Brazilian Excursion

 

Item : 1

Original Source: Brazil: A Century of Song, Blue Jacket [1995]: CD50001-2, track 3
Title: "Yao"
Composer: Pixinguinha (Alfred da Rocha Vianna)
Date: 1948
Performer(s): Orquestra Brasilia.
Genre: Choro

Comments: Choro combines European and African rhythms and melodies orchestrated to feature both solo and ensemble sections. The choro developed as a instrumental genre characterized by rapid modulations and stylish improvisations. It shares elements with other New World Creole forms like ragtime and Dixieland jazz. However, musicians in Rio originated choro in the 1870s thus predating the appearance of ragtime in the 1890s and Dixieland jazz in the first decade of the twentieth century.

The composer of this selection, Pixinguinha, was a founder of the genre and one of the best choro musicians of all time. By 1948, the year "Yao" was composed, Pixinguinha was one of the most important music arrangers on Brazilian radio. Although he arranged works for many performers, he rarely wrote formal scores.

The performance heard in this recording was coordinated by Henrique Cases. Cases is a renowned performer on the cavaquinho (an instrument similar to the ukulele with four strings and seventeen frets. IThe strings are usually tuned D-G-B-D. Since Pixinguinha did specify precise instrumentation for Yao, Cases created an orchestration based on the dance band format traditionally identified with Pixinguinha. The orchestration heard here thus reflects the Brazilian adoption and adaptation of European band instruments. Cases assembled a group of 13 musicians for this recording, five of whom played under the direction of Pixinguinha for Tupi Radio in the 1950s. The lyrics, written by Pixinguinha's brother Gastao Viana, are sung here by the renowned singer Wilson Moreira.

Item : 2

Original Source: Brazil: A Century of Song, Blue Jacket [1995]: CD50001-2, track 12
Title: "Vira e Mexe"
Composer: Luiz Gonzaga
Date: 1941
Performer(s): Luiz Gonzaga with friends
Genre: Choro - xamego style (sometimes spelled chamego)

Comments: This selection illustrates how basic genres reflect regional variation. Xamego is the northeastern variety of choro. This tune was first performed by master accordionist Luiz Gonzaga on a radio competition during which he won first prize. Gonzaga is also renowned for taking the baiao, a northeastern circle dance of African origin and one of several forms of forro (music for dance parties) and urbanizing it, thus creating a new kind of song form. As a result he was dubbed the King of baiao, and he recorded over 600 songs on more than 100 albums. "Vira e Mexe" reflects many of the characteristics of baiao including the use of the accordion in place of traditional guitars and the steady beat played on the zambumba drum along with triangle. This combination of instruments may remind some listeners of the characteristic sounds of Louisiana zydeco.

Item : 3

Original Source: Afro-Brazilian Religious Songs: Cantigas de Candomblé From Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Lyrichord Stereo LLST 7315, 33-1/3 rpm, [c. 1976]. Side A, band 4.
Title: "Ogum" ("Coia, coia")
Composer: N/A
Date: recorded between 1967-1975; the Yoruba roots of this music are thousands of years old; Brazilian practice began with colonization and was formalized by the 1830s.
Performer(s): member of the Gege-Nago cult
Genre: Candomblé

Comments: It seems impossible to discuss Brazilian music without acknowledging the tremendous impact of the new world blending of Catholic and African religious practices. Portuguese explorers and planters brought Catholicism to Brazil during the colonial era. During this same period, African slaves who ostensibly converted to Catholicism often retained traditional patterns of African worship and merged them with Catholic practice so as not to be detected by European eyes. Particularly influential were the descendents of the Yoruba people from the region of West Africa now known as Nigeria. They worshipped a pantheon of deities called orisha. In Brazil worship of these deities, known locally as orixas, was transformed into candomblé. After emancipation in 1883, freed blacks continued to practice candomblé and the tradition gained wider recognition as an important influence on the development of samba and carnaval practice.

Although approximately 90 percent of Brazilians are Roman Catholics, at least half of the population also practices some form of Afro-Brazilian religion. Macumba is a common generic name for all orixas religions, used mostly by non practicioners. Candomblé is said to be closest to the old West African practices (MacGowan, 1998:15) while umbanda includes twentieth-century influences from spiritist beliefs. Xango, catimbo, cabloco, and batuque are other names associated with regional variations of the syncretic blending of African and Catholic practices.

Since practice of African religions were repressed by the Roman Catholic church in the New World, devotees secretly worshipped their West African deities during Catholic ceremonies. Blacks who prayed to a statue of the Virgin Mary were actually praying to Iemanja, the goddess of the sea. Saint George merged with Ogun (Ogum), god of metal and warriors; Saint Jerome (in Cuba, Saint Barbara) stood in for Xango, god of fire, thunder, and justice. As McGowan writes in his book The Brazilian Sound, "Catholicism with its abundance of saints, meshed well with the orixa tradition and inadvertently sheltered it" (1998:15). Deeper correspondences are often overlooked, such as the overall sense of monotheism in both traditions: Olorun, the god of the sky is the supreme deity, who created heaven and earth.

Ceremonies feature drumming and singing organized to "bring down" the orixas, or their intermediary spirits, who will enter the follower's body and speak to those gathered at the ceremony. Specific songs and drum patterns (a composite of rhythms performed by a percussion ensemble) are associated with specific orixas. The first part of the ceremony includes an oro, or invocation inviting the presence of the deity. "Coia, coia" is a song sung in the context of an oro to Ogum. The insturments heard include three ketu drums, singled-headed, conical membranophones each a different size and pitch and played with sticks. The drums have names: rum, rumpi, and lê--the largest drum, run or rum, requires only one stick. Also heard is the agogo, a double iron bell. The patterns played on the lowest drum (run or rum) become faster and shorter in time as the invocation grows more insistent. Particularly characteristic is the call and response heard between the lead singer and the chorus. Melodies in the Gege-Nago tradition are frequently built on 5 or 6 tone scales. Also typical are the shouts of happiness as one or more of the participants becomes possessed by the spirit of an orisha.

Traditions related to candomblé can be found throughout the New World. Worship of the orishas became santeria in Cuban and shango in Trinidad, contributed to the formation of vodun in Haiti, and is the root of voodoo in Louisiana. Though all of these traditions have been the subject of a great deal of outrageous legends and speculation (particularly in the U.S.), it is important to remember that they are functioning religions for devotees.

While the ceremonial music of candomble differs considerably from samba, the latter has been influenced by the traditions associated with Afro-Brazilian music. In particular, both practices build on the African tradition of performing on a battery or family of similarly-shaped drums ranging in size. The use of the iron flange bell is another African retention found both in candomble and samba bands.

Item : 4
Source: Brazil: A Century of Song, Blue Jacket [1995]: CD50002-2, track 9
Title: "Lendas do Abaete"
Composer(s): Jaja - Preto Rico - Manoel
Date: 1977
Performer(s): Genaro de Bahia, G.R.E.S. Estacio Primeira de Mangueira - the samba school of the Mangueira neighborhood
Genre: Samba enredo - Caranaval parade-theme samba

There are many kinds of samba: the smooth, melodious samba-canção, the exuberant party music of pagode samba, and the kind represented here: the thunderous samba-de enredo played by the samba schools for Carnaval.

This recording features some of the characteristics typical of samba in general, such as the insistent, off-beat, rhythmic strumming of guitars and cavaquinho, as well as playing techniques characteristic of the suburb of Mangueira which include the pronounced squealing of the cuicas (friction drums) and the use of surdos (bass drums) to emphasize beat two.

The samba schools are groups of people, often representing an entire neighborhood, who work together, along with a composer and musicians, to develop a theme around which they develop costumes and songs to bring to the festival and parade. Seven weeks before Easter, life in Brazil is put on hold while everyone prepares for Carnaval . Many people don't even wait that long and begin just after Christmas. Even though Carnaval today is a massive commercial affair, choreographed, supported, and managed by the social elite and organzied crime alike, it belongs to the poor. If you cannot attend Carnaval yourself, you may enjoy reading Alma Guillermoprieto's remarkable book Samba. In this book the Mexican-born author shares her experiences as she joins the people in the favelas of the Mangueira district of Rio to celebrate Caranaval. Her tale offers a vivd view of the complexities of this fantasy-driven celebration.

The music for the samba schools is rigidly planned and rehearsed. The lead singer, the puxador, begins by singing the theme samba. He is almost always accompanied by a traditional instrumental ensemble featuring guitar, cavaquinho (a ukulele-like instrument), pandeiro (tambourine), and tamborim (small hand-held frame drum). In Carnaval, the puxador must keep 5000 voices in synchronization for the whole town is marching and singing with him. After his "school," or group of costumed marchers, has sung the samba several times, the singers are joined by a percussion orchestra, known as the bateria. Hundreds of instrumentalists join in precise coordination with the singers raising the level of the celebration to a fever pitch. The number and kinds of instruments in the bateria varies from school to school. A representative line-up might include 30 surdo (bass drum), 40 caixa (snare drum) , 40 tarol (shallow two headed drum with strings across the skin and played with two wooden sticks), 40 repique also called repinique (two- headed tenor drum), 70 tamborim (small tambourine without jingles, played with a single stick) 15 pandeiro (a tambourine with inverted jingles), 10 prato (cymbals), 20 cuica (small friction drum), 20 frigideira (frying pan shaped instrument played with a stick), 20 agogo (double flange bell), 20 reco-reco (notched instrument held in hand and scraped with a stick), and 40 chocalh,o also called xocahlo, (wooden or metal shaker made of two cones united at base) or 40 ganza (tubular metal shakers with one, two, or three tubes or a metal squre with cymbals). The result is a thunderous sound that is felt as much as heard.

 

Item : 5

Original Source : Brazil: A Century of Song, Blue Jacket [1995]: CD50003-2, track 1
Title: "A Felicidade" (Happiness)
Composer: Antonio "Tom" Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Morães
Date: 1959
Performer(s): João Gilberto
Genre: Bossa Nova

Comments: The Bossa Nova style was born in 1956 when author Vinicus de Moraes asked Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim to score his play Orfeu da Conceicao, which translated the Greek Myth of Orpeus and Eurydice into the favelas (slums) and Carnaval of modern Rio. The new style came to the attention of the world when Marcel Camus's award wininng film version of this play, called Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus), was released in 1959.

"A Felicidade" is one the new tunes composed by Jobim and Morales for this film. The lyrics convey the melancholy implied in the melody: "Sadness has no end, but happiness does. Happiness is like a feather the wind carries into the air. It flies so lightly, yet has such a brief life."

Bossa nova was a new way of performing samba that emphasized its essential rhythmic complexity in a more relaxed fashion. Unusual harmonies and syncopations were all expressed with a sophisticated simplicity. Well-suited to solo performance and small combos, this "new fashion" was an attempt to reclaim samba from overblown commerciality.

The international success of Bossa nova was the first large-scale exposure of Brazilian music and musicians to audiences on a global scale. North Americans began to welcome Bossa nova in 1962 after Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd released their Jazz Samba recording. Herbie Mann, Paul Winter, and Coleman Hawkins later released bossa-inspired recordings.

Tom Jobim (1927-1995), the composer of "A Felicidade," says that he was influenced by Heitor Villa Lobos, Brazil's most famous twentieth-century classical composer. Jobim was also classicallytrained and studied piano and composition with a student of Arnold Schoenberg (a twentieth-century, Viennese composer we will encounter later this semester). Jobim writes: "I could write a piece using the twelve-tone scale, but Brazil , with all its rhythms, was more important. I liked Pixinguinha, Donga, Vadico, and Ary Barroso" (MacGowan, 1998: 60).

Miles Davis once said that singer João Gilberto "would sound good reading the newspaper" (MacGawan 1998:63). Indeed Gilberto's vocal renditions did much to popularize Bossa Nova in Brazil and abroad. His precision and restraint were directed towards conveying the intimacy and nuance of rhythmic and harmonic features. As you listen to "A Felicidade," notice some of Gilberto's signature techniques (ones that have also come to be characteristic of bossa). They include singing with rhythmic freedom above the strict guitar beat, or delaying a melodic tone so that the chordal harmony falls into place a beat late.

Item : 6
Location: Brazil: A Century of Song, Blue Jacket [1995]: CD50004-2, track [re-release from Marisa Monte: Rose and Charcoal, Metro Blue 2483-0080]
Title: "Esta Melodia"
Composer: Bubu da Portela & Jamelao
Date: 1994
Performer(s): Marisa Monte
Genre: samba sung MPB style (Música Popular Brasileira)

Comments:This selection is but one possible example of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira).

MPB can be compared to American pop; there is no single discrete style (Blumenfield, O'Neil, and Gomes, 1995: 37). MPB artist cover a wide range of musical styles, lyrical content and cultural appeal. Despite this eclectic makeup, the artists share a general interest in responding to social, musical, and technological changes since the 1960s. MPB performers continue to embrace Brazil's traditions of powerful sung poetry, captivating melodies, indigenous rhythms, and rich harmonies, but treat these traditions in fresh ways. MPB is a music that challenges boundaries and resists simple categorization.

Marisa Monte represents MPB dating from the 1980s. Born in Rio in 1967 she merged her her mother's love of bossa nova, jazz, and blues with her knowledge of samba. She knew musicians associated with Rio's most famous samba neighborhood, Portela, in part due to her father's position on the Portela samba board. As a teen she tuned into music from the U.S. and Great Britain, and by eighteen was studying bel canto opera in Italy. Her albums mix folk-rock with choro, classic ballads with heavy samba (rock influenced samba). Her 1994 album Rose and Charcoal was released in Brazil as Verde Anil Amarelo Cor de Rosa e Carvao and features works ranging from this old samba by Portela legends Jamelão and Bubu da Portela to Lou Reed's "Pale Blue Eyes."

As you listen to this selection you might ask yourself what traditional elements do you hear in Monte's performance. What features challenge boundaries and make this sound contemporary?

Item : 7

Original Source: Willoughby: The World of Music, CD5:16.
Title: Bachiana Brasileiras No. 5

Composer: Heitor Villa-Lobos
Date: 1938 -1945
Performer(s): Arlene Auger , soprano and Aldo Perisot, conductor of the Yale Cellos
Genre: Chamber music; a suite

Comments:

Heitor Villa Lobos turned to diverse sources for inspiration in this famous composition featuring parts for seven cellos. He wrote nine sets of Bachianas Brasileiras between 1930 -1945, all written of in hommage of J.S. Bach. They are not stylizations of Bach's music so much as a free application of Bach's contrapuntal techniques to Brazilian material. Gerard Behague, notes that Villa Lobos saw certain affinities between Bach's procedures and those characteristic of Brazilian vernacular music. For example, much Brazilian music exhibits a considerable melodic independence, themes are often made up of repeated notes and broken chord figuration, over a strong functional harmonic base. In addition, Behague writes, "many Afro-Brazilian dance genres share the typical rhythmic feeling of Bach's fast movements--especially those founded on a constant pulsation of the sixteenth note type" (1979:198).

The air in the first movement of No. 5 recalls J.S. Bach's famous "Air for the G String" from his orchestral piece, Suite No. 3 in D. The improvisitory feel of the vocal melody is not unlike the freedom expected of the choroes, the serenaders associated with the choro. The pizzicato techniques used by the accompanying cellos is reminiscent of the plucked guitar style of Brazilian popular song.

The "Dansa" evokes the martelo, a ten syllable poetic form used by solo singers in forms called emboladas because the performers sing faster and faster until the words seem to "mix together." Emboladas are also sung by dueling singer guitarists in performances called desafios. Such song challenges are found throughout Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and in Spain and Portugal. In Venezuela they are called porfias, in Argentinian contrapunto, in Chile payas, in Colombia vallenato, and in Cuba and Mexico decimas.

 

Item : 8 (separate; original recording and cassette on reserve)

Original Source: Virginia Rodriques: Sol Negro Hannibal - HNCD 1425 (track 6)
Song Title: "Noite de Temporal" (Story Night)
Composer: Dorival Caymmi
Date:
Performer(s): Virginia Rodriques (vocal solo); berimbau and percussion, Ramiro Musotto and Celso Fonseca
Genre: MPB

 

Comments: A translation of the lyrics to this song are:

It is night, it is night
E lamba e labaio (3x)
The fisherman is not going after the fish (3x)
Because it is a story night.
It is night, it is night
E lamba e labaio (3x)
When the fisherman goes after the fish
On a stormy night,
His mother sits in the sand
Waiting for him to return.
It is night, it is night
E lamba e labaio (3x)

The musical bow heard on this recording is known as berimbau. It is an instrument used to accompany capoeira, a Brazilian blend of martial arts, music and dance created by black men who wanted to preserve their fighting skills without arousing the suspicions of the white plantation owners.

The refrain is a cry reflecting a combination of West African and Brazilian portuguese.

 

Item : 9 (separate; original recording and cassette on reserve)

Original Source: Virginia Rodriques: Sol Negro Hannibal --HNCD 1425 (track 9)
Song Title: "Sol Negro" (Black Sun)
Composer: Caetano Veloso
Date:
Performer(s): Virginia Rodriques with Celso Fonseca on guitar; Ramiro Musotto on percussion, and the special participation of Milton Nascimento
Genre: MPB

Comments:The lyrics to this selection (with a poetic translation) are:

Na minha voz
(In my voice)
Trago a noite é a luz
(I hear the night and the sea,)
De um sol negro em dor
(My song is the light of a black sun in pain)
É o amor que morreu
(It is the love that died)
Na noite do mar
(In the night of the sea)
Valha nossa senhora
(Our lady help us)
A quanto tempo ele foi-se embora
(At what time it was gone away)
Para bem longe, para além do mar
(Distant, beyond the sea,)
Para além dos braços de iemanjá
(Beyond the arms of Iemanja)
Adeus, adeus
(Good-bye, good-bye)

Even in this artistic pop composition there is reference to one of the deities of candomblé, Iemanja, the goddess or protector saint of the sea.

 

For Further Reference