. From 1949 to 1951 he records with the musicians of the Ipanema radio station, always with the presence of César Faria. From March 1951 to March 1960 he relies on the accompaniment of Regional do Canhoto. Within this period, in some recordings, Jacob is accompanied by orchestras.

1955 to 1959 – Jacob is hired by the Nacional radio station, where he appears with the César Moreno Ensemble; years later he makes a comeback, when he makes his mark with the program Jacob do Bandolim e seus Discos de Ouro (Jacob do Bandolim and his Gold Records), which is aired until his dying day. The last show is recorded on the eve of his death, but wasn’t aired.

1969 – Jacob does not survive his second heart attack and passes away at the gate of his house. He was coming back from a friend’s place (Pixinguinha), where they had been arranging some repertoire details for a record that would include only songs composed by his friend. He left his wife, Adylia, and two children, the dentist Elena and the composer Sérgio Bittencourt.