Dom Mita

Dom Mita, Born Nilton Luiz Ferreira (April 23, 1940 - January 2, 2002) was a veteran samba soul singer and percussionist who was born in Bauru, a city in the interior of São Paulo. His grandfather was a musician, a violeiro, a repentista from Minas Gerais, and his father was a sanfoneiro - an accordionist. When Dom was nine years old he went to a school run by monks where he studied orfeonic song and became the lead chorister, until he was thirteen when he moved to Rio de Janeiro. In Rio he went to live in the Morro de São João in Engenho Novo. There he would hear samba all night, every night, and this got him into playing some percussion instruments, as well as singing. He was greatly influenced by samba and the "balanço" of the samba that was so different. He really became a percussionist through necessity because of the lack of work as a singer. He started out playing pandeiro and then moved onto the drums, playing every kind of music - samba, bolero, jazz, mambo, cha-cha-chá. He began writing songs in 1962 pretty much at the insistence of another songwriter, Roberto Correa, from the vocal group Os Golden Boys. Dom was 22 years old at the time. In the late 50s and early 60s in Copacabana the big thing was the jam sessions. Anybody and everybody who was interested in playing and growing musically just had to be there. Round about that time Dom met Edison Machado, the drummer who created the "samba no prato" (cymbal samba). Up until that time kit drum samba had been played exclusively with brushes on the snare and the tom-toms. Dom moved in with Edison and there he learned so much about everything, and he met various musicians who soon became friends: Luiz Eça (Tamba Trio pianist), Juarez (sax), Cipó (Sax), Raul de Souza (trombone), José Bodega (sax), Formiga (trumpet), Helcio Milito (Tamba Trio drummer), Durval Ferreira (guitarist - composer) and many others. Dom met Tim Maia in 1966 at a night club in São Paulo called the Cave. Dom was booked into Michel, a rival club, as a drummer and what was used to called "crooner". Tim's voice was the kind of sound which Dom exactly wanted to hear. They became friends and met up again two years later when he moved to Rio. Tim was looking to get signed by a record company, as Dom was too, so they worked together trying to get something to happen for them right up until 1970, when Tim finally got signed by Polydor and then his career really took off. By this time Dom was listening to a lot of James Brown, Wilson Pickett, but also to Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, and others. The style of music that people like Tim, Cassiano, Paulo Diniz, Gerson King Combo and Dom were playing was the kind of sound that guys from the suburbs were into because it was a balance between the old and the new, a mix of Jazz and of Musica Popular Brasileira. Despite their friendship, Dom never travelled with Tim when he went to Europe or the States. They only got together two or three times a month, and despite the fact that Dom had a record out on Decca (France) in 1967, he never really wanted to travel that much. In 1973 Tim Maia recorded his first cover of one Dom's songs, "A Paz no Meu Mundo Você" - for which he wrote both words and music, and also played percussion on the record. Tim and Dom fell out over the publishing. Later in 1989, Dom gave Tim the song "Cabeça Feita" to record and with that they both won the Sharp Award for Best Song in 1990 - subsequently they composed "Te Amo e Muito Mais", which Tim then also recorded. Each gig that Dom does, he always has his band Mitamofoz, that features Luiz Carlos Batera - drums (ex-Banda Black Rio), Dum Dum (2) - trumpet (ex-Os Devaneios), Bira (2) - trombone, Josimar - sax, along with other players. Also, whenever he can get them along, some guests like Lincoln Olivetti perform along.