Travel to Brazil and other warmer climates tends to pick up around this time every year, as it gradually gets colder in the American Northeast, so this might be a good time to talk about one of the more unique, off-the-beaten-path Brazilian music destinations for tourists. Friends have asked me about the funk party I attended during my week in Rio last December, asking questions like "Is it safe?" and "What should I bring?"
The favela funk scene in Rio, like the favelas themselves, are undergoing rapid transformation and commercialization right now -- so much so that much has probably changed even in the year since I was there. Pacification and new prosperity exist side-by-side with persistent violence and grinding poverty. As many of the slums move onto the grid, the "favela tour" cottage industry has boomed, and interest in how people in the favelas live has increased. News reports of successful pacification programs might lead some to believe that the favelas are safe, but the reality is a lot more complicated. At the end of last year I was still a little uncertain about going into a favela at night, and neither I nor any of my American friends knew just what to expect.
It turns out that going to a favela party is actually one of the safer things you can do in Rio -- if you do it right. But there are rules, mostly unwritten. Surprisingly, none of the leaders in my tour group went over these rules, possibly because they involve a lot of common sense and it was assumed they'd be followed. But we all know common sense is not always that common, and there were people in my group who did some monumentally stupid things. So, in the public interest, I'm offering up these few short, simple guidelines:
Rule #1. Don't go alone. An excursion to the slums of Rio is one activity that's best left to the professionals, at least for now. At a minimum, go with a Brazilian friend fluent in Portuguese who is known in that favela; at best, go with a tour group. It's almost impossible to exaggerate how important this is. Americans who think they can venture up there alone are way out of their league, particularly at night. I don't care what rough neighborhoods you've come from back home, or what you've read about pacification. Unknown people found wandering around a slum in Rio de Janeiro at night can still have weapons drawn on them and made to explain what they're doing there. Are you ready to tell armed men, in Portuguese, that you're looking for the funk party?
Rule #2. Leave with the people you came with. It may be tempting to go even further off the beaten path with Brazilians you meet at the party, but it's a foolish, selfish thing to do. It's fine to go off on your own within the club, but at the end of the night, meet the rest of your group at an agreed-upon place.
Rule #3. Don't hit on women. If you're a guy, save your pickup lines for the clubs back home. Flirting with the wrong girl at a favela party could get you killed, or at least get you into a nasty fight. Don't assume that club security will be able to help you if some guy starts swinging -- many of the venues get overcrowded and, in a place where people are packed so tightly they can hardly move, by the time security reaches you to break it up, the fight could be over.
Rule #4. Bring earplugs, and use them. There are no noise ordinances in these neighborhoods and no regulations governing the decibel levels inside; the music volume is limited only by the capabilities of the sound system. What this means, if you're an American who has spent your whole life living on the grid, is that this is probably going to be the loudest music you've ever heard in your entire life. Plan accordingly. Even with earplugs, the volume level last year was otherworldly, almost intolerable for me.
Rule #5. If you're with a tour, bring your camera. If you've a small digital camera, you can usually use it without worrying about it being stolen, but again, utilize common sense. Ask your tour guides what makes sense for the venue and neighborhood you're visiting. Never make a camera obviously visible outside your group's section or outside the door of the venue. Put it away when entering or leaving.
In general, it helps just to be aware that you are far, far away from any official police presence or infrastructure. Smoking, overcrowding, and insanely loud noise are the norm, and fistfights are not uncommon either. Having said that, most people are there to have fun. Keep alert, show respect to all, and be where you need to be at the end of the night, and you'll have a great time.
Here'a video posted by Be A Local, the outfit that organized the tour I went on last year:
And here's the web site for the same favela tour guide:
Yesterday (December 2) marked the anniversary of Ary Barroso's historic visit to Salvador, Bahia. The great Brazilian composer from Minas Gerais had written songs about the Northeast Brazilian state but had never visited before. The city of Salvador commemorated his visit -- which occurred long after he'd created some of his most famous compositions -- with a local holiday in honor of samba that eventually spread to the rest of the country. In Salvador it's an excuse for a huge street party in the Upper City -- notably Pelorinho -- and in Rio, there's the "trêm do samba", where for a couple of days hundreds of percussionists, pagode musicians, and enthusiasts ride the trains in a journey that takes about three hours, playing and singing along the way. The train makes stops in places important to samba history, and there are performances by many of Rio's greatest samba legends, and by representatives of many samba schools' "old guard" players, both onboard and off. This year, according to O Globo news, four trains were set aside for music and festivities, and thirty-two train cars.
Thirty-two train cars can hold an awful lot of people. Check out this video -- shot last week -- of the "Bloco dos Cachaças". My fellow New Yorkers will likely be tickled by the combination of a familiar sight -- a suburban commuter train -- and a flood of partying the likes of which would never be seen here, even on Halloween. Monolingual English speakers: Don't be put off by the Portuguese; the reporter's introduction is brief, and the rest of the video stands on its own.
Thursday was the birthday of Rio-born composer and keyboardist Marcos Valle. I first heard his music on DJ Cube's bossa nova station on sky.fm as a fan relatively new to Brazilian music. Out of every set of DJ Cube's music, most of the prettiest tunes were either composed by Valle or Tom Jobim, the co-creator of the genre. Valle's well-known tune "Summer Samba" is one of those songs that haunted my childhood, with covers by Astrud Gilberto, Johnny Mathis, Oscar Peterson, and many others; a version by Walter Wanderley hit the charts in the U.S. in 1966, where it stayed just on the edge of my 5-year-old mind -- not even associated with Brazil but with weddings, family get-togethers, and anyplace where life and love were being celebrated.
Marcos Valle at Birdland in April 2012 with David Schwartz (left) and the blogger (right). Photo: Ellen Cooper
For the past two years, Valle has also headlined Birdland's Bossa Brasil Fest, where he's brought such luminaries as Paula Morelenbaum and Wanda Sá. (This year marked Wanda Sa's first U.S. appearance in over ten years.) What I love about these shows is that they bring stars from Brazil like this together with local New York City-based talent such as Jorge Continentino, Itaiguara Brandão, and Paul Meyers. They are a great opportunity for local musicians, they let the international stars shine, and they offer fans an intimate setting to experience their favorite musicians.
Marcos Valle spent many of his early years writing and recording music for television, which may explain why his songs are so catchy. But it would be a mistake to describe his music as "commercial". Many of his songs use baiao rhythms -- one side of his family is from Northeast Brazil -- and his mastery of the keyboard makes use of the best traditions of Brazilian keyboard players. As a successful artist, he seems to remember what so many musicians have forgotten: that listeners want to feel good when they hear music. His performances are opportunities for himself and other musicians to shine and display technical virtuosity, but he never forgets his listeners.
Here he is in a performance of his song "Os Grilos", known in English as "Crickets Sing for Annamaria". Happy 69th birthday, Marcos Valle!
We're approaching Brazilian Independence Day, which in New York City is always celebrated on Labor Day weekend. It was on that Sunday, seven years ago, that I first saw and heard Manhattan Samba, my samba school, who were performing in front of the Brazilian consulate, as they have every year during the event's 27-year history. I'd been an amateur musician for most of my life, but had long since become bored with the music I'd been playing, and never considered picking up an instrument again until that day. Seven years later, I'm still pleased to belong to the informal organization that introduced me to Brazilian rhythms.
Manhattan Samba on Brazil Day, 2006
In the grand manner of Rio samba schools -- though on a much smaller scale -- Manhattan Samba is a band, a learning environment, and a social club all in one. Founder and director Ivo Araújo is known for bringing in people with virtually no musical experience and having them learning how to play traditional samba to be able to perform with the band within a short time. On the other hand, Ivo and Manhattan Samba (the two cannot be separated) have also collaborated with many established, professional musicians such as Paul Winter, Wyclef Jean, Gogol Bordello, Jimmy Cliff, and Carlinhos Brown, and the band has been the inspiration for many other Brazilian music projects and baterias in New York City. Ivo has a knack for integrating samba rhythms seamlessly into the music of his collaborators; at the same time, the band's own shows throb with energy and passion in a way that no other samba show in New York City does. Ivo started Manhattan Samba in 1990 with pianist, composer, and big American band leader Amy Duncan at a time when there was very little live Brazilian carnaval music in New York. "Manhattan Samba was the first big group, together with Empire Loisaida, long gone," he says. He'd already been in the U.S. for ten years, playing as a percussionist for American jazz bands and directing his own Brazilian music projects; Ivo's first Casa Grande e Senzala band after Kilombo dos Palmares once opened for Tito Puente. At first, he didn't think many New Yorkers would be interested in learning batucada. But after seeing him perform live, Amy urged him to gather students. "She encouraged me to play and teach." Their first batucada show at S.O.B.'s was an instant success. Ivo showed up to play with 35 people -- most bands playing there at the time had no more than six -- and "for the first time I blasted S.O.B.'s." The group was so loud that a subway train conductor came up from the nearby #1 train station to investigate. "What kind of band was that?" he said. For fifteen years after that, until around 2005, the band closed the weekly Saturday night samba show at the club, with a late-night act that the Village Voice called "the best way to wind up a Saturday night club crawl". Now in 2012, Manhattan Samba (known in Portuguese as the "União da Ilha de Manhattan") remains the longest running Rio traditional-style carnaval band in New York, with a long list of successful live projects and an even longer list of current and former band members who were inspired to begin their own Brazilian music projects. Members have gone on to teach samba in high schools, start their own bands, create documentary films, and get advanced degrees in music. Every year, the band's signature red and white can be seen in some of the great parades of New York City, including the Halloween Parade and the Gay Pride Parade, and the band still sometimes makes appearances at S.O.B.'s, thrilling audiences with late-night batucada that always brings the house down. Brazilian music fans sometimes wonder why the school wears red and white, when the colors of the Brazilian flag are green, yellow, blue and white. It's because of Ivo's connection with União da Ilha do Governador, the samba school in Rio with which Ivo has the closest connection. Their colors are red, white and blue. "It shows respect for Uniao, which is my original samba school, together with Portela." Portela's influence is seen in the image of the eagle holding a drum; the eagle was once part of that group's symbolism.
Manhattan Samba are scheduled to play at the Lavagem da Rua (Cleansing of 46th Street) on Saturday Sept 1st, the New York Brazil Day festival Sunday Sept 2nd, and the Brazil Day Fest in Newark NJ. Here they are in Manhattan on Brazilian Day 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGsBR4SGlpQ Manhattan Samba is available for samba shows with women dancers in full costume. Ivo is also accepting new students to teach, and considers an ability to follow directions much more important than any prior musical experience. Weekly practice is $20 and, weather permitting, is held on the street, just like in Brazil. You can contact him via the website, manhattansamba.org or manhattansamba.com, by writing to him at manhattansamba@gmail.com
Hey Guitarists! This year's location of the Rogerio Souza Brazilian Guitar Intensive will be "Space on White" Space no. 4 at 3:15pm Saturday SEPTEMBER 15 2012. We have the room until 6pm and it is a fairly large space. Space on White is located at 81 White Street between Bdway and Lafayette Streets NYC. I've set up a place on the first page of my website where you can pay via paypal for the Guitar Intensive online http://www.billynewman.com/home.shtml. The price is 75.00 for the 2 1/2 hour class.
Rogerio is an expert in Choro and Samba and all the shadings of what is Musica Carioca. He plays both 6 and 7 string guitar and is a composer and arranger(Ivan Lins, Ney Mattogrosso etc..). Recently he has been teaching throughout South America and has been performing frequently with his brother Ronaldo do Bandolim, "No em Pinga d'Agua", plus has done various solo concerts. From my own experience I can tell you that Rogerio is an amazing arranger for the guitar of Choro and Samba. He has numerous arrangements of Pixinguinha and Jacob do Bandolim and Ernesto Nazareth amongst others. His recent CDs include " Homenagem aCarlinhos Leite", "tributo a Baden Powell" and "Rogerio Souza". I strongly urge you not to miss the opportunity to see his demonstration of arranging for the guitar, guitar comping for Samba and Choro, contrapuntal bass lines for guitar (baixaria) and a general discussion of the Aesthetics of Brazilian guitar.
Reserve your spot! - there will be no more than twenty participants with guitars. Because of the extra room size, I will have room for auditors if you do not wish to participate as a player. Write me if you have questions or concerns.
Subjects to be covered:
Baden Powell's Approaches to Guitar: A look at his special techniques
Samba - Right Hand Techniques- Partido Alto
Baixaria - how to form accompanying bass lines that are used in Samba and Choro
The subgenres of Choro: Maxixe, Tango Brasileiro, Polka, Lundu, Valsa - How to play
Repertoire of the Brazilian Guitarist
Guitar Arrangement
Rogerio comes off a year of intensive teaching, traveling and playing internationally. Let's not miss the opportunity to spend some time with him while he is here so briefly in NYC.
Even if I didn't know Billy Newman -- either as his student, his friend, or a fan -- I'd want to know just how he does it. The sheer audacity of taking on the logistical problems posed by a live combination of a nylon-string guitar -- a C instrument, and inherently one of the quietest instruments around -- with a loud section of horns tuned in E-flat and B-flat, would be enough, just by itself, to warrant my curiosity. It's an ambitious venture, and not a combination I often see live. As for recordings of Brazilian music, my only frame of reference is Charlie Byrd's "Brazilian Byrd" records from the 1960s.
But the Billy Newman Sextet pulls it off, and beautifully too. The new CD, released last year, features all original compositions arranged for guitar, bass, and horns. There's a lot of riffing on the contrast between the warm nylon-string guitar sound and the bright, crisp saxophone-trumpet combination. And the range of moods is striking: "Ana Requiem" -- a tune he wrote for his late friend Ana Fonteles -- is meditative and sad, while "The 'I' Woman Love" is rhythmically complex and playful. "Intervallic Choro" and "Groove Choro" are cool compositions in the choro form.
Billy Newman is conversant with many Brazilian genres (Choro, Samba, Valsa, Baiao), and has been playing Brazilian music for over 10 years. His music looks at the relationship between Brazilian instrumental music and American jazz. He's written a book on Brazilian music, and he actively teaches and performs in the New York area. His sextet will be at the Cornelia Street Cafe on Thursday, August 16 at 8:30 at 10:00. Reservations are recommended by calling 212-989-9319.
When I first met Benji Kaplan, about five years ago, he was busking on the Q train platform in the New York City subway system. He struck me as someone very gifted, a young guitarist who started playing professionally at an early age, with a deep appreciation for the Brazilian sound, and a clear sense of the gifts he contributes to it as an American. I subsequently met him again at California Brazil Camp, where such incredible teachers as Guinga, Moyseis Marques, and Jorge Alabé teach master classes. There, listening to his music away from the roar of train tracks, I finally understood -- not just intellectually but with my heart -- that you really don't have to be Brazilian to play like one. Guinga dubbed Benji a genius, the best American player of Brazilian music.
Benji Kaplan with the great Brazilian composer and guitarist Guinga, at California Brazil Camp 2009
It's three years later. Benji has disappeared from subway platforms, and the only way to hear him live now is either to be lucky enough to blunder into a restaurant like Caliu on the odd Monday night, or to pay to hear him play at a venue for serious music lovers such as the Cornelia Street Cafe. The Second Annual Brasilfest, a three-day festival of Brazilian music, starts there on Wednesday, and Benji is concluding the first night with a set of original pieces, many from his new album, Meditações No Violão (Meditations on Guitar). It's his first of what will hopefully be many appearances at the West Village venue.
I thought about reviewing the album, but there's very little I could say that hasn't already been said here. It's a perfect combination of technique and heart. Benji also shows a real familiarity with styles such as choro, baiao, and even Portuguese fado. These styles deserve to enter the American mainstream just the way bossa nova and samba did decades ago, and Benji, as well as Rob Curto and festival curator Billy Newman (Thursday), are doing their small part to make it happen. It's exciting to witness.
Benji Kaplan will be playing with Leco Reis (bass), Luiz Ebert (drums), and Seth Trachy (sax) at the Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street in the West Village, at 10pm on Wednesday the 15th. As with any intimate venue, reservations are recommended, and can be made by calling 212-989-9319.
New York City's newest addition to the growing playing field of Brazilian percussion ensembles is a chapter of Batala, an international samba-reggae organization. They've been in Europe and Brazil for 15 years, but had virtually no presence within the United States until about five years ago, when a Batala group was formed in Washington, D.C. The New York group started earlier this year, and is growing quickly; there's also been activity in Houston, and there's talk of a Batala affiliate in the San Fransico Bay Area.
Membership in Batala NYC is restricted to women, which makes it different from every other Brazilian percussion ensemble here, and from most other Batala groups around the world. For years there was talk within the local New York samba community about starting a women's percussion ensemble, but for many reasons nothing ever got started until the genesis of Batala New York. Now, after only four months, they're playing shows, developing talent within their ranks, and establishing a small but growing following. Growing pains -- inevitable for any large music project -- include a shortage of some drums and difficulty finding soundproof rehearsal space. They've been kicked out of parks and some indoor rehearsal studios, but these are the same problems faced by many large, established samba bands that have been around for years.
Their director, Stacy Kovacs, was not especially well-known within the Brazilian music scene before taking on this project. She's neither a professional musician nor Brazilian but, like me and many others, found her passion once she heard Brazilian music, and she played for years at various times with three of the largest local baterias here: Manhattan Samba, Samba New York, and Maracatu New York. (She earns her living as a physician assistant at a Brooklyn hospital.) But Stacy's mission and dedication go way beyond specifically Brazilian music. She wants to empower women through music, percussion, and dance -- and her band's ranks are filling rapidly with women who want to be a part of that vision.
I met up with Batala NYC this past Sunday and watched them rehearse at the Actors' Fund theater in the Schermerhorn Building in Brooklyn, and spent a few minutes talking with Stacy and her vision for this new project.
BMB: You're an American?
Kovacs: Yes, born in Orchard Park, NY, a suburb of Buffalo.
BMB: How'd you get mixed up in Brazilian music?
Kovacs: I started playing drums -- percussion -- when I was 8. I had the fortune of having parents who were willing to have me play such a loud instrument. Most of my friends were playing flutes or clarinets...I continued (drumming) through high school, then went to college, and ended up playing trombone. I went to a Big Ten school -- Michigan State University -- and all those guys were on the drum line. I didn't think I was good enough to make the drum line, so I stuck with trombone, moved to New York after some grad school, and was playing trombone in some marching bands, but really wanted to get back into drumming...The American drum corps was always part of me...And I found Philip Galinsky and Samba New York via Craig's List. He had a beginner's class; I started playing in his bateria, and just got back into drumming, and got addicted to Brazilian rhythms.
BMB: Why a women's-only drumming group?
Kovacs: Just for the record, Batala is a co-ed organization. New York is women only.
For American people in public school, my experience is that most girls are tunneled into the flute/ trombone / clarinet category. The boys play the trumpets and drums, and the loud instruments. I feel it's almost a gender role...girls don't play drums. A lot of the women who've joined have said they always wanted to play drums but were never given the opportunity, and others have never had the opportunity to play any instrument, period. A second reason is that, traditionally in a lot of cultures, women were not allowed to touch drums. In West African cultures, and even in Brazil, drums were reserved for men, and the women were supposed to dance. Even up until the mid 1970s or 1980s, to my knowledge, women were not allowed to play drums...A third reason is because, frankly, New York City doesn't have an all-women's anything, except I think a chorus. So you take all these women, put them on powerful-sounding drums -- playing these powerful rhythms that are based on West African rhythms -- make them play really well, and dance at the same time, it's ... quite amazing to watch the whole thing. The dancing and the drumming and the fact that it's all women adds a feminine element to something that is so traditionally male. Most males don't dance...if you watch a bateria, they'll move a little, but they don't actually dance.
Another reason is that I've played in quite a few drumming groups in NYC. Most of them are dominated by men, and when I try to get my female friends to come play, most of them are like, "Well, I don't know... so many guys..." But when I asked them, "If it was all women, would you go?" most of them would say, "heck, yeah!" So as much as I love men, they do tend to change the dynamic.
BMB: One thing I noticed was that no one was playing when they weren't supposed to play.
Kovacs: As in noodling?
BMB: As in noodling.
Kovacs: That is definintely something that's different than when you play with dudes. They tend to noodle when the director is talking...There was some noodling (earlier). I put a stop to it. (laughing)
BMB: How does the organization work?
Kovacs: Batala was started in 1997 in Paris, France, by a Brazilian gentleman from Salvador named Giba Conçalves. He's from Liberdade, one of the poorer neighborhoods there; he was a dancer and played with Ilê Aiyê and other Afro-blocos. He ended up in Paris playing in a band there, and then stayed to attend college ...I believe he was studying bass guitar at the time. This is the story I'm told: He was basically bored on Sunday afternoons, which, where he comes from, is the time when everyone comes out and plays, hangs out and gets together. So he got some friends together and started this thing on Sunday afternoons, which grew to 60 people in less than a year. That was in 1997...(Since then) it's spread through Europe, it's now in five locations in France, 6 or 7 in the UK, there's one in the Netherlands, Austria ... Greece now has one, Spain has two.
Around that same time, Giba's good friend Alberto Pitta, a musician and artist connected to a (Salvador) neighborhood called Pirajá ... formed Cortejo Afro in response to the Salvador carnaval having mostly axé music, rather than traditional African drumming... Giba is the musical director of Cortejo Afro as well as Batala, and Pitta runs pretty much everything else to do with Cortejo Afro. Cortejo Afro is an arts education project, part of Instituto Oya, based in Pirajá...it's an after-school program for kids, it has job training for people who don't finish high school, babysitting, health care...it's also the drumming and musical bloco...
The link there is that, because Giba is musical director of both (organizations), any member of Batala is invited to play in Carnaval with Cortejo Afro, which is pretty much the only Afro-Brazilian group that allows non-Brazilian white people to play in Salvador Carnaval.
BMB: That's fabulous...especially for Bahia Carnaval, it's kind of unheard of.
Kovacs: There are a lot of women as well, because even though most Batala (groups) are co-ed, most are dominated by women.
BMB: So for women in New York, it's free to join, but there's a materials fee?
Kovacs: There's no ongoing fee. There's a $100 starter kit, which comes with two belts, two sticks, two CDs, and a t-shirt that's hand-screen printed in Salvador by the people in Pirajá. The rest of the money goes towards rehearsal space, fees, but...I don't get paid, no one in this organization gets paid.
BMB: So this probably benefits a lot of people in the Pirajá neighborhood?
Kovacs: Oh, yeah. Batala every year for Carnaval pumps the equivalent of 15,000 euros into the economy there. This past year, there were 47 of us in the Batala house, the year before there were 70...It's called Batala Hostel, and any member of Batala can stay there at any time. Giba bought the house in a neighborhood called Saúde, near Pelorinho. His family lives there, but there are about 15-16 rooms, and 8-9 are completely empty and reserved for travelers. When we travel there for Carnaval, we stay there. It's very cheap, and his sisters actually cook for us. It's pretty amazing.
BMB: What about other cities in the U.S.? How many American cities are we talking about?
Kovacs: Right now the only two that exist, as in playing shows and rehearsing, are New York and Washington. Washington just celebrated their fifth year anniversary. There is a group in Houston -- a woman from Washington moved to Houston and has been trying to start one there. There's also a gentleman in Berkeley, CA who is trying to start one. He'll be coming up here for Brazil weekend to meet Giba and all that.
BMB: That's a huge scene in San Francisco.
Kovacs: Yes, he actually has his own group already, and wanted to do workshops with Giba, and somehow Giba convinced him to turn his group into Batala.
You basically get permission from Giba to start one of these bands. I got the idea last year on Brazil weekend...I was (supposed to be) marching with another group, which happened to be late. I was the only one there, with my drum. So me and Laura Torell and a few others who were there with their instruments just latched onto Batala and played with them. I knew about the group in Washington, and knew it was part of a larger, global project, but I was thinking "Why does New York not have this? We're New York City, for Christ sake!" So after that weekend I emailed Washington first, and they put me in touch with a gentleman named Paolo who is musical director of Batala in Brasilia, and Giba's right-hand man. I was given a choice either to pay for Giba to come up to New York, have him bring the drums and everything we need, or go to Carnaval and meet Giba there, and experience life with Batala in the house, and march at carnaval. So it was a pretty obvious choice. I went down there.
BMB: So you started the band at the end of March?
Kovacs: Yes. Carnaval was in early February, we came back with 35 drums. We had a meet-and-greet party on March 9, and our first rehearsal on the last Saturday of March. We had about 18 women that day, and probably about 15 of them are still around. Our list of people who've come to play and are interested is about 38 or 39.
BMB: I heard there is also a wait-list at this point.
Kovacs: There is and there isn't. There's a waiting list for certain drums. Most people want to play the dobra because it's the dancing drum, up front. Everyone sees them and, once you play one, you don't want to play anything else. But we have about eight surdos available right now, and what I'm starting to realize is that...just because people want to play the dobra doesn't mean they can. So, I want them to start on surdo, learn the arrangements, the hand signals, so that they can transition to dobra later, because we just don't have any more. We have nine, and we're getting more soon, but they do come from Salvador and have to be brought by someone -- they're not shipped.
I did buy two from Washington, because I needed two more, and I went to the Encontro in Paris at the beginning of July for the 15-year anniversary and brought ten more drums back. Basically Paris, Brasilia, and the house in Pirajá is where the drums are stored.
BMB: If this group is a smashing success over the next two years, what will it look like?
Kovacs: I want 150 women out there. Right now, Washington has 90, but they'll get 50 or 60 people at a show. They do do smaller shows. My vision is 150 -- this is New York City, the bigger the better. I think it can be done. Our issue right now is rehearsal space -- we've been kicked out of some parks, as I said. We've been kicked out of some dance studios that had neighboring buildings that are residential, where our sound went right through the walls. But I envision us being really big, playing a lot of events, not necessarily Brazilian. I know this is Brazilian music, but it's also a group of women doing something they love, and we can touch people of any culture. Music transcends every culture and language. As much as we do play Brazilian music, I don't want to limit us to that. We can really reach anybody who is open to music and dancing.
It was interesting: I did a workshop with a gentleman who spoke only Portuguese, and I was there with 30 other people, and didn't understand a word he was saying -- but I did, because it was music.
BMB: The universal language.
Kovacs: Pretty much, yeah. It was quite incredible -- I actually understood everything he was saying, even though I had no clue what he was saying.
BMB: Funny how that works! (laughter)
Kovacs: So, ultimately I want us to be as huge as we can be. I would love to do as many parades as possible, events, shows, parties, weddings. We're open to anything that can accomodate our volume, because we do get loud and turn heads. We actually did an event for the Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District -- their first annual street fair -- and when we were finished, a woman came up to us and said "I was in my building 15 stories up and three blocks away, and I just had to come and see what was going on." So, we're pretty loud.
BMB: Where can we expect to find you playing in the next several months?
Kovacs: We have a show in Astoria Park on August 19, part of New York City Summer Walks, a bunch of street or park festivals where they shut down the area and have music, food, and vendors. Then we have Brazil weekend, which is Labor Day weekend here. Giba is actually coming for that, and will do some workshops with us, along with about 8 people from Paris Batala, 9 or 10 from Brasilia, and about 15 from Washington. They're all coming for the Lavagem da Rua parade on Saturday...Then we'll play a show at some point on Sunday. In September we're trying to get into the Atlantic Antic, and have a show in Brooklyn Heights -- another New York City Summer Walks event. We also got asked to play at the World Maker Fair, which is in Queens, in Flushing Meadow Park, the last weekend of September, on Saturday...We were rehearsing outside for a while under the Manhattan Bridge overpass, in DUMBO, and a gentleman emailed me two weeks ago and said he was driving by, and heard us and saw us, and he's the person who books groups for the World Maker Fair, and he really loved us and wants us to play!
BMB: So being loud has its advantages as well as its disadvantages!
Kovacs: It does. We've gotten some members that way too. One woman was riding her bike over the bridge, heard us, and thought we were the Brooklyn Steppers, then realized: "Wait -- that's all women. What's going on?" She came up, and I invited her to play. That's how it works, that's Giba's vision. You get out into the community, anyone can do it, as long as they show up.
The Cornelia Street Cafe is hosting a three-day series of Brazilian music August 15-17. Billy Newman, a fabulous musician, composer, friend, and teacher with whom I've sometimes studied, will be curating the event. The series promises a delightful array of local New York talent, both well-known and lesser known, with many musicians playing their original compositions of samba, choro, baiao, and other styles. There will be Brazilian music by accordionist and world musician Rob Curto, guitarist and up-and-coming master composer Benji Kaplan, samba-jazz pianist Helio Alves, and Guilherme Monteiro and Jorge Continentinho, two members of Forró in the Dark -- a band widely credited with beginning the current forró mania in New York. And people are already talking about the show to be put on by Billy Newman's combo, the Billy Newman Sextet, on the 16th.
The Cornelia Street Cafe is a West Village mainstay, an award-winning restaurant with a performance space in a separate room downstairs, so that those who want to listen quietly to music and those who want to just eat and talk both get what they need. The space is an intimate, cozy environment -- I dare say one of the last in New York City -- and it's one of my favorite places to hear Brazilian music. I'll be writing more about some of the musicians who'll be performing there as the dates of their shows approach. For now, here's Billy Newman playing one of his original compositions, "Groove Choro", with his choro ensemble in a performance at Cornelia two years ago.
A correct answer to a trivia question on Brazil Club USA's Facebook page led to a free copy of the new CD by international star Marisa Monte this week. I eventually would have gotten around to giving this album a listen -- it's her first in six years -- but a hearty obrigado to Brazil Club for making it happen sooner. This is a lush development of a sound she began cultivating with collaborators Arnaldo Antunes and Carlinhos Brown on their 2002 Tribalistas CD, though it's evolved quite a bit in the interim, and includes material that's much more diverse musically. There's the exuberance of the title track, echoes of Lennon-McCartney in "Depois", covers of tunes by MPB artists such as Andre Carvalho and Jorge Ben Jor, and a large number of originals created with Antunes and Brown that evoke that dreamy, texturally rich sound and the quiet -- almost restrained -- joy that I associate with Marisa Monte.
Released at the same time as "What You Really Want to Know" was a video for "Ainda Bem", an original tune from the album written with Antunes. In a cool stroke of genius, Marisa Monte chose Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champion Anderson Silva as her dance partner for the video. So when we see it, we're watching a warrior display sensitivity, tenderness, and direction. I have not seen a more beautiful rendition of the interplay between masculine and feminine in a very long time.
A few years ago, in an interview, Marisa Monte, in response to complaints that she disliked answering questions about her personal life, said something like, "There's not much to know -- I'm just a regular person." Perhaps the album title's lyrics are a kind of sideways answer to curious fans -- an exhortation to pay attention to our own lives, and find freedom there -- or perhaps not. Either way, I found the Portuguese beautiful. My on-the-fly translation, even if it loses something, might come close:
A commitment to honoring the classic traditions of Brazilian music is what inspires the work of Mauricio Pessoa. His original tunes aim for a fresh voice and a global direction for the Brazilian repertoire, and combine elements of bossa, choro, samba, and MPB. His music can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/mauriciopessoamusic/music
If his intention is to create new music that has the swing and feel of music that's haunted you all your life - even if you've never been to Brazil - he's pretty much succeeded. His new CD Habitat gets the old styles exactly right. Last night he played selections from it atop the Standard Hotel to a full house, and most would agree it was a magical evening. With the Manhattan skyline in the background, a rooftop bar, a voice like Chico Barque's, and solid backing from sidemen Alexandre Prol (guitar) and Alex Hernandez (bass), it was, as probably intended, a little trip to Rio via the East Village.
Here's the album, available for download on Amazon:
While I love Brazil, and had a great time late last year experiencing the people and music of Rio de Janeiro, the place to be this week for Brazilian music is New York. I've been hustling all week to get in all my intended writing about Summerfest without neglecting my day job and other responsibilities before today's show actually occurs, and it's been a challenge. Beco Dranoff is last but definintely not least on my list. He's the DJ today at Summerstage, but he is in fact, along with Nublu Records, co-curating the entire Summerfest series this year, and he's a primary influence behind many of the artists I've already written about. He's produced artists such as Zuco 103, Bossacucanova, Bebel Gilberto, and lots of other electronic music coming out of Brazil; he's also collaborated with the elder Gilberto. His online radio show, Sonoridade, this month focused entirely on musicians appearing in New York this week, and many of his selections just happen to be some of my favorite tracks from these artists. If you're still on the fence about whether to come to Central Park today, check out his online radio show!
Kleber Cavalcante Gomes, known to the world as Criolo, will be performing tomorrow in Central Park as part of Brasil Summerfest. He's part of a stellar lineup of musicians that I can't stop writing about. According to the wikipedia entry about him, he's from a São Paolo favela, the child of parents who originally arrived from a Northeast Brazilian state. They say São Paolo is the Brazilian city most like New York, and of all the Brazilian rappers I've heard, Criolo would probably be the most urban and familiar to a New York audience. That might be because he's been at this a long time: he's been doing rap since 1989, and as Woody Allen once said, 80% of success is just showing up -- doing shows, recording, and generally putting yourself out there. But Criolo was relatively unknown until around the year 2000, when his Brazilian show "Rinha dos MCs" (a kind of "battle of the bands" for Brazilian rap singers) became a big hit. Hopefully this New York appearance will put him on the map internationally.
Now at age 36, although he fuses different styles, he's long since found his voice and his own sound that runs through everything he does. His songs are all a bit different but have his own unique stamp, as is the case with many mature artists. Bogotá is frenetic and funky, conjuring images of inner-city life, while Freguês da Meia Noite has echoes of Portuguese fado and Brazilian brega.
Like most Brazilian musicians, Criolo has a strong sense of the place he's from which grounds his music and makes him trustable as a voice, even if you don't completely get the Portuguese. His song Não Existe Amor Em SP ("There is no love in São Paolo"), compares his city to a bouquet of dead flowers, mixing anger, sadness, and a deep love for what he wants for his hometown:
Bebel Gilberto, daughter of the great João Gilberto and a figure who played a major part in bringing bossa nova before a new audience, will be taking the Central Park stage Saturday, as a headliner of the Brasil Summerfest shows. Gilberto has been recording and performing since 1986, but she really hit her stride in 2000, with the release of her CD Tanto Tempo. That album used electronics to help bring a new sound to an old form, and together with the music of artists like Marcos Valle, Bossacucanova, and Paula Morelenbaum, led to the creation of the style that many call "Brazilian lounge". Gilberto has since returned to a more organic sound, but her work did a lot to expose younger listeners to bossa and prevent it from turning into "vintage" music. Since "Tanto Tempo", she's been performing often, and recording a new CD about every two years.
Because she's an international star and tours often, not everyone realizes that Bebel Gilberto will be coming home on Saturday. She was born right here in New York City, and continues to divide her time between New York and Brazil. I'm excited to be seeing her live for the first time. If you're in town, come by. The weather is supposed to be fabulous, and the show is free.
Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing closes this weekend, and the second-to-last show featured a lineup of forró musicians. Forró is both country music from Northeast Brazil, and the particular form of partner dance that goes along with it. It's been popular in that part of the country, in one form or another, since the Portuguese settled there, but it remained relatively obscure outside the Northeast states until Luiz Gonzaga came along. Gonzaga brought the music, first to Rio de Janeiro, and later the rest of the country via popular MPB artists who covered many of his tunes. Last night was a tribute to this man and his music, at a time when forró is being spread in a much bigger way, throughout North America and the world. Quarteto Olinda and Maciel Melo, Biliu de Campina, and Walmir Silva played four short sets and, if you didn't know what forró is by the start of the dance lesson, you definitely knew by the end of the night.
Quarteto Olinda at Midsummer Night Swing
A popular story is that forró got its name from the English phrase "for all". In the early part of the last century, when the British were building roads throughout Northeast Brazil, the workers held weekend parties to which people of all races and classes were invited. This was considered highly unusual at the time, and the phrase "it's for all" got repeated by Africans, native people, and Portuguese speakers, until "for all" somehow became forró. The story, whether it's true or not, shows the true democratic spirit of this dance, and last night was a perfect example. It was old and young, single, married, Brazilian and American, black, white, Asian, short, tall, those who can dance and those (like me) who cannot. Two bands played two sets each, and I must say that, even though this music never enthralled me the way other forms of Brazilian music have, it was beautiful to experience the musicians' dedication to this style, and to see so many New Yorkers get their first taste of Northeast Brazil. I also saw a very cool sight, a scene which I'm told is becoming a bit more frequent at Midsummer Night Swing: a woman in a wheelchair being twirled around by a young man. I snapped a picture, but they were gone before I could ask for permission to publish it.
In addition to Quarteto Olinda, one member of last night's lineup about whom I'm very curious is Maciel Melo. His website is in Portuguese and so it's going to take me awhile to absorb all the info, but he is another fabulous player from the Northeast who may be about to hit the international circuit in a big way. One of his videos really pulls on my heartstrings and fires my imagination:
You'll be reading more in the near future about this music in general, and these musicians in particular, as well as Walmir Silva and Biliu de Campina. Stay tuned.
Singer-songwriter João Bosco, an icon of Brazilian Popular Music (MPB) who has enthralled fans in Brazil and around the world for many decades now, turns 65 today. He's best known for a flamboyant singing style and unique right-hand patterns on the guitar, but these things don't begin to encompass his whole range of feeling. He can be joyful and expansive, meditative
& thoughtful, or brooding.
These videos will give you an idea of Joao's strengths as a composer, singer, and guitarist. Happy birthday, Joao!
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My own music project took me away from this blog for a couple of days. I'm not a pro guitarist, but I've studied with a couple of them, and love to play; but since I have a day job, even small projects have a pretty lengthy turnaround time. This is a guitar arrangement I've been working on for months, and finally got around to recording and putting down in written form. I was inspired by a Brazilian-Japanese singer named Lisa Ono, who sings a version of "Here, There, and Everywhere" that I just love. My chord melody is very simple and doesn't require a lot of virtuosity, but I was going for a fresh take on an old tune without getting too ambitious. I played it last week at the monthly members' meeting of the New York City Classical Guitar Society, where it was pretty well received. Here it is:
If you haven't heard of Lisa Ono, here she is. I could not find her rendition of "Here, There, and Everywhere" on YouTube, so had to settle for her rendition of another Beatles' classic.
Rap and hip-hop, funk, samba, reggae, and sometimes even Cuban music come together in the music of Flávio Renegado. I hadn't heard of him prior to the announcement of the Brasil Summerfest lineup, but he is an amazing, multi-faceted musician and community organizer whose career is accelerating rapidly. According to his press release, he got his start putting together a rap group that later morphed into a non-governmental organization (NGO) of which he is still director. I hope someday to hear the whole story of this organization's evolution. Meanwhile, Flávio is making an original blend of exotic, urban, soul-stirring music that defies categorization, and that New Yorkers will totally appreciate. Sometimes it's rap, sometimes soul or funk, sometimes there are hints of samba or even choro, but his style is always unmistakably his own. He raps a lot and uses funky beats, but his music is not to be confused with carioca funk. Production values are high, he sings as much as he raps, and anyway he's from Belo Horizonte. It's OK if you don't understand the rapping in Portuguese -- think of his voice as another instrument, stirring your feelings just like a trumpet or a clarinet.
His Facebook page has links to news, free downloads, and SoundCloud files, but doesn't come up in a cold search -- visit it here or via his main site. You can also stream his new album, "My Tribe is the World" on the main site.
Flávio Renegado will be coming to Central Park on July 21. Here he is peforming the title track from "Do Oiapoque a Nova York" (from Oiapoque to New York). This was his first album released under the name "Renegado".
The Brasil Summerfest schedule is up. All items are in the Google calendar (see the links at right) and, just in case there's any doubt, there's way too much to see and hear, even if you could be in two places at once.
I am curious about Quarteto Olinda. Forró, or country music from Northeast Brazil, has captured the imaginations of a small but growing group of New Yorkers. I must confess it has not, until now, held a strong fascination for me. But when I heard this band features a rabeca -- a Brazilian fiddle -- I was immediately curious. It's intriguing to me not only because this is another instrument and tradition I'd never heard of, but because the rabeca is connected, both linguistically and instrumentally, with the rebec, a medieval bowed, stringed instrument that was used in popular dances of the Middle Ages, which in my old music textbooks was condesendingly described as an "ancestor" of the violin. Too bad they failed to mention the many living traditions containing various permutations of this instrument that still exist, -- not just in Brazil, but really anywhere in the world where European folk traditions were spread. So when you hear this fiddler play, you'll be experiencing a tradition that goes back hundreds of years, probably before written music even existed.
With all its broken promises, heartache, and failing economy, the United States is still a great country. It's become fashionable these days for Americans to bash their own homeland, but I won't do that. It's not only disrespectful to ourselves, it's incongruent with the fact that many people from other parts of the world still want to live here. Say what you will, the U.S. is the easiest and safest place to reinvent yourself, period.
Anyway. This post is not about immigration, but about one particular immigrant, a wonderful musician from Belo Horizonte, Brazil who was named a "Chicagoan of the year" by the Chicago Tribune and "Person of the Year" by Brazil Club in 2010. Paulinho Garcia started out in life on a path to becoming an electrical engineer, but he is a fantastic player and singer who has very quietly gained a devoted following over the years -- first in the Chicago area, and now everywhere. I first heard his music a couple of years ago on DJ Cube's bossa nova station on Sky.fm, and just loved his mature, mellow voice and the beauty and simplicity of his original compositions. His album of original songs, My Very Life, got a favorable review here. Here he is doing "I'll be Calling for Maria", an ode to the U.S. and I think a very fitting way to celebrate July 4th. Happy Independence Day!
I'm making this evening's post a little plug for the Regional de New York. I saw them at the Cornelia Street Cafe a month or two ago. Their show was the most beautiful thing I've seen lately, and I spend a lot of my time looking for beautiful things. These guys deserve way more attention than they get, and I believe they will be on the radar very soon. If you don't know what choro music is, I can't think of a better introduction in New York City than these guys. In a nutshell, it's the original Brazilian jazz, a mixture of African traditions and ragtime. Scholars believe it is probably the oldest form of what we call jazz in the world, originating around the late 19th century in Rio. Compositions follow very a strict form, and improvisation is highly structured.
Regional de New York is a Big Apple take on this old and challenging classical form. They try a lot of very difficult things, and succeed almost all the time. They are really tight, and they do it all, in true choro tradition, without a single sheet of written music.
I had a hard time choosing a video, but settled on "Santa Morena".
Regional de New York hosts a monthly roda de choro (jam session) at Beco Bar in Williamsburg. The next one's on Sunday. I'm going out of town, or I'd be there. Check them out!
This woman has become a living legend in the Brazilian music scene. She's a central figure in the style known as axé, pop music from the northeast state of Bahia that combines samba, reggae, and pop. She's one of those musicians who perhaps was criticized at first for appealing too much to the masses, but she's been on the scene so long that she's beyond reproach at this point.
I love her singing. Here she is in "Canto da Cidade", an ode to her beloved city of Salvador Bahia. Nothing else, in my opinion, captures the energy and magic of this city, central to Afro-Brazilian culture.
I can't explain my passion for funk music from Rio de Janeiro (carioca funk) in a single post. For now let's just say the beat is infectious, the dancing is sensual and celebratory, and the birthplace is in the slums (favelas) of Rio, the same places where samba began. These singers are mostly untrained and, as a group, come from a background of extreme poverty and violence. Their language is Portuguese but uses a lot of slang. Audio production values are usually very basic and on-the-fly. The result is gritty, home-made music with bizarre sampling, crude mixing, and lyrics with often graphic references to sex and violence that leave very little to the imagination, even if you don't understand Portuguese.
Some DJs have shocked middle-class Brazilians with their misogyny and their glorification of weapons and casual sex. And funkeiros and their fans have taken a lot of abuse from the police, because of the association of many of their parties with the drug lords and gatos who tap electric and power lines. But as the favelas become pacified and gradually safer, many funk DJs are dissociating themselves from the gangs, and their fans are increasingly clamoring to be left alone. Even more recently, as the Brazilian economy has prospered, many DJs are carving out decent careers for themselves, as fans willingly pay for recordings and shows. There is even a new documentary film about carioca funk. With all the prosperity has come a host of agents, promoters, and record companies looking to share in the success of this music and spread it around the world.
And why not? One of my favorite MCs is a woman who calls herself Pocahontas, whose music I still cannot find anywhere on Itunes or Amazon. (Amazon Mobile has one track.) Her fans have made videos with her music on YouTube, many of varying quality and a few too lewd to view on any shared computer. There are a number of MP3s available for download on Soundcloud. Pocahontas has a beautiful, tough-girl look and a raspy hangover voice and, with song-titles like "O Malandro Broxa" ("The Playboy Loses His Hard-on"), she's clearly not afraid of giving it right back to men who insult women.
Because the lyrics are in Portuguese -- but more because they're in favela Portuguese -- I miss a lot of the meaning, but I get the energy. I found "Casa dos Machos", one of her hits, posted by a digital radio station on SoundCloud. Funkeiros have a habit of hurling insults at one another in response to this or that track; this is a response to Mc Luan's "Casa das Primas". The only thing I gathered from that song is that the guy is going where all the best girls and whiskey are. This is how she responds. If anyone can help with a translation, I'd be very grateful!
Brazil plans to export some of their best musical talent to New York the week of July 21-28 and I, for one, plan to clear my schedule. Now in its second year, Brasil Summerfest is a week of shows of Brazilian music at various venues around town. The 2012 lineup promises to be a delightful combination of the familiar and the new, with established names such as Bebel Gilberto alongside relative unknowns such as hip hop singer Flavio Renegado. The one I'm most excited about is a rising star named Luísa Maita, a young woman from São Pãolo who in 2010 was named by NPR as "a new voice of Brazil". She started singing when she was a little kid, at first just doing radio jingles. Now she's doing her own blend of bossa nova, MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), samba, and pop. She's the kind of new musician whose shows you might have a hard time finding as a foreigner in Brazil, but she'll be right here in New York that week, working her musical magic.
I'll be doing more updates and calendar listings on Brasil Summerfest as more information is available. For now, here's Luísa Maita singing her tune "Fulaninha", a song composed in the Northeastern Brazilian style known as baião.
