Carnaval events in New York

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.

Tragedy in Santa Maria

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!

Nossa Onda é Essa!

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":

Listen online to the new album here.

How to Survive a Baile Funk

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:

Be A Local

National Samba Day in Brazil

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.

Marcos Valle

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!

Manhattan Samba

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 

 or by calling 917 723 3814.