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Bahia is a hot cauldron of rhythms and musical styles, but one particular style here is so utterly essential, so utterly fundamental not only to Bahian music specifically but to Brazilian music in general -- occupying a place here analogous to that of the blues in the United States -- that it deserves singling out. It is derived from (or some say brother to) the cabila rhythm of candomblé angola... ...and it is called... Samba de Roda Mother of Samba... daughter of the semba carried to Bahia by Bantus ensconced within the holds of negreiros entering the great Bahia de Todos os Santos (the term referring both to a dance and to the style of music which evolved to accompany that dance; the official orthography of "Bahia" -- in the sense of "bay" -- has since been changed to "Baía")... evolved on the sugarcane plantations of the Recôncavo (that fertile area around the bay, the concave shape of which gave rise to the region's name) -- in the vicinity of towns like Cachoeira and Santo Amaro, Santiago do Iguape and Acupe. This proto-samba has unfortunately fallen into the wayside of hard to find and hear... Care to see what roots samba-de-roda looks like? Below is a short video of sheer exuberance recorded in Parafuso, Bahia last November. The occasion was a festa organized by wonderful Bule-Bule.
Hilária Batista de Almeida -- of Cachoeira -- was a mãe-de-santo and one of many freed slaves who made her way to Rio de Janeiro around the time of the abolition of slavery in Brazil, this movement similar to the migration of black Americans from the south of the United States to the north in search of work (the migrants tended to settle in poor areas close to Rio's docks where there was a need for manual labor). It was in the salon and quintal (yard) of Hilária -- or Tia Ciata (Aunt Ciata) as she was commonly known -- that the founders of popular samba (most of them from Bahian families) would gather to create the music which has since come to symbolize Brazil. In the meantime the "roots" samba of Bahia never died out. Like the blues in small towns served by dusty roads in the American South of the 1920s and 30s, samba de roda is alive and well in the backwaters of the Bahian Recôncavo, a celebration of generations, and regeneration.
In the manner that Machito and Mario Bauzá took the music of Cuba far beyond its "simple" origins, Raimundo Sodré has taken the music of his cradle (samba-de-roda, which brightens and leavens festas across the Bahian Recôncavo with its characteristic syncopated hand-clapping and hip-rattling dancing...) and woven it into something at once sophisticated, moving, African, Brazilian, and constantly evolving. (And with respect to the subtitle above...perhaps the Robert Johnson comparison would be more apt were it to include something to do with second-generation -- the first generation pre-dating Mr. Johnson himself and consisting of those Bahians -- mentioned above -- who carried samba-de-roda to Rio in the 19th century and rewrought it, leaving the original in the Bahian backlands to be handed down virtually unchanged to this day.)
Moreover, interestingly, and in an essential and almost ironic way, Raimundo Sodré mirrors the history of Bahia. This is a man who has suffered at the hands of the influential (his career was kicked out from under him due to his criticism of the government during Brazil's dictatorship) and who is yet possessed of a soul which they haven't been able to grind into Bahia's dusty red clay and destroy (in "A Massa" -- a song which swept Brazil -- he sings in the voice of those who work the earth (as a challenge and not as a lament): "...no cabo da minha enxada não conheço coroné (...at the handle of my hoe, the powerful are unknown to me"). Raimundo Sodré is the very definition of a soul survivor. If Bahia has anything like greatness it is because it is such fertile ground for producing people capable of weaving poetry out of poverty.
Bule-Bule (Antônio Ribeiro da Conceição), hailing from the tiny community of Antônio Cardoso -- where the Recôncavo gives way to the sertão -- was brought up in the repentista tradition wherein improvised rhymed verses having to do with everything from events of the day to fables of northeastern Brazil to jocular putdowns of competing repentistas are sung to the accompaniment of the viola caipira. Bule-Bule also writes, expressing himself in a traditional literary form of the Northeast, the cordel. And nonpareil he is a sambador rural, utilizing a style of samba -- styles really --not often heard outside of their territory stretching from the sugarcane producing region near the coast into the dry hinterlands of the Bahian interior...his music sonically entwining the history, tradition, and beauty of a select area of the planet.
Hot Buttered Soul, Straight Outta Cachoeira!
Os Tincoãs, with their hauntingly beautiful vocals, were named for a suitably beautiful bird common to their area (the tincoã) reputed to have the power to warn humans of impending danger...the group comprising three vocalists hailing from Cachoeira, Bahia. 1960 was their first year of existence, but they really found their footing three years later when Erivaldo left the ensemble and Mateus Aleliua -- bringing with him an ethos founded principally in Bahia's houses of candomblé -- joined Heraldo and Dadinho.
Heraldo and Dadinho have since passed away, but Mateus (to the right, above) is still active, having co-written another candomblé-based song which was the hit of Carnival a couple of years ago (Maimbê Dandá). Unfortunately none of Os Tincoãs' records are available anymore. NOTE! The Tincoãs have become the focus of a recent surge in interest, in part due to Mateus's participation and recordings with Carlinhos Brown and Margareth Menezes...and re-recording by these two of Tincoãs' material. So, EMI in Brazil is preparing a reissue of their 1973 Tincoãs release (which bore the photo above)...and we're proud to say that EMI -- having lost the original album art -- will utilize the art on Bahia Online/Cana Brava's copy of the record! Mateus is a deep soul, a student of African culture (he spent four years living in Angola and will be returning for another three), and his recent singing (alone with his guitar) of the last song in the series on the player below -- Lamento às Águas -- was one of the most profound experiences I've had the privilege of living through. Saravá Mateus! And obrigado!
Ederaldo Gentil, born July 7, 1943, was the boy wonder of Carnival in Bahia. Living in the Salvador neighborhood of Tororó (his family having moved there from the neighborhood of Dois de Julho) he became something of a house composer for Carnival samba school Filhos de Tororó until he quit the school in 1969. The following year -- 1970 -- saw every Carnival school but the Filhos de Tororó marching to a song composed by Ederaldo Gentil! Ederaldo went on to see his music recorded by a host of Brazilian greats, including Jair Rodrigues, Alcione, and Leny Andrade, but, with the shift in the music of Bahia's Carnival to the mixed bag known locally here as "axé music", he went from being an acknowledged force behind real Bahian music of substance to a representative of a less popular and commercially unviable style (samba; would you believe it?!). It was too much for him and in the early 90's he sank from site, rarely leaving his apartment in the Salvador neighborhood of Vila Laura. In order to help Ederaldo out financially, in 1999 his friend and musical comrade Edil Pacheco organized a marvelous disc (Pérolas Finas) of Ederaldo's compositions sung by a panoply of Brazil's brightest stars, including Gilberto Gil, Beth Carvalho, João Nogueira, Carlinhos Brown, and others. Below are a couple of tunes, the first undoubtedly the most eloquent hymn to miscegenation ever composed (sung by Gilberto Gil), the second a no-less-eloquent hymn to samba-chula in Salvador's neighborhood of Nordeste de Amaralina, this one sung by Ederaldo himself.
Out of the Afoxés and into Popular Culture
Anybody remember this record? It was released (in 1988) in the U.S. by Mango -- an imprint of Island Records -- and in Brazil by PolyGram*. It was a collection of music based in the afros and afoxés of Bahia, that music having been composed by Edil Pacheco (together with lyricist Paulo César Pinheiro). Edmilson de Jesus Pacheco (born June 1st, 1945) is one cool dude! He's from Maragogipe, Bahia (on the other side of the bay, where the Paraguaçu River gives onto the Baia de Todos os Santos), and is a prolific composer of sambas and ijexá-based music, tunes which have been covered by a plethora of Brazilian greats (including a divine songstress whose style dovetailed so neatly with Edil's own -- Clara Nunes). * The liner notes were translated by Regina Werneck, who may not have been responsible for equating "Malé Debalé" with "Happy Blacks". A more accurate translation would be "Dancing Malés", the Malés being honored for their 1835 uprising.
Future Shock!
If you're ever in a spaceship, skimming lowly and slowly in technodrive over steaming jungle while your jazz-bearded pilot channels up the chanting, rattling, buzzing and beating from below, that pilot will almost undoubtedly be Ramiro Musotto. Ramiro is an Argentine who has been living here in Salvador for the last fifteen years or so, rattle-buzz-and-beat master to the likes of Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Sergio Mendes, Marisa Monte, Daniela Mercury... his CD Sudaka melding Afro-Brazilian rhythms with samples from Camafeu de Oxossi, Ilê Aiyê, Congo pygmies, the film Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun), and more. Wild ride!
Bust a Riff, Brasil-Stylie!
There are some great jazz bass players in the world, and Luciano Calazans (a Salvador native living in the neighborhood of Barris) is one of them. What he has -- and the others don't -- is a bone-deep Brazilian sensibility and a peerless knowledge of Brazilian rhythms woven into his compositions and style. A facile, but not entirely futile, collocation might be "the Brazilian Jaco Pastorius" (Luciano has a pithy tale of one cold night outside a jazz bar on the south side of Chicago, when there was no way the passing taxis could be bothered to consider him and his two musician companions as fares {the three were on a night off from Margareth Menezes' U.S. tour}. In desperation Luciano approached a cop -- African American -- who was able to hail a cab for them. And no, language wasn't the problem...Luciano speaks excellent English.) The first cut below features the trumpet of Joatan Nascimento, born in Alagoas but since 1987 residing in Salvador, and the vocals of Salvador native Tito Bahiense (now living in São Paulo), who has a song featured on Gal Costa's latest CD. Another place to hear Luciano's bass-playing is on Gilberto Gil's latest record (Eu Tu Eles).
New Orleans > Kansas City > New York > Havana > BAHIA!
Jurandir Santana weaves Bahia and Brazil into a sweet jazz guitar style Brazilian to the core...the song below utilizing, to beautiful effect, the rhythm of Bahia's afoxés (ijexá). Other Santana compositions are written in styles utilizing chula (including the first track of Jurandir's CD "Só Brasil", incorporating a percussive fingering technique invented by Roberto Mendes, below), and various other forms of samba. New Orleans to Bahia... that is one natural harmonic progression meu/minha irmão/irmã!
Roberto Mendes is from Santo Amaro, Bahia -- that treasure chest of chula and samba-de-roda -- and these are what Roberto plays. Drinking from a font in common with Santo Amaro's illustrious Velloso family (the better-known being Maria Bethânia, Caetano, and Jota), a very local musical cross-pollination includes Maria's singing of Roberto's compositions on various of her discs (including Brasileirinho's powerful Yáyá Masemba), and Caetano's participation on Roberto's 1992 Matriz as well as on Roberto's latest CD Tradução (along with Margareth Menezes, Jussara Silveira, and Barravento). Roberto's 1988 release Flama included the participation of Gilberto Gil and Dona Edith do Prato. Unlike his better-known associates, Roberto Mendes continues to this day to live in Santa Amaro (on a street parallel to and one block over from that of the house of matriarch Dona Canô). Nothing prodigal about this son!
Another Rising Son of Santo Amaro
Jota Velloso -- producer, composer, and singer -- didn't follow the newer Brazilian orthography changes and simplify the spelling of his last name (per his uncle, Caetano). Neither has he bent nor does he bend to the evershifting winds of currentcool when it comes to producing records or playing on stage; if you have a chance to catch him up there you can be sure that he won't be flanked by the gyrating scantily-clad oh-so-lovelies common to other bands here. More likely his stage-partners will be the white-clad Vozes de Purificação (Voices of Purification) -- choir of the Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Purificação (Church of Our Lady of the Purification) in Santa Amaro -- a group of ladies whose youth is expressed in their exultory spirit if not in the shape of their hips. I'm reminded of an old Tower of Power song...
Jota's productions include Batatinha's (Oscar da Penha) Diplomacia (released in 1998, with the participation of Maria Bethânia, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Jussara Silveira, Nelson Rufino, Walmir Lima, Edil Pacheco, and Riachão), a CD of the cânticos of Salvador's beloved pai-de-santo Luís da Muriçoca, Riachão's Humanenochun (with the participation of Carlinhos Brown, Dona Ivone Lara, Roque Ferreira, Tom Zé, Armandinho, Caetano Veloso, Sabiá, and Claudete Macedo), and Dona Edith do Prato. Quality is quool!
Legacy and Legend
If you have anything to do with Bahia for any length of time, sooner or later you're going to bump into (figuratively speaking) the 800-pound-gorilla of Bahian music -- Dorival Caymmi. It may be that you may have already come across him on late night TV, saucy-eyed Carmen Miranda belting out his O Que É que a Baiana Tem? while undulating through her1939 feature Banana da Terra. Sr. Caymmi was born in Salvador on April 30, 1914, great-grandson of an Italian immigrant by the name of Enrico Caimi -- it wasn't only upon arrival to Ellis Island that surnames were changed -- and grandson of Erico's blue-eyed son Henrique and a mulata by the name of Saloméa de Souza... and although he's lived in Rio for decades he remains the unofficial musical poet laureate of Bahia, singing of fishermen and the sea, mysteries, byways, women. He was friend to Jorge Amado and composed the lovely and widely heard theme to the film version of Amado's book Gabriela, Cravo and Canela (Gabriela, Cinnamon and Clove). But one of my personal favorites is (of course) the samba-de-roda Adalgisa (sung here by Jussara Silveira), with the refrain "Adalgisa mandou dizer que a Bahia tá viva ainda lá!" ("Adalgisa said to say that Bahia is still alive there!").
That's Bossa, Man!
Been around long enough to have seen your grandparents -- pre British-Invasion 1960s -- shuffling hands-to-hips across the living room carpet while Stan Getz's tenor intoned and Astrud Gilberto sang so sensually/sweetly from the LP on the stereo turntable? Or maybe your parents were doing the shuffling? Or even you yourself, venerable one? These were the glory years of bossa nova, a revolutionary musical style created by Astrud's husband João Gilberto (João Gilberto do Prado Pereira de Oliveira, born June 10th, 1931) out of Juazeiro, Bahia. João took his sound to Rio where he fell in with the great Antonio Carlos Jobim and others who would take the fledgling creation and apply their full and considerable talents to what was a highly innovative way of combining the rhythms of guitar and voice (the moniker "Bossa Nova" slangily translates to "New Style", the term first being used in a newspaper article by a journalist who didn't have any other way of describing the music). P.S. The photo of João Gilberto above right was taken (in New York City's Rainbow Room circa 1969) by formidable Martin Cohen -- founder of Latin Percussion and force behind the fascinating website at Congahead.com. The photo is reproduced with Sr. Cohen's kind permission.
Bright Melancholy and the Diplomat of Bahian Samba
Batatinha (Oscar da Penha, born on the 5th of August, 1924 and in his youth a resident of Pelourinho) played the matchbox and composed lovely sambas to many of which are ascribed the adjective "sad". I don't believe this word conotes the right flavor, "wistful" in my opinion being more delicately like it. A couple of songs come up in the player below, "Babá de Luxo", followed by "Marta". "Babá de Luxo" is "Luxurious Babysitter", written for a lovely young woman -- working at the time as a babysitter -- who happened into the studio one day while Batatinha was recording. "Marta" was subsequently written to appease Batatinha's wife, who upon hearing the babysitter story... well, you know. Batatinha died on the 3rd of January, 1997, aged 72 years.
Yoruban Lyricism
Okan Awa: Cânticos da Tradição Yorubá is a collection of traditional Yoruban songs set to orchestral arrangments and sung by soprano, dancer, and Ph.D. Inaicyra Falcão dos Santos. Inaicyra is daughter of noted Mestre Didi Axipá (Deoscóredes Maximiliano dos Santos), a candomblé priest (of the Egungun on the island of Itaparica) who in his writings and art explored Nagô traditions in Bahia. She is also a great-great-granddaughter of Marcelina da Silva -- Obá Tossi -- captured in the Oyá region of Africa and brought to Bahia where she would eventually become a founder and high-priestess of house of candomblé Casa Branca.
Candomblé Jazz Rumpilezz
A Niagra of Rhythms
Carlinhos Brown -- is the founder of Timbalada ("Brown" is not Carlinhos's real last name by the way...pronounced "brow" here it means something akin to "hoodlum", a kind of a jocular insult when Carlinhos was a kid). Carlinhos is a savvy master percussionist and a prolific and talented songwriter (occasionally falling back on formulaic chant/tunes recalling his early days as a writer of commercial jingles, however), and Timbalada -- which was intended to exist semi-independently of its founder -- is a percussion-based band whose members are painted up like African warriors. In spite of his musicality Carlinhos is not much of a singer (though he gets by) and so Timbalada has several vocalists. Ninha -- he of the of powerful voice and powers of evocation -- is my personal favorite. Ninha also has written some really wonderful songs for Timbalada (including the rousing anthem "Sambaê"). Carlinhos's non-Timbalada work includes a number of discs working in a number of directions and with various collaborators. *Note: Since the previous paragraph was written Ninha has left Timbalada and joined together with two other ex-Timbalada vocalists to form a band called Tribahia. More on this later...
Until five years ago Timbalada played every Sunday night at their headquarters in Candeal -- the neighborhood Carlinhos grew up in -- drawing enormous crowds. But not everybody in the neighborhood was happy with the weekly influx and a court order banning performances was obtained. The group then moved out to a place well north of Salvador...
Man with a Horn
Joatan Nascimento
Cortejo Afro
To Come
Margareth Menezes -- Toured the States a number of years ago under the patronage of David Byrne, who discovered her here while visiting the city. Margareth is wonderful. She has a rich, powerful voice, and is most in her element when she is singing more Afro-Bahian and less pop-type music.
What's new on the Bahian music scene these days? What's new is the oldest musical style in Bahia outside of what the Indians were playing before the Portuguese -- and more to the point -- the Africans -- got here.
"Samba de roda" (circle samba), as the name suggests, involves a circle of clapping, laughing, goodtiming people, all egging on whomsoever happens to be in the circle at the moment (usually one person but occasionally two). When the dancer decides it's time to bow out, they pick somebody else from the circle's perimeter, who then jumps in to show what they got going. This indication of choice -- which initially took the form of a belly bump -- was called a "semba" in the language of the Bantus who brought this style of dance over from Africa. Ergo "samba". Neither the dance nor the musical form ever went away. The dance breaks out spontaneously at street parties all the time, and the music -- with its beautiful African-sounding guitar (or viola) style -- has been preserved in the area where it originated: the Recôncovo. Viola de Doze is a group of young guys who have put this music at the forefront of the popular music scene, and Barravento, Samba de Cozinha, Conexão Negra and others are lighting up Bahian nights with a sweet and raucous spirit.
And what's the latest new dance rage in Bahia? Remember the lambada? Well the arrocha -- which is Bahian in origin -- makes the lambada look as staid and courtly as an 18th century quadrille. Arrochar is a verb meaning to hold on tightly, and in this particular instance the holding on part is done at the hips as they swerve (to triple-time boleros) in circular motions the mechanics of which would elude a NASA astrophysicist. Celestial mechanics. The music to which arrocha is danced is meia brega (not too classy) the songs all tending to sound the same and decidedly uninventive rhythmically. The rhythmic invention is left to the inspiration of the dancers themselves, an inspiration which Bahia holds in more than fecund abundance.
Forró, the extremely funky, syncopated, and eminently danceable Brazilian hillbilly music (originally based around accordeon, triangle, and zabumba -- a hand drum) is nothing new around here, but shortly after Carnival it experiences its yearly renaissance, providing Bahia's soundtrack for the long slide into the grand festa of São João in June. A good place to hear (and dance) forró is in Pelourinho's Praça Pedro Arcanjo on Thursday nights, from 11 p.m. on. Extremely popular.
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