Salvador
da Bahia, Brazil "Before there was Brazil... there was Bahia..."
"There
are certain countries, the names of which fire the popular imagination.
Brazil is one of them; an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle
and elegance, beating drums and luscious jazz harmonics -- there's no
other place like it in the world. And while Rio, or its fame anyway,
tends toward the elegant and sophisticated end of the spectrum, Bahia
tends
toward the other. Bahia is the land of the drum..."
Bahia-Online/Cana
Brava is located in Salvador, at Rua João de Deus, 22, and in
that Bahia's principal modality for the existence and continuation of
its culture is music, this (along with much more) is something we propagate,
and celebrate.
Salvador
Brazil From the Ground Up
A Mãe da Chula
(Chula's Mother)
Laura Rosa Brandão, born July 22, 1911 in the interior of Bahia, played guitar and was a repository of chulas, Bahian sambas. She taught these chulas -- and the intricate guitar style which accompanies them -- to her son Raimundo Sodré, who would go on to master this art form and make it heard throughout Brazil.
Raimundo's rock-star-like fame has subsided (he exploded in Brazil in 1980), but his mastery has only grown deeper with time, and through him the chulas of Laura Rosa's childhood have been kept from disappearing from the world forever.
The chulas in the first link below were passed on from Laura Rosa to Raimundo Sodré to Roberto Mendes...
This site -- Bahia-Online -- goes hand-in-hand with a record shop based here Salvador, Bahia, a place by the name of Cana Brava. This real Cana Brava is based on an imaginary record shop in the screenplay below...and that record shop is in turn based on a real record shop on 125th Street in Harlem, New York City...a place by the name of the Record Shack (sometimes the Harlem Record Shack, sometimes Sikhulu's Record Shack; located across the street and down from the Apollo Theater). Owner Sikhulu Shange (below) is a South African emigrant to the United States, and the screenplay's character "Joe" was in part based on him. Sikulu is fighting eviction...trying to survive the gentrification of Harlem.
One seminal Harlem record shop that didn't survive and just recently closed down forever was Bobby's Happy Shop (Bobby Robinson's place, located down the street and around the corner from Sikhulu's). Doesn't sound like a cool place? Well think again! (Hint: Bobby produced Elmore James, King Curtis, the Shirelles, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Grandmaster Flash, among many others.) Venerable Bobby was a client of mine back when I was in the music business in New York.
And the screenplay?
Capoeiristas? Nah... But the guy on the left knew something about dancing, and according to him the guy on the right was really the... (picking up from page 18)
SONNY
An' what about the greatest?
RHAKEEM
Muhammad Ali?
SONNY
JOE LOUIS!!! The Brown Bomber! Louis was his middle name. His real name was Joe Louis Barrow. Now what was the problem with "Barrow"? And come to think of it...what was the problem with "Black"? The Black Bomber!
RHAKEEM
Yeah! That's some pretty heavy sounding shit!
SONNY
Too heavy for them times. But look...the way I see it...there's a difference here. It's one thing if you don't like the way a name sounds, or what it stands for. But it's somethin' else if you don't like a name because what it stands for...is you.
Arguably the most important man on the planet in an important cultural nexus (samba-chula, the musical precursor to Brazilian samba), sambadeiro João do Boi (John of the Ox) of Samba-Chula de São Braz is pictured together here with his grandson on January 20th, 2008...
Here's a snippet with João playing in the background (notice the upside-down pandeiro style, typical of the region) during a get-down at Nando's restaurant one sultry Sunday afternoon in São Braz, Bahia...
A Room with a View
(And what a view it is!*)
Going to Rio? Want to stay in the same place where Quincy Jones, Alan Parker, George Martin (who recorded a part of Rhythm of Life here), and Stephen Frears have all stayed (among numerous other artists of various stripes)? And you're not a millionaire director, producer, or musician (or even if you are)? Well go to Bob Nadkarni's Maze Inn! Double rooms are 100 Brazilian reais per night (like, 40 euros).
Host/Raconteur/Good Guy Bob Nadkarni
Is there a catch? Yes, there is...a very interesting one: The Maze Inn is situated in a favela. This, however, is a very safe favela (Tavares Bastos, in the area of Catete, minutes away from Lapa), and in that the guesthouse is located at the top of a very big hill it has a spectacular view over Rio that absolutely no other lodging establishment in the city has (soon to be seen in a scene -- shot right in the guesthouse -- from the upcoming Incredible Hulk 2). This is a place like no other in the world!
* From the hanging-out area...not from the rooms themselves.
** Disclaimer: Bob does not pay me for this blurb, although he plied me with free beer and caipirinhas when I was there.
Intrigue, Inspiration, and More Intrigue
Although rarely visitied, Maracangalha is by far Bahia's most storied community...
The now closed-down Cinco Rios sugar factory obliquely inspired this fame, thusly...
Dorival
Caymmi
Bahia's premier sambista Dorival Caymmi had a close friend by the name of "Zezinho", and Zezinho had -- in addition to his wife and family proper -- a lover and four children living in another area of the city. Dorival asked his friend one day what excuse he gave when going to visit his second family...
Zezinho would send a telegram to himself, his friend replied, informing him of business requiring his attention in Maracangalha. Upon returning home to his "official" family Zezinho never failed to take along with him a large sack of sugar as evidence of where he'd been. Dorival, intrigued with the poetry in the name of the community used in this subterfuge, composed "Maracangalha" in one sitting...
Young men when the samba was written, Mestres Pedro Alves & José Grora of SAMBA-CHULA DE MARACANGALHA
continue the tradition of their communty's association with great music!
Unfortunately, the intrigue around Maracangalha grew last year to include far more than one man's family life...
An airplane carrying millions of reais (Brazilian currency; it was also the equivalent of millions of dollars or euros) crashed onto a ranch just outside the municipality, killing the pilots and security men and spreading money around the immediate area...
The aftermath of this affair included plunder, murder, kidnappings, and torture; involving local residents, homeless members of a nearby "tent city", police, and men posing as police...but as all this is outside of what I consider to be the scope, provenance, and purview of this site, I'll leave it at that.
