Brasil em Mente promotes Bossa Nova night in NYC Brasil em Mente, in
partnership with the Big Band Brooklyn Jazz Rebellion, Monika Oliveira, Richard Miller, and Eric B. Davis, will
host a Bossa Nova Show in benefit of cultural and educational
programs. The purposes of the show are to promote a total
Brazilian experience that includes authentically Brazilian music,
food, drinks and atmosphere. In addition, the organization plans to
raise $20,000 to maintain its projects at its new headquarters.
The Brooklyn Jazz Rebellion is a big band based in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn and comprised of professional players from
around the NYC area. Members of the band have toured around the
world, and performed at venues such as 55 Bar, the Jazz Standard,
the Glastonbury Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival. The band
has headlined at Brooklyn’s East River Music Festival, Harlem’s
Shrine and has been a featured act at a number of New York charity
events. The band performs the full range of big band composers
and styles and is dedicated to preserving the medium of the big
band and presenting many varieties of this style to the public. The
Brooklyn Jazz Rebellion is conducted by Casey Howard and is
managed by its president Hope Bagley e Dieter Winterle.
The Brazilian singer Monika Oliveirawill make a special
appearance at the event singing with the Big Band. Monika Oliveira
is a fresh and exciting vocal presence on the New York - Brazilian
music scene today. This singer/songwriter was born in Belém/Pará
and raised in Rio de Janeiro. She has been living and performing
around New York City for over ten years. She combines her love of Brazil’s musical heritage and her love of Jazz into a sultry variation
on both – Brazilian Jazz that is at once moving and rhythmic, pure
and passionate.
Monika will be accompanied by the guitar
players Richard Miller, who holds a PhD in Music Theory and
teaches at Columbia University, and Eric Davis, graduate of Julliard
and Broadway performer, currently at Matilda.
Eric B Davis Richard Miller
Brasil em Mente is a cultural organization and the only
Brazilian preschool in America who’s mission is to embrace and
value the Portuguese language. The organization has the
institutional support of the General Consulate of Brazil in New York
and has developed various cultural initiatives. In addition to their
child education programs in which children are immersed in the
language and culture of Brazil, Brasil em Mente (BEM) maintains the
only International Brazilian Children’s Library. With a collection of
more than 1,000 volumes, the library is open to the local
community and sends books through the mail to all states in the
US. The organization maintains an educational blog that discusses
bilingualism and Portuguese as a heritage language, a
multidisciplinary study group, and a publisher. Brasil em Mente also
produces cultural events that celebrate typical festivities and bring
what is best in terms of Brazilian culture.
Event: Bossa Nova Night in NYC
January 28th, 2014.
Shows at 7 and 9:30 pm.
At Amity Hall (80 W 3rd St, New York, NY)
More information:
Dieter Winterle, Executive Director
Tel.: (917) 434-2361
E-mail: info@brasilemmente.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/brasilemmente Site: www.brasilemmente.org
Brazilian music lovers in New York City wait all year for the weeklong series of shows known as Brasil Summerfest. Now in its third year, the festival features both established names and artists relatively unknown in New York, with a goal of exposing Americans to a variety of styles not always associated with Brazilian music. The 2013 series launched on Saturday, with a free concert at Central Park Summerstage featuring three bands: Emicida, Gaby Amarantos, and Planet Hemp.
Emicida is a rapper from Sao Paolo, whose initial attempts at self-distribution and promotion were a smashing success, and who has since become one of the best-known voices in Brazilian hip-hop. Brazilian rap contests, where rappers create impromptu verses in competition, are part of the hip-hop scene in Brazil. Emicida has won many of these. Although this was not his first performance in the United States -- he appeared at the 2011 Coachella Music Festival in Southern California -- this was our first exposure to him for many of us New Yorkers. His energy and his delivery suggest a smart, passionate, and talented artist with origins in a poor family, who cares deeply about his country.
Gaby Amarantos is a pioneer in a style she calls "tecnobrega". Brega (usually translated as "cheesy" or "corny") has been long known in Brazil for its romanticism and sentimentality. Although it has followers all over Brazil, it hasn't engaged a large following outside Brazil. Gaby Amanrantos takes things to a whole other level with her addition of electronica sounds and reggaeton rhythms. Her over-the-top singing, her sequined outfit, and a tiara spelling out her name in shiny silver letters immediately invites comparisons to Liberace. I am not sure what Clara Nunes and Antonio Carlos Jobim, if they were alive today, would have thought of her renditions of "Canto das Tres Raças" and "Waters of March". The rest of her set was equal parts soulful passion, expansive joy, and histrionics. Here's a video of her performing on TV Pará. Loved or hated, Gaby Amarantos certainly cannot be ignored.
Planet Hemp was formed by Brazilian rapper Marcelo D2 and Skunk, and is a raucous mixture of psychedelic rock and hardcore. If Dream Syndicate, the Misfits, and Green Day were to collaborate, the result might sound something like this. The singing is in Portuguese, and so I missed a lot of the meaning, but was mostly about "maconha" (marijuana) as far as I could tell. Their show was accompanied by videos of people smoking pot in various ways. Near the front, a mosh pit formed where a bunch of guys were slam-dancing -- which struck me as curious, given the calming effects of the drug the band was promoting.
In the end, as much as I wanted to hate Planet Hemp, I just couldn't. They are sincere people and good musicians. The riffing between slow, almost atmospheric psychedelia and the jarring double-time of hardcore was like a shot of adrenaline, and the slam dancing brought back fond memories for me of punk shows in the East Village in the 1980s, where guys with spiked wristbands aggressively thrashed their arms around during edgy and energetic shows. The video below captures something of the energy of this performance. My cell phone camera compressed the sound as best as it could -- it was very loud up close.
It was a great start to Summerfest. I am going to try to write about other shows as they come up, though they're scheduled in rapid succession. Next up will be Casuarina, who took the nightclub S.O.B.'s by storm that same evening, and who played in other venues the rest of the weekend.
New York's love affair with northeastern Brazilian rhythms is breaking new ground this month, with an appearance at Lincoln Center Out of Doors by Nation Beat and Maracatu Estrelha Brilhante. Estrelha Brilhante is one of the oldest and largest representatives of the maracatu percussion style -- the infectious, syncopated rhythm from the northeastern state of Pernambuco. Nation Beat is the performance group within the American percussion school Maracatu New York. It's headed by Scott Kettner, who has imported these patterns and brought them to American audiences for the past ten years. The two bands are scheduled to go on the road in the U.S., touring Los Angeles, Miami, Albuquerque, and other locations in a show billed as A Tale of Two Nations, with a full complement of 13 traditional drummers and dancers from Recife (Pernambuco's capitol). This will be, by all accounts, the first time a maracatu band has toured the United States. The show, however, is facing some challenges, and will need immediate public support in order to succeed.
It's been a busy year for Scott and his group. They're releasing a CD in a couple of weeks, titled "Baque do Brooklyn". An instructional book, co-authored with his wife Michelle Nascimento-Kettner and Aaron Shafer-Haiss, which is the first book in English about maracatu, has also just come out. This past Sunday, Maracatu New York opened their studios to the public, offering a free lesson and a slideshow to discuss the project. Everyone was very excited about the prospect of maracatu music being in the American spotlight for the first time. However, in spite of grants from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and American Airlines, other important grant money failed to materialize, and Maracatu New York is appealing to the public through a Kickstarter campaign to make up the shortfall. (Click here to watch the Kickstarter video.)
Please support this groundbreaking musical endeavor. As of this writing, A Tale of Two Nations is funded at 60% but only has about another 60 hours left. As with all Kickstarter fundraisers, if funding doesn't reach 100%, there is no funding from Kickstarter at all. Estrelha Brilhante will still come to the U.S., but without the full complement of dancers and drummers. Funds are needed to cover the cost of domestic airline flights, artist fees, hotels, meals, visas, and other incidentals. There are few things New Yorkers haven't seen before. A full maracatu band from Northeastern Brazil will undoubtedly be one of them.
Rise like lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew,
which in sleep hath fallen on you.
Ye are many, they are few...
Let a vast assembly be,
and with great solemnity
declare with measured words that ye
are as God hath made thee -- free.
-- Shelley
Eliane Elias has been known until recently as a Brazilian singer who has done a few marvelous interpretations of American standards, such as "Baubles, Bangles, and Beads", and "Take Five". But I suspect that's about to change. Her new album, I Thought About You: A Tribute to Chet Baker, was released today, on the first of a five-night run at Birdland Jazz Club in New York City. It's dedicated wholly to American music, specifically to the music of the late icon of the Cool Jazz movement.
Eliane has long been considered one of the most versatile and expressive jazz vocalists on the scene right now. Born in São Paolo, she's equally at home with samba and swing, with ballads and bossa nova, and with so many of the other Brazilian grooves, such as baião and afoxé, that are gradually becoming part of the repertoire of the music of the world. Eliane is also an accomplished classical and jazz pianist with a distinctive style of jazz improvisation: her piano riffs are immediately recognizable as hers and hers alone. She came onto the scene at age 17, performing onstage with Brazilian heavy-hitters Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho. Since then, her career has been on a quiet, upward trajectory that has gained her fans on every continent. I came to her music late, in 2008, after hearing her second appearance on Marian McPartland's public radio show Piano Jazz, and immediately fell in love with the way her vocal lines, like those of the truly great bossa singers, drift in and out of the beat, swaying with the rhythm but not rigidly tied to it. Her 2011 album "Light My Fire" was a masterpiece. She switches effortlessly between English and Portuguese on a couple of tracks. Her piano playing is flawless, and her singing has a way of giving a listener the impression of singing for you, and for you alone. She also has some of the best musicians working today on that album, such as Oscar Castro-Neves, Romero Lumbambo, and Marivaldo Santos, to name but a few.
Eliane Elias' love of Chet Baker and his music is understandable: both artists share a certain romantic and lyrical sensibility. But she manages to bring a fresh voice to many of these standards, preserving their romanticism without lapsing into sentimentality. She does this, as this review in AllAboutJazz.com says, by singing the music "straight and uncomplicated". Add the genius of her piano, her distinctively, outrageously sexy Brazilian accent, the easy transition between samba and swing -- in one case, on the same track -- and you've got music that will drive a listener slowly, delightfully crazy.
Eliane is assisted this time by Steve Cardenas (electric guitar), husband Marc Johnson (bass), Randy Brecker (trumpet), Oscar Castro-Neves (acoustic guitar), Victor Lewis and Rafael Barata (drums), and Marivaldo dos Santos (percussion). It is a wonderful interpretation of this portion of the American songbook.
Eliane Elias will be at Birdland Jazz Club nightly through June 1, playing sets at 8:30 and 11:00
I've made the annual pilgrimage to Birdland for the Bossabrasil Festival for five out of the eight years it's been running. Every Spring, producers Pat Philips and Ettore Stratta bring bossa nova musicians from Brazil to play at this legendary New York City jazz club that is not strongly associated with Brazilian music. The event has produced some memorable shows with artists such as Emilio Santiago, Marcos Valle, Paula Morelenbaum, and Wanda Sá. This year's event took place last week, and saw the return of Dori Caymmi to the stage, along with singer and composer Joyce Moreno (formerly known to the world simply as "Joyce") as special guest.
Dori Caymmi is the son of the late Dorival Caymmi, who would have turned 99 years old this year, and whose composition "O que é o que a bahiana tem?" helped launch the career of luminary Carmen Miranda. Dori, who also played the festival in 2009, has produced eighteen albums, and has worked with many other artists, including Quincy Jones, Sarah Vaughn, and Tom Jobim, the man who co-created bossa nova with Joao Gilberto. Joyce is a Brazilian MPB singer-songwriter, composer, and arranger who got her start in the late 1960s, but whose career really took off in 1980 with the release of her album "Feminina". Two of the tracks from that album were highly successful commercial hits, and put her on the map internationally.
Caymmi and Joyce were accompanied by Rodolfo Stroeter on bass, Dario Eskenazi on piano, and Joyce's husband and collaborator Tutty Moreno on drums. It was a delightful mix of original music and beloved standards by Jobim, the elder Caymmi, Noel Rosa, and others. Caymmi started off the evening with two of his father's compositions, "Voçê já foi a Bahia?" and "Lá vem a bahiana". Joyce then took the stage to do "O que é o que a bahiana tem?", and from there they moved into a series of duets and solos. There were a few surprises, such as an unannounced appearance by jazz harmonica player Hendrik Meurkens, who sat in on several numbers, and a medley that combined "Desafinado" with the famous Ary Barroso tune "Aquarela do Brasil". Joyce also sang "Puro Ouro" an original tune that pays homage to the younger generation of samba musicians. Other highlights included Caymmi's performance, in English, of "O Cantador", known in English as "Like A Lover", and a cover of Baden Powell's "Berimbau".
It was a great show that brought us all closer to the work of these two very talented bossa artists, and left us all looking forward to what lies in store next year.
Ailton Nunes, the director of Rio's oldest samba school still in competition, Mangueira, is touring the U.S. as a guest instructor, bringing Mangueira's style of samba to percussion schools in Los Angeles,Chicago, and New York, among other places. This is the first time these cities have had a visit from a samba instructor of his stature visiting in this capacity; samba enthusiasts therefore consider his visit a milestone in the States. He was part of the faculty at last year's Brazil Camp California, where for two one-week sessions he taught Mangueira's rhythms and breaks to a highly advanced group of samba percussionists. The subsequent performance of the Advanced Bateria class was phenomenal.
Advanced Bateria class with Ailton Nunes - California Brazil Camp 2012, Week #1
Ailton's stop in New York City is being hosted by Samba New York, and is almost sold out even though it's still almost two weeks away. The fact that there are enough advanced players in the U.S. to fill up master classes in more than three cities speaks to the vitality and maturity of the samba percussion scene in this country. Even though samba is not an instrinsic part of the culture here the way it is in Brazil, it's a scene that, while still small, has clearly come a long way. This workshop tour by such a high-profile director will further strengthen this small but very active and vibrant community.
I did not hear back from Ailton in time to include his comments in this piece -- he just finished his class at the Samba da Mudança school in L.A., and is probably really busy -- but Mangueira is a highly respected part of the Grupo Especial, the elite group of samba schools at the forefront of Rio's Carnaval. Based in the heart of Rio's working-class North Zone, Mangueira is known for a lot of "firsts". Their full, official name, "Estação Primeira de Mangueira" refers to the neighborhood of Mangueira's place as the first stop on the railroad, right after Central Station. But they were also the first to win a Carnaval championship, the first to use a surdo in the bateria, and the first to create a theme or "enredo" around their parade. They are also, now, the first to send a high-level instructor on a workshop tour to the United States.
Mestre Ailton Nunes will be in Chicago on April 6, and in New York City on April 14. Places in the New York City workshop are limited, mostly because physical space is limited. Anyone interested is encouraged to contact Philip Galinsky immediately at Samba New York at info@sambanewyork.com.
Emilio Santiago has died from complications of a stroke that left him hospitalized in Rio de Janeiro for almost two weeks. The singer, who some in the United States nicknamed "the Brazilian Nat King Cole", had a silky baritone voice that charmed audiences all over Brazil and around the world. He was 66.
Santiago recorded his self-titled first album in 1975, on the CID record label, with a collection of little-known songs by famous composers. The following year he signed a contract with Phillips-Polydor, with whom he remained until 1984, recording ten albums. But his big break came in 1988, with his inclusion in the Aquarela Brasileira collection, a seven-volume set by Som Livre dedicated to the Brazilian repertoire. Santiago was the featured artist in disc #4 in the series, and sales exceeded all expectations. He went on to gain both national and international attention, both as a soloist and a collaborator. He worked with some of the greatest names in Brazilian music: Dick Farney, João Donato, Caetano Veloso, and more recently Bossacucanova and Marcos Valle, among others. Here he is onstage with Leny Andrade, performing "Uma Batida Diferente":
And here he is singing "Saigon", one of his best-loved signature hits:
Santiago came to New York in 2009 and 2010 as part of Birdland's Bossa Brasil Fest, where I had the privilege to hear him alongside the likes of Sergio Brandão, Marcos Valle, and Cidhinho Texeira. Those were two magical evenings. He had a way of doing a ritardo at the end of a song or phrase that just brought all the sadness and beauty of existence together into one moment, and gave new meaning to the phrase "making time stand still".
I was also surprised and delighted to hear Santiago's voice on one of the tracks of Bossacucanova's new album, "Nossa Onda é Essa!", released in December 2012. He sings João Gilberto's tune "É Preciso Perdoar". As far as I know it's the last song he ever recorded:
Definitely, we will never hear a voice like that again in this world. Rest in peace, Emilio Santiago.
The Brazilian music scene was saddened this week by the newsthat Alexandre Magno Abrão, fondly known as Chorão, was found dead in his São Paolo apartment on Monday. He was 42. Chorão (literally "big cry") was an original member of the band Charlie Brown Jr., a Brazilian rock band heavily influenced by alternative rock. They've been compared with Coldplay, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and other punk-influenced bands on independent record labels that had their heyday in the 1990s. The story goes that Chorão originally took to the stage in a São Paolo rock club during another singer's bathroom breaks, attracted the notice of other musicians in the audience, and soon found himself frontlining his own band. When Chorão crashed his car into a coconut stand named Charlie Brown, the band got its name. Their first album, Transpiração Continua Prolongada, was very successful, and won the band a Brazilian MTV music video award.
Charlie Brown Jr. is an example of the way many Brazilian musicians can take foreign influences and make them their own. The lyrics are in Portuguese, but the music is heavily influenced by American styles and culture. Chorão himself loved skateboarding -- he sometimes performed onstage with his skateboard, and his forearms were tatooed with slogans reflecting his obsession with the sport.
His voice sounds to me like a Brazilian Kurt Cobain or Anthony Kiedis, and is perhaps at its best here:
Meanwhile, the distinctively Brazilian qualities of some of Charlie Brown Jr's music can be found here:
The cause of Chorão's death is not yet known, but drugs were suspected. More will likely be known in the next few days.
New York City is cold at this time of year, with snow on the ground as I write, and with temperatures in the mid-20s. The real New York City Carnaval, as everyone who lives here knows, takes place in October at the West Village Halloween Parade, where there is a better-than-fair representation of Brazilian samba musicians, dancers, and capoeiristas. Pre-Lenten Carnaval here is an indoor, much more low-key affair that happens in a variety of Brazil-themed parties across the city. Some of them are small and relatively quiet, others happen at loud, large nightclubs with hefty cover charges and hordes of percussionists, musicians, Carnaval dancers, and burlesque performers. Not all events fall strictly within the Carnaval period of February 8-12 -- some occur before Shrove Tuesday, and others well after Ash Wednesday. The problem with these events is that, even though they're spread out over a period of over two weeks, a few of them still occur on the same night, and it just isn't possible to attend them all. To get things started, this Thursday Feb. 7th, DJ True and Miller Cruz will take over the Sullivan Room to present the last in their series of very successful "Alma" parties, which they describe as "Neo-Brazilian fusion". Then Friday Feb. 8th there's Ciranda: Carnaval Edition at Monika's Cafe Bar in Astoria. Lilliana Araujo and Johnson do Cavaco will be doing forró, the dance music from Northeastern Brazil that is currently in the midst of a small but very active and vibrant wave in New York. There are also two events on Saturday, February 9: PhillyBloco and Mais Um at DROM, and Matuto at SOB's. PhillyBloco is a Philadelphia-based batucada band that does Rio-style Carnaval samba. They'll be joined by their friends Mais Um, a fine group of young percussionists from Brazil and around the world that plays and sings a variety of styles from Rio and other parts of Brazil. Matuto is a project with Rob Curto and Zé Mauricio that combines Northeastern Brazilian music -- specifically forró -- with Appalachian bluegrass. I don't know their music well, but I've looked at some of their videos, and the odd combination of infectious baião rhythm, English lyrics, and steel-stringed country twang seems to work.
The Regional de New York will be hosting roda de choro at Beco Bar on Sunday the 10th
Rob Curto will also be a special guest at Beco Bar on Sunday the 10th from 5:00 - 9:00 for Regional de New York's twice-monthly roda de choro. Though this is a regularly scheduled event that has nothing to do with Carnaval, it's a great way to see Rob in a more intimate setting. There is no cover charge -- the tip jar goes around at the end of every set. Please support these fabulous musicians. Another great-sounding event next week, though it's being billed as a Mardi Gras and not a Carnaval event, is Batala New York's appearance at Element Nightclub on Tuesday of next week. Batala NYC is a wonderful all-women's samba-reggae project that is quickly picking up steam. When I interviewed their director last year, she talked about expanding the band's presence to go beyond strictly Brazilian events and music. They are making good on that promise with an appearance at a party with DJs spinning music of all different kinds, from reggae and soca, to salsa and samba. Justin Justin will be turning his regular party at Cielo nightclub into a combined Carnaval / Valentine's Day celebration with Red Carnaval on Friday, Feb. 15. These shows feature a combination of live drumming with his "Ale Ale" percussion ensemble, tech house music, samba dancers, facepainting, and burlesque. Wear an outrageous red costume, and bring a date. Festivities will continue all the way through to Sunday February 17 at SOB's, with capoeirista Kiki da Bahia presenting a Salvador-themed President's Day Carnaval show. Four days after Ash Wednesday is pretty late to be presenting Carnaval, but it still looks like a lot of fun. I don't know who the musicians are -- the web site doesn't say -- but the venue is an established one that typically chooses the best local Brazilian musicians around.
Many of us in the United States were saddened to read about the nightclub fire in Santa Maria that took the lives of, at this writing, 237 Brazilians, mostly young people. Many of the horrific details, including the barricades set up to prevent people from entering without paying, reminded me a lot of the fire -- many years ago by now -- in the Happy Land social club that claimed the lives of 87 people in the Bronx. Brazil's tragedy was on a much larger scale, however, and coming as it does so close to Carnaval, triggered a three-day national period of mourning. Facebook was also immediately filled with exhortations, such as this one, to respect the victims by not posting pictures of the dead or injured.
There will be many calls to honor the memory of those killed by enacting better nightclub regulations, to limit overcrowding, to have lit exit signs, etc. Those are good things to have in place and worth fighting for. Celebrating life is another good means of doing so. The victims were nighttime revelers out celebrating, to move their bodies, to enjoy each other's company, and share the pure joy of being alive. Let this tragedy heighten our appreciation for the preciousness and fragility of life and love!
Fourteen years ago, Bossacucanova came out with its first album of bossa nova interpretations, breathing new life into an old form, and effectively creating the genre of electro-bossa or Brazilian lounge. The music press found the album, "Revisited Classics", to be remarkably respectful of the bossa nova traditions themselves, even while incorporating electronics and sampling into the music. This shouldn't have been so surprising -- after all, one member of the trio, Marcio Menescal, is the son of a well-known icon of the bossa genre, Roberto Menescal. The fact that he's in a band that utilizes loops, synthesizers, and sophisticated mixing techniques that weren't available when his father composed and recorded just means that this music is evolving, as it should be. It's an extension of an organic, living tradition that began with Tom Jobim and João Gilberto, and that continues on with the likes of Bebel Gilberto, Eliane Elias, and others.
I listened to "Uma Batida Diferente" (2004) over and over again when I first got it. It took some of the old compositions and gave them a contemporary voice. I thought, "This is what Jobim would have wanted his music to sound like, if he were recording today." It's dreamy and sexy and very chill, and the electronics are such an integral part of the music you don't even think about them.
This latest album, released last month, mostly presents a return to samba, with mixtures of electronica, rock, and funk. If "Uma Batida Diferente" is a quiet day at the beach, "Nossa Onda é Essa" ("This is Our Wave") is a rowdy Carnaval party that's been crashed by a wild-eyed controllerist. There is enough to keep a diehard bossa lover like me happy -- two of the tracks, "Adeus America", and "E Preciso Perdoar", are João Gilberto's compositions -- but the direction is definintely more towards good-time, syncopated party music than the complex, subtle harmonies of the bossa nova. The electronics still are in a supporting role to the music, however -- this isn't house music with a few acoustic bits thrown in. These guys have a solid understanding of both the music of their country and of electronics, and have produced some beautiful music, even if I can't tell you exactly what instruments each of them plays.
The band has continued to bring in a lot of guest vocalists, this time for every track, and the lineup is a delightful mixture of old and new. We've got established artists such as Elsa Soares and Emilio Santiago alongside Teresa Cristina, a singer from Rio who has been making the circuit in the large Brazilian cities for a long time, but who is still relatively unknown outside the country. She sings Cartola's tune "Deixa Pra Lá". Two of the other tracks feature Wilson Simoninha, another child of an artist of the last era, Wilson Simonal. Then there is Maria Rita, daughter of the late bossa legend Elis Regina, singing "Deixa a Menina" by Chico Barque. There's also Marcela Mangabeira, probably my favorite among the younger, newer bossa nova voices in Brazil, and Cris Delanno, who with her brightly colored orange hair can often be found performing onstage with the band. The last track, "Tô Voltando" features members of Monobloco, one of the newer samba percussion schools in Rio that has taken credit for inspiring new interest in batucada (Brazilian street percussion) among young people.
With so many featured performers who are children of great stars, it's clear that Bossacucanova is laying claim to their time -- their wave -- with a sound and a style that's all their own, and done their part to save bossa nova from being relegated to the vintage rack in the used record store. I love this album.
Here's a live clip of the band featuring Wilson Simoninha singing his father's composition, "Balança Zona Sul":
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.
