CARLINHOS BROWN ET AL.
EL MILAGRO DE CANDEAL SOUNDTRACK (SONY BMG)

I was going to wait till I had seen the film before reviewing this soundtrack, but it is proving very elusive so here's what I have to say provisionally. You probably checked out the YouTube clip with Marisa Monte and Carlinhos Brown singing to Bebo Valdés' piano accompaniment. Someone even wrote to me saying that they had fallen in love with her! I met her in Salvador but it was during carnaval so only got to say hello, how's things. The film is about Valdés' trip to Salvador da Bahia to check out how the blacks in Brasil fared, compared to the blacks in Cuba, where he is from. The director, Fernando Trueba, also made the brilliant LAGRIMAS NEGRAS. Cuban music is generally loved and respected all over South America so Valdés was lionised and the film is undoubtedly sympathetic and well-crafted. The clip we have seen, of "Musicos" is certainly a delight. There are a few oddities on here, of course, as in any endeavour featuring Carlinhos Brown. We get "Blen, blen, blen" and the axé drums are in full force in the weirdest thing on here, Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade." Timbalada and a bunch of lesser known musicians are also featured.

LENINE (Six Degrees 657036 1127-2)

People are surprised that I spent so much time in Brasil and never got into samba or MPB. I like forro but it doesn't leapt onto the turntable; after the last purge I have about a foot shelf remaining of eclectic Brasilian music: Naçao Zumbi, Batucada, Jackson do Pandeiro, Luiz de Moura Castro. I wish I had the MTV unplugged set by Lenine but, hankering for a fix, got this "best of" anthology from Six Degrees which introduces him to North American ears. Lenine is a good poet with a musical ear, like when he intones "Dolores ... dollares! (Sadness ... dollars)" he gets a lot out of those two words. He plays an acoustic Ovation (I think) which matches the mournful sleepy tone of his voice. As a guitarist, he could be from anywhere, till the berimbau, cuica and subtle electronic effects indicate that odd hybrid of Gilberto Gil & Massive Attack that is the state of the art in Brasil today. His songs are carefully crafted: the entire production, down to the double-tracked harmonies and percussion, seems well thought-out. Coming from Recife in Northeast Brasil, Lenine has written songs for Gil, Sergio Mendes and been covered by Dionne Warwick. The disc opens with "Jack Soul Brasileiro," a tribute to Jackson do Pandiero and closes with "Paciencia," a moving ballad about the speed of life, and spans three of his domestic releases (considerately including English synopses of the lyrics). It should win Lenine legions of new fans in the rest of the New World.

CHORO ENSEMBLE
NOSSO TEMPO (ANZIC 7201)

Choro (pronounced Sho-ho) is an acquired taste. In some ways it's like dixieland or trad jazz, if you don't dig the framework you won't enjoy the music because it has structures and sounds that are particular to it. It's light, but not like samba, and swings, but not like bossa nova. The closest I can come, sorry to say, is "dinner jazz," the kind of music you put on to create a mellow background while you are entertaining. The melodies are wistful, the instrumentation simple: Anat Cohen, the leader, plays clarinet. Pedro Ramos plays cavaquinho, a small mandolin-like tenor guitar, there are 6- and 7-stringed guitars and a percussionist playing pandeiro, a big tambourine.

At 46 minutes the album is long enough to give you an impression of sweetness and not too long to make you want to change it. The repertoire includes some famous Brazilian tunes: a blisteringly tight "Orgulhoso" by Jacob do Bandolim; Pixinguinha's "Ingenuo;" and the highlight of the set, "Brazilieirinho" by Waldir Azevedo, which closes the disc. At some points it reminds me of palm court orchestral music: genteel and almost soporific. "Descendo a ladeira" by Carlos Almeida (one of the guitarists) is speedy and has zabumba, which sounds like metal castanets. On the last cut the cavaquinho leads and the percussionist plays surdo, a booming bass drum, which would have helped liven up some of the other cuts.

CABRUERA
PROIBIDO COCHILAR (Piranha CD PIR1999)

Here's a conundrum: If you go through the Brasilian section in any well-stocked record store in North America you will find a lot of crap. You look in vain for that exciting new band you've heard is tearing it up in Salvador or Sao Paolo. But all you find is generic samey pagode bands, many of them one-hit wonders on their tenth CD, and of course endless dreary samba singers still looking for that lost girl from Ipanema (not realizing she's middle-aged and wrinkled like a walnut). Who's behind it? Why, Universal, Sony and Columbia, of course. So we have to assume they are sure of their market and don't give a toss about the music. Every now and then an independently produced album makes a splash but I have learned that the best Brasilian music is coming out of Germany. (This may change after Brasil knocks Germany out of the world cup in Summer 2006.) Whoever is behind Piranha music has a great ear for what's really vital in Brasilian music. Proof of this is the new Cabruera release: PROIBIDO COCHILAR subtitled "Sambas for Sleepless Nights," which was released by Nikita Music in Brasil in 2004. It's the most interesting thing to come from Brasil in ages. Brasilian rock & progressive pop has languished since the death of Francisco França (Chico Science), though his band Nação Zumbi carries on. Cabruera (their name means a herd of goats, or colloquially, mulattos) are Nordestinos or Pernambuccanos so there's forro & maculele undercurrents in their version of Mangue Beat. The title "No Snoozing" comes from dancehalls of the band's youth where even the accordionist couldn't stop. Fronting the group is Arthur Pessoa on guitar who loves his effects pedals & periodically creates a really eerie effect like a fiddle by rubbing the strings with a ballpoint pen. There are definitely cover versions on here (one song sounds like "You are my sunshine"!), but Cabruera have made it all their own, adding trip hop rhythms to traditional Coco, Embolada and Maracatú. This is a gem of a recording, not to be missed.

LUIS BONFA
SOLO IN RIO 1959 (Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40483)

What better way to cool down the pace than some lovely guitar from Rio? Bonfá is called the co-creator of Bossa Nova. I'm sure many other artists claim to be the other half of that "co" but his credentials are impeccable, as he wrote the lovely "Manhã de Carnaval" featured on the soundtrack to BLACK ORPHEUS. Antonio Carlos Jobim, of course, was a major contender to be the "co", but here it's clear that Bonfá is the virtuoso guitarist. The extra special part of this album is that it was recorded by the great Emory Cook, during his travels, and so the sound is impeccable. The album was released by Cook in 1959 and has long been out of print. Here it is again with an added half hour of previously unknown material from the original session. "A Brazilian in New York," the first of the extra tracks, narrates the story of Bonfá's life in the big apple during the years when he was exposing North Americans to the bossa nova sound. The surreal refrain is "Don't Walk -- Walk!" Born in 1922 Bonfá was classically trained from his early teens and could have become a famous classical guitarist but he devoted himself to Brazilian popular music instead. He rode the bossa boom, recording first on 78s and last on CDs, so his career spanned 40 years. His love of Debussy and deft touch with other modes like calypso and waltz flit in and out of the album. Above all his improvisational skill is stunning. No matter what the context, classical composers or his own well-known Orpheus pieces, he would never play the same way twice, yet there are no wrong moves. And Cook with his battery-run Nagra, which he lugged all over Mexico and the Caribbean before getting to Rio and making this one recording, is in top form as an engineer. There's no fake echo, none of the tinny bathroom sound of 1950s guitar recordings, it's like you are in the room (sitting on a couch by the window, your caipirinha melting away in the glass untouched, looking at clouds behind Sugar Loaf mountain and thinking the distant mountains are like islands and wondering if there are castaways there living on roast fish and coconut). Though many of the additional tracks are fragments or false starts, they are all interesting, even the second takes, as they give you a complete picture of the evening (now Corky the Corcovado Christ has vanished in the clouds & things look natural) with Bonfá at his loosest, most relaxed, and in heavenly form.

ANASTACIA AZEVEDO
AMANAIARA (Piranha PIR1893)

Piranha strikes again with a great album that goes beyond the formulaic MBP (Musica Brasileira Popular) to a new type of fusion. It is Brasilian with break beats and hints of electronica but is well-crafted with excellent songs by Azevedo and instrumentation by her partner Zé Eugenio. They come from Northeast Brasil, near Fortaleza, but now reside in Berlin. Their art encompasses a lot of traditional styles, not just Samba, but Coco, Xaxado, Forro, Baiao and Xote. The Xaxado, a relentless tune with a backbeat is dedicated to Lampião, legendary Nordestino folk hero and bandit. The subject of many Livros do Cordel (pamphlet ballads), Lampião was the scourge of the local authorities in the 1930s, shooting cops on sight. It's refreshing to find such literate songwriting. This is followed by a change of pace into the title cut (which translated as "Rain" suggested by a tinkling triangle). Subtitled "Senhora da chuva (Lord of Rain)," it was probably prompted by how much wetter it is in Berlin than Fortaleza. There's a reggae-esque groove to this one, and the tempo changes again for "Pé de Côco." Top-rated Brasilian percussionist and bandleader Dudu Tucci appears throughout, keeping the congas prominent and the other players on their toes.

VARIOUS ARTISTS
FESTA DO BRASIL FORRO (Iris Music 3001 879)

ROUGH GUIDE TO BRAZIL: BAHIA (RGNET 1135 CD)
SAMBA SOUL GROOVE (Universal B0002523-02)

I am ambivalent about this Rough Guide CD. It's typical Bahian music which means a mixed bag, some of it not so great. To visit Bahia is to love it & to love someplace is to forgive its shortcomings. When you are there everyone is beautiful, the music is wonderful, the beggars are charming, the police are... well, let's not exaggerate. I did carnaval three years running in Bahia and spent over 7 months living and working there. I even thought about relocating to the old city of Santo Antonio which is rich with history and still a bit seedy. But there's no real food in Bahia (I am spoiled by the Bay Area with its wonderful array of Asian cuisine, from $2 Vietnamese BBQ sandwiches on french bread to $4 Batore Cholle at VIK's), and any expatriot is immediately lumped into the "expat" camp with the undesirables who have washed up there for whatever reason. The music is vapid and ephemeral. Sure it's incredible to be part of a procession led by 100+ drummers, fired with shots of hard liquor disguised in fruit juice, dancing shirtless in the humid tropical night, but would you want to have it on your stereo back home? At its best Bahian music is rootsy with strong rhythms, inventive melodies and catchy hooks; at its worst it is global pop cannibalising its own history as well as snippets of heavy metal, folk and gospel abandoned by the rest of the world.

I was in a news-stand in Pituba one night wearing my CHESS records t-shirt and a drunk said, loudly, behind my back, "A musica Americana e bosto! (American music is shit!)" But I figured he probably was referring to Madonna or Lynyrd Skynyrd and I heartily agree. People in Brasil don't get to hear the Chess artists, which was the source for the best pop music America ever produced. Brasil's own traditions become diluted though occasionally a great artist like Jackson do Pandeiro, Luiz Gonzago or Naçao Zumbi's Chico Science reasserts a native voice. Every year music is cranked out for carnaval by groups hoping for a shot at the big time, and every year the same suspects, Daniela Mercury, Ara Ketu, Ivete Sangalo, & E O Tchan hog the limelight. There's an annual official CD on Universal called AXÉ BAHIA (the irony is Axé is great drumming music, while this pablum is really Pagodé) and then bootlegs of the better stuff which sometimes make it out as supplements to the local papers on the Saturday after carnaval.

This ROUGH GUIDE is one of those mainstream shots. Too bad they didn't go for the undercurrent which is much more vital and enduring, but it still represents what foreigners are apt to take away from carnaval as part of their memories. It has the heavy wetness factor with two Daniela Mercury cuts & the typical drum sound in two pieces from Timbalada. It does evoke Bahia, and if you start with track 5, "Pitada de tabaco" by Riachão you can get right to the catchiest track on here. There's a wonderful atonal string part (like plucked bicycle spokes) as the hook. This is from a tribute album to the 81-year-old sambista Riachão that really grooves (is that Fred Danto on trombone?). Timbalada deliver a characteristic song, then there's a solid, rootsier piece from Ilê Aiyê, who are consistently one of the most interesting bands in Bahia, from their 2000 album CANTO NEGRO (though it's not credited as such on this CD). Muzenza are up next: though they usually play reggae, this is a forró piece and has a nice underpinning of Afro-brasilian drumming with squeezebox. But too soon we are back to the vapid Daniela Mercury and it's time to change the disc. Four out of sixteen ain't bad but it's no shining example of programming either. Though it's a cover I would have included Braga boys' "Uma Bomba" (because they make it uniquely Bahian with rap and reggae covered too), along with Pagod'Arte's anthemic "Tapa na cara," (It's very sexist but accurately portrays Bahian attitudes) and Harmonia do Samba's killer "Desafio" (live at Okka Bier -- one of the greatest bootleg albums never released), Ara Ketu's "Pipoca," E O Tchan's "Dança do bumbum," Bom Balança's "Tjc bom," Gang do Samba's "Raimunda," As Meninas' "Xibom bombom," and Didá Banda Feminina's "Filhos do Tempo." (Maybe not all, but certainly some of those.) However my compilation has more of a street sensibility and fewer of the samba-like slow tracks you might need for balance. The light touch on the ROUGH GUIDE is represented by Tom Zé and Banda Percucia who make their own instruments; the generic reggae of Bahia is demonstrated by Edson Gomes, while the inevitable hip-hop-reggae-pagodé-forró fusion is provided by Tony Mola and Bragadá.

P.S. SAMBA SOUL GROOVE is another weak disc Deejay IJ was trying to fob off on me. Os Mutantes' "She's my Shoo Shoo" and Jeelberto Jeel's cover of the classic "Chiclete com banana" are the best cuts on here; otherwise it's a mushy mess of sopping samba with a little life shown by Erasmo Carlos but nothing original from the prime exponents: Jorge Ben Jor, Gal Costa, etc.

LUIZ DE MOURA CASTRO
BRASIL PIANO (Endayo CD 9705 1997)

I have a tentative connection with the French composer Darius Milhaud in that we both taught at Mills College in Oakland. Like Bartok, who drew from gypsy music or Gershwin who adopted Ernesto Lecuona's songs for his "Cuban Overture," Milhaud adapted Brasilian tunes for his "Saudades do Brasil." Milhaud spent 1918-9 in Rio absorbing the local culture. He admired Ernesto Nazareth, who played accompaniment to silent moves, and Glauco Velasquez, and hung out with composer Henrique Oswald. Oswald's influence on Milhaud can be heard in Milhaud's later works "Scaramouche" and "Le Boeuf sur le toit." At the time Milhaud was secretary to Paul Claudel, the playwright who was French ambassador to Brasil. (Marcel Duchamp was there at the same time!) Oswald and Nazareth are now recognised as important classical composers, as important in their own country as Milhaud in France. When a Brasilian friend played me some Nazareth pieces on his guitar I was entranced and sought out his music. BRASIL PIANO played by Luiz de Moura Castro is a café-concert of delightful and memorable tunes from a century ago, played with verve and passion. Eight composers are represented. Nazareth gets two cuts, and his moving "Odéon" alone is worth the cover charge. Others among the composers came from Europe and were fascinated by the tango and other regional dances. Most of them died tragically early deaths, but that was the common lot in those times. Brasilian musicologists will point out that the Brasilian tango is a relative of the Cuban habanera, and not the Argentine tango. The "low-life" version of this dance became popular as the maxixe, a sound that Nazareth explored in his music, employing typical African drum beats in his compositions. This makes a nice fit with the formality of the European waltzes and polkas found in much classical music of the fin-de-siêcle. Lundi themes from Congo slave dances can be found in Francisco Mignonne's "Congada" -- a piece for four hands, on which the performer is joined by his wife. As Brasil emerged from the colonial period, the music naturally changed with it, but this recording gives a wonderful glimpse into the drawing rooms frequented by Machado de Assis' tragi-comic characters Bras Cubas, Rubião, and the dog-philosopher Quincas Borba. It's gorgeous with occasional touches of Afro-Brasilian "wickedness" -- as those fin-de-siècle Brasilians called it -- creeping in. (I also recommend the Nonesuch album of Milhaud's piano music played by William Bolcom.)