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Entries associated with the tag "Brazilian Music":November 7th - 9:57 p.m.
In this week's paper Miles Raymer writes about Little Joy, a new band (playing at Subterranean tomorrow night) that features Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti and Los Hermanos singer and guitarist Rodrigo Amarante. I agree with his take on Little Joy's delightful self-titled debut, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it tops Los Hermanos--they're probably the best pop-rock band to emerge from Brazil in the past decade, though I doubt many Americans have heard them (none of their records has ever been released here). Los Hermanos gracefully incorporate dashes of bossa nova, samba, and other Brazilian forms into their music, but they're a rock combo at heart, albeit one with a remarkably sophisticated melodic sensibility and an impressive gift for elaborate arrangements. The group hasn't released a new record since its fourth, the aptly titled 4 (Sony/BMG, Brazil), back in 2005, and in April 2007 it went on hiatus. Thankfully some of its members have stayed busy in other projects since then. Amarante met Moretti at a music festival in Lisbon a few years ago, and when Amarante traveled to LA, where Moretti lives, to work on the most recent Devendra Banhart record, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (XL, 2007), the two began hanging out. (Moretti is also working with Banhart now, as a supporting member of Megapuss.) Eventually a mutual friend and musician named Binki Shapiro encouraged them to write songs together, and after some low-key woodshedding and songwriting sessions, Little Joy was born. Before Los Hermanos took their break, Amarante was already doing side work as a member of the Rio de Janeiro samba group Orquestra Imperial, which played in Millennium Park as part of World Music Festival Chicago back in 2006--his star power helped the group develop its following in Brazil. While Amarante has been spending much of his time in the U.S., Los Hermanos coleader Marcelo Camelo (pictured) has been cooking up his own project--he recently issued his solo debut, Sou (Sony/BMG, Brazil). For much of the record he's back by Hurtmold , an instrumental group from São Paulo that's taken inspiration from Tortoise but treads weirder, more experimental turf. The combo's recent fifth record, Hurtmold (Submarine), fuses melancholy melodies to clattery percussion, expansive grooves, thick waves of ambient noise, and detailed contrapuntal riffs. Two members of the band, Mauricio Takara and Guilherme Granado, have also been working with Chicago cornetist Rob Mazurek in São Paulo Underground, which recently released its second album, The Principle of Intrusive Relationships (Aesthetics). Hurtmold plays it relatively straight on Sou, but there's no missing the group's exquisite sense of space--it's part of what makes Camelo's record one of my favorites this year. The performances are dominated by clean-toned electric guitars, vibes, and tremendously loose-limbed grooves--as much Afro-Cuban as Brazilian--all recorded with a warm, gorgeous room sound. Camelo has a wonderfully intimate vocal style that often reminds me of Caetano Veloso--they have different voices, but Camelo has clearly learned from the master's way of switching between conversational speak-singing and beautiful falsetto melodies. There's a wonderful retro-samba number as well as a few tunes featuring only Camelo's voice and a lone guitar. A handful of other musicians pitch in too, including drummer Domenico Lancellotti (of Domenico + 2 fame) and Mazurek. Camelo, Hurtmold, and Mazurek are currently touring all over Brazil, but without a U.S. release I don't expect them to get up this way any time soon--a real shame. Sou is going to be hard to find here, but at the moment Dusty Groove does appear to have the CD in stock. No playlist today; I'll be back on track next week. August 15th - 1:29 p.m.
Regular readers of this blog know I'm partial to the music of Brazil, but that doesn't mean I can't smell a turd if it's painted green, blue, and gold. Case in point: Last Time on Earth (Control Group), the debut album from Sao Paulo duo Telepathique (pictured), who perform Saturday night at the unfortunately named Uncle Fatty's--which seems to be a Cancun-styled pickup bar. (They played at Double Door earlier this month, so it's not like they can't do better.) I had reason to be optimistic about Telepathique because in 2003 singer Mylene Pires made a pretty swell solo album, Mylene (Fast Horse), that tweaked MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) with well-deployed electronic flourishes courtesy of coproducer and percussionist Ramiro Musotto. Her slightly husky voice brought a sensual warmth to the melodies, and the tunes gently blended samba, reggae, and rock into an inviting whole. But in Telepathique, where she's paired with producer and DJ Erico Theobaldo (aka DJ Periferico), the songs squander the enveloping lushness of her voice--she doesn't sing so much as deliver robotic electroclash-style recitations (that kitschy retro trend has been all but dead for five years, and didn't have much to offer when it was current). Flourishes of drum 'n' bass and techno liven things up a bit, but Pires and Theobaldo apparently couldn't be bothered to write actual melodies. And oddly there's no trace of favela funk, which has been ubiquitous in Brazilian electronic music lately. I don't mean to say that electronic music from Brazil is somehow required to make use of favela funk, as much as I enjoy it when it's done right. One of my favorite albums of the year, also Brazilian, avoids it too. The self-titled debut by the trio Sonantes (Six Degrees) isn't purely electronic, but the group is helmed by a producer, Rica Amabis (of the fertile production crew Instituto), who's supported by percussionist Pupillo and bassist Dengue (both of the great manguebeat outfit Nação Zumbi). Earlier this year they released 3 Na Massa (Nublu), a concept album where they borrowed a gambit often used by the great Chico Buarque--writing tunes from a female perspective for 13 distinctive female singers (in this case they included Céu and Nina Becker and Thalma de Freitas of Orquestra Imperial). Céu handles most of the singing on Sonantes (though Recife roots revisionist Siba and Sao Paulo MC Bnegão both turn in fine performances as well), and there's some killer instrumental work from other members of Nação Zumbi and brilliant guitarist Fernando Catatau of Cidadão Instigado. Ultimately, though, this music succeeds because the moody songs are so solid. Some of the tunes stick close to Brazilian traditions like samba and frevo, but many are hybrids so perfectly integrated and finely etched that they repel such analysis--they make use of whatever works. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Sonantes will hit these shores anytime soon, at Uncle Fatty's or elsewhere. Today's playlist: Baby Dee, Safe Inside the Day (Drag City) June 13th - 1:07 p.m.
On Monday, June 16, from 6 till 9 PM, Eternals front man Damon Locks and I will be spinning bossa nova, samba, and other Brazilian sounds at a free event in Millennium Park. It's part of the city's Audio Picnic (PDF) series, allowing us to use the first-rate sound system embedded in the Frank Gehry trellis that stretches across the park's Great Lawn. Admission is free, of course, and you're invited to bring food and drink--duh, it's called Audio Picnic. (Alcohol is OK if you're legal, but no glass bottles or cans on the lawn, please.) Coincidentally, this year is the 50th anniversary of the release of what are commonly recognized as the first bossa nova records. Today's playlist: January 31st - 12:06 p.m.
Sergio Assad is widely celebrated for the classical guitar duo he has with his brother Odair; they've won a Grammy together, released a series of acclaimed albums for Nonesuch, dabbled in a variety of nonclassical styles, and performed all over the globe. They seem to play locally as often as they play anywhere in the world these days, a fortunate byproduct of Sergio's marriage to Angela Olinta, a professor at the University of Chicago; he lives here. Tonight the Assads lead an interesting program of Brazilian music at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall on the campus of Northwestern University to kick off the school's 2008 Segovia Classical Guitar series. Their sister Badi, an accomplished and inventive guitarist, singer, and interpreter of the bossa nova, is also on the bill, but it's the presence of two other Brazilian guitarists that most piques my interest. Romero Lubambo (pictured), who lives in New York, is generally considered a jazz guitarist, but it seems unlikely that anything could take the Brazilian quality out of his style. He's played here before, including some great performances with singer Luciana Souza, but my favorite context of his is Trio da Paz, with bassist Nilson Matta and drummer Duduka da Fonseca; the group masterfully blurs the line between jazz and bossa, and on its fine album Somewhere (Blue Toucan, 2005) tunes by Jobim and Badel Powell segue naturally into works associated with Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about his solo album Softly (MaxJazz, 2006), but he demonstrates gross lapses in taste, from covering "Just the Two of Us" to using a guitar synthesizer. For this concert he'll perform a couple solo pieces--an original and "Influencia do Jazz" by the great Carlos Lyra--and then join fellow guitarist and singer Celso Machado for a spin through "Estamos Ai." Today's playlist: Various Artists, South Side Soul Survey (Soulscape) May 11th - 4:38 p.m.
In the last couple years obscure psychedelia from Brazil has become a touchstone for a new breed of psych-folk here in the US. Everyone knows the more pop-inclined mayhem of Os Mutantes, but I’m talking about the spacier stuff produced in the northeastern state of Pernambuco in the early 70s. Artists like Alceu Valenca and Geraldo Azevedo made some trippy records back then, but the cognoscenti has embraced the primal purr of people like Lulu Cortes & Ze Ramalho and Marconi Notaro, some of which has been reissued by the fine Portland, Maine imprint Time-Lag Records. Yet, I hadn’t heard any contemporary takes on this stuff being made in Brazil itself—until now. These days Frota has a solo career and he’s also a member of a new pop band called Fino Coletivo with his pal Wado, former leader of the superb Wado E Realismo Fantástico; their debut drops later this month. MoMo sticks mostly to standard instrumentation—acoustic and electric guitars, kit drums, and keyboards, with only spare saxophone and flute lines offering a direct link to some flower-power past—but the arrangements incorporate plenty of space, so that each sound makes its mark. Frota’s got a limited range, but by dialing down the volume and drama he gets plenty out of it, conveying an warm intimacy without getting all whispery and sensitive. Buried in the gorgeous murk of feedback, gentle guitar arpeggios, organ swells, jagged beats, and lovely harmony vocals are pretty melodies that ought to make American psych-folk hacks hang it up. You don't get any whiff of bossa nova, but there’s no doubt that Frota has also absorbed indigenous lessons of lyric beauty from 70s icons like Veloso, Nascimento, Buarque, and Borges. He's currently seeking a U.S. label to license the record, but in the meantime copies of the import have turned up at Dusty Groove. March 19th - 2:40 p.m.
I’m not a big fan of the way Putumayo packages international music for a general audience. The label's compilations often contain some real gems, but the thematic schemes, artwork, and titles evoke such a fuzzy, hokey feeling that I frequently shudder when I see a new release. Granted, I’m not part of the target demographic, so my reaction doesn’t matter, but the recently issued Women of the World: Acoustic still irks me. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see music from Cameroon, Greece, Algeria, France, Colombia, and Croatia, among other locales, all packaged together, but aside from the fact that the artists are all female and the arrangements are mostly acoustic, there’s not much holding these 11 tracks together. The creator of one of the collection’s best tracks—and a singer I had never heard of previously—is Luca Mundaca, a Chilean-born woman who was raised in Brazil and currently lives in New York. She’s coming to town this week as part of a national tour for the collection that’s taking place in bookstores (Putumayo has long utilized retail sources that aren’t record shops, from cafes to clothing stores). Her contribution “Não Se Apavore” is taken from her album Day by Day (Lumeni), which was recorded in Brazil in 2004 and released in the U.S. the following year. She moved to New York back in 1999 and before long Atlantic Records signed her, where she made an album that was never released—according to her bio, it was canned because the label folded its jazz department. Day by Day delivers a breezy, pop-touched take on classic bossa nova and MPB that puts her in the same general league as singers like Marisa Monte and Adriana Calcanhotto, although Mundaca's arrangements are less sophisticated. She’s playing solo gigs on Wednesday, March 21, at Ten Thousand Villages in Evanston and the next night, March 22, at Transitions. December 19th - 12:49 p.m.
I’m not the kind of person that gets too excited about DJ skills—I’d be thrilled if I never had to hear about how a particular DJ “takes listeners on a journey” for the rest of my life—but I am pretty bummed out that I’ll be out of town when Sean Marquand and Greg Caz make their Chicago debut at Sonotheque on Thursday, December 21. For the last five years the duo has been holding down a weekly party at Williamsburg’s Black Betty, spinning a deep variety of vintage samba, samba-rock, Tropicalia, and Brazilian funk under the banner of Brazilian Beat Brooklyn. I’m a pretty feverish collector of Brazilian music, but the team’s first pair of mix CDs—Brazilian Beat: Baile Funk and Brazilian Beat: Baile Funk 2—were packed with killer jams I’d never heard before. (The music shouldn’t be confused with Rio’s funk carioca scene, which is the heavily electronic, lo-fi dance music that hipsters dig so much. The pair embrace Baile Funk as the catchphrase for the big dance parties of 70s Black Rio, which was all about soul and funk melding with traditional Brazilian rhythms. In fact, Marquand recent traveled to Rio to help produce a comeback album by União Black, one of the leading lights of the original scene.) Both CDs were legally murky—available only at gigs and the New York DJ shop Turntable Lab, although the second volume is sometimes on sale at Dusty Groove—but a few months ago a legit comp finally hit the market, packed with the duo’s typically excellent selections. Noriel Vilela’s singular “16 Toneladas,” a sublime cover of the Tennessee Ernie Ford smash “16 Tons” with a spare samba groove and unbelievable baritone vocals, is something I've been hungering for long enough that it alone is worth the price of admission. But there are also hot jams from Tim Maia, Erasmo Carlos, Joao Bosco, Toni Tornado, and loads of other singers I’m educating myself about. And while Marquand and Caz focus on a specific era and sound—leaving alone a rich bounty of stuff from the northern part of the country—I’m not complaining. Go pack the house so they'll make a return trip when I’m around. October 28th - 9:39 a.m.
On Thursday legendary Brazilian arranger Rogerio Duprat died in Sao Paulo at 74. Although he set out to be a composer, with a strong predilection for the avant-garde -- in the early 60s he traveled to Europe to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez -- he ultimately made his name creating wild orchestral settings for singers like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze, Gal Costa, and Os Mutantes at the height of the tropicalia movement, making himself a key architect of its sound. He was often called the George Martin of tropicalia, but that analogy doesn’t suggest how progressive and weird his arrangements on those records were. He was part of the musical wing’s defining album, Tropicalia, ou Panis et Circensis, whose cover pictures him holding a chamber pot like it was a teacup. Even before the emergence of tropicalia, Duprat was espousing radical notions for a serious composer. He belonged to the progressive Musica Nova group, which, according to Christopher Dunn’s book on tropicalia, Brutality Garden, proclaimed the end of the musical vanguard in 1967. “In the words of Rogerio Duprat, the composer would become a ‘sound designer’ who would produce jingles, movie sound tracks, popular-music arrangements, and any other type of music for mass consumption.” In some ways this manifesto presaged the Marxist ideas of British composer Cornelius Cardew in the early 70s, when he launched the Scratch Orchestra, more in the rejection of bourgeois culture than the embrace of commercial forms. Duprat made good on his promise, but he hardly tempered his bold ideas when he worked with pop singers, using dissonance and pastiche to greatly enhance the performances. He went on the write arrangements for artists like Nara Leao, Chico Buarque, Trio Mocoto, Geraldo Azevedo & Alceu Valenca, and Joao Bosco, among others. His zany 1968 album, A Banda Tropicalista do Duprat, a dizzying patchwork of tunes all fed in the arranger’s frothy style, was reissued last year. He essays several tropicalia gems on the record, as well some English-language rock hits of the day (“Lady Madonna,” “Judy in Disguise,” and “Flying”) and some bossa nova standards. It’s a beguiling curiosity more than a major work, but it certainly offers a window into his peculiar aesthetic during that time. For most of the last few decades Duprat retreated from public view, living on a rural farm, afflicted by bladder cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. September 23rd - 4:39 p.m.
September 18th - 10:54 a.m.
Two of Brazil’s most original new(er) artists played over the weekend as part of the World Music Festival, and both of them proved they can make use of just about any musical approach. On Saturday Cibelle, a Sao Paulo native who now lives in London, played an intimate set at the HotHouse, meticulously assembling a bricolage of tiny electronic samples and manipulations, along with subtle guitar patterns, to create delicate pop songs that sound like they're perpetually about to disintegrate. While her drummer conveyed the airy rhythmic sensibility that seems to course through the blood of every Brazilian, Cibelle's whimsical songs focused on texture and juxtaposition, with her gorgeous, weightless voice holding the tunes together. She used a sampler to turn vocal phrases into rhythmic devices--and construct elaborate harmonies with herself--while her bandmates shifted from playing guitar, delivering synthetic bass tones, and crafting ambient samples. I was impressed how well Cibelle translated what was essentially a studio album, the recent The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves (Six Degrees), in a live show. But I was also distracted by the way the musicians seemed more like technicians, carefully and exhaustingly shifting gears and switching instruments to make sure every piece of the elaborate puzzle fit into its proper place. It sounded terrific, but that MO prevented the band from ever really behaving like a band. Cibelle’s songs aren’t designed to ride a groove or stretch out—they are painstakingly assembled confections—but I wish there was more to the show than the just singer’s abundant charisma and stage presence. The previous night fellow Paulista Otto killed it at the Empty Bottle. He’s a big guy, a bit rotund around the middle, and he's all energy, enthusiasm, and self-confidence; subtlety has little to do with his music, even though his crack band was playing some incredible stuff loaded with infectious polyrhythms. Guitarist Fernando Catatua, who leads Cidadão Instigado, one of Brazil’s best and most ambitious rock bands, was suffering from either food poisoning or some kind of stomach flu; he was apparently violently ill before the show and at one point during the performance he left the stage to vomit in the dressing room. But he came back, and though he played sitting down he contributed some very snazzy lines and solos. Yet even if Catatua had been unable to perform at all, the band still would have cooked--Otto's music is rooted in heavy beats. Bassist Rian Batista—who also plays in Cidadão Instigado—keyboardist Daniel Ganjaman (a key member of the Sao Paulo hip-hop collective Instituto), kit drummer Beto Apineia, and percussionists Andre Male and Marcos Axe created imperturbable grooves that effortlessly blended chunks of reggae, Afro-Cuban, and Brazilian rhythms--a perfect platform for Otto’s declamatory singing, which mixes indelible melodies and propulsive phrasing. This weekend only made me more certain that Brazil is the most creative and exciting music center in the world. September 13th - 3:52 p.m.
Finnish director Mika Kaurismaki—son of the great filmmaker Aki—made 2002's Moro no Brasil as an extension of his abiding love for and fascination with Brazilian culture, and it captures the musical breadth of the country with more verve and depth than just about any account short of a scholarly book. (The film shares its title with an album by Seu Jorge’s first group, Farofa Carioca.) Constructed as a travelogue, the film starts with Kaurismaki in the arid sertao ("hinterland") of the northeast state of Pernambuco, profiling the Fulnio, one of many native Brazilian Indian tribes. He then heads east to Caruara and Recife, the cities that created musical styles like forro, frevo, and maracatu. Finally, he visits the Bahian city of Salvador before winding up in Rio de Janeiro, the source of the samba music that initially attracted him to Brazil. A few major stars are featured in the Moro no Brasil, including a pre-fame Seu Jorge, Bahian singer Margareth Menezes, embolada heroes Caju and Castanha, and Recife meta-musician Silverio Pessoa. But the bulk of Kaurismaki’s subjects are largely unknown to Western audiences, and even Brazilian ones. He devotes a good chunk of the film to traditional folk forms, and while that might suggest a kind of fetishism in certain cultures, in Brazil those old styles aren't just wildly popular among ordinary citizens, they're the foundation for nearly all of the country’s vibrant contemporary pop music scene. Things get much more interesting when the interviewees start describing what it’s like to be a black punk. They not only stand out amid fellow punks--the scene is overwhelmingly white--but they also feel like outcasts among other blacks, who decry their investment in a subculture seen as white and alien. Interspersed amid the four profiles are a barrage of sound bites from dozens of musicians and scenesters--including members of Fishbone, 90 Day Men, TV on the Radio, and Dead Kennedys--which keeps Afro-Punk lively and brisk. Spooner is definitely a provocateur, and the film opens with text that takes issue with the metaphor behind Patti Smith’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger.” He’s out to give fellow blacks something to identify with--and challenge whites who too often make glib assumptions about what it’s like to be black. The DVD includes an interview with Spooner, deleted scenes, and commentary from the director and Damon Locks of Chicago's Eternals. Afijn is an illuminating and deeply entertaining video documentary on the great Dutch pianist Misha Mengelberg. Along with drummer Han Bennink, Mengelberg is the patriarch of the distinctive Dutch jazz scene, which is omnivorous in content and irreverent in attitude. Afjin traces the pianist’s jagged artistic trajectory, drawing on old schoolmates and fellow composers to explain his impish and doggedly original aesthetic. There’s terrific footage and photographs from early performances—including a 1960 trio gig—that sheds light on his unique mixture of bebop (especially his key influences, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk) with vanguard modern composition (old pal Louis Andriessen is one of the doc’s subjects) and Dadaist tendencies. August 9th - 12:28 p.m.
Moacir Santos, one of the greatest arrangers in the history of Brazilian music, died Sunday, August 6, in Los Angeles, where he had lived since 1967. He was 80. Working behind the scenes during the international heyday of Brazilian music--from the mid-50s to the mid-60s--Santos never achieved popular recognition. But the handful of recordings he released under his own name were excellent instrumental affairs; his 1965 masterpiece, Coisas, is a dazzling display of extended harmony, cool jazz-influenced arrangements, spare improvisation, and sophisticated Brazilian rhythms. Among the many artists he worked with in Brazil were Vinicius de Moraes, Sylvia Telles, and Sergio Mendes. He later moved to LA to teach and work on film sound tracks, although he continued to record sporadically, making four albums for Blue Note. (One of them, 1974's Saudade, was recently reissued in Japan.) Santos earned some acclaim late in his career thanks to the American label Adventure Music, which put out a pair of new recordings. In 2004 it released Ouro Negro, a 2-CD package originally released in Brazil, is a wonderful career overview, with vintage tracks and new recordings with the likes of Milton Nascimento, Ed Motta, Joyce, and Joao Donato; last year's Choros & Alegria featured all new material and a few guest cameos by Wynton Marsalis. August 7th - 1:29 p.m.
The new print of Black Orpheus, currently showing at the Music Box, is nothing short of mind-blowing. Vibrant colors leap off the screen, but the relentless sound track is even more impressive. The 1959 Cannes Palme d’Or winner, directed by Marcel Camus and set in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival, helped turn bossa nova into an international phenomenon (though none of the music is bossa nova, per se). But experiencing the film in a theater, volume cranked, makes it plain that the film's fantastic sound design involved more than some tunes that would later be transformed into bossa nova classics. Rhythms assault you from start to finish; Brazil is a country where music is as essential as oxygen, and the sound track throbs like a heartbeat. The beautifully edited dance sequences are driven by primal, complex samba beats; the ecstatic expressions of actual Carnival participants--and their rapidly moving feet--are meticulously cut in sync with the fierce polyrhythms. And the city's manic intensity is captured from the very first scene, when country girl Eurydice gets off a boat in Rio. An adaptation of the Greek tragedy, Black Orpheus (Orfeu da Conceiçao) was originally conceived in 1956 as a stage musical written by poet Vinicius de Moraes, and it marked the start of his fruitful and highly influential partnership with the then-unknown Antonio Carlos Jobim. (Architect Oscar Niemeyer, who helped create numerous Brazilian landmarks, as well at the UN headquarters in New York, designed the show’s set.) The film version included all-new songs written by Jobim, as well as a few by guitarist Luiz Bonfa. Since Marpessa Dawn (who played Eurydice) was an American, her vocal parts were dubbed by the great singer Elizeth Cardoso--who recorded some of the first bossa nova songs ever. The title character, played by Breno Mello (a handsome soccer star, not an actor), got his singing voice from Agostinho dos Santos.
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