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Dates:
The first Festival de Music Popular Brasilia was
held in Sao Paulo on April 6, 1965 at TV Excelsior. The winning song was 'Arrastão'
written by Edu Lobo and Vinícius de Moraes as
performed by Elis Regina. Moacir
Santos was born April 8th, 1924; Samba singer Roberto
Silva on April 9th, 1920; and Bossa legend Carlos
Lyra on April 11th, 1939. April 11th is also 'Escola
de Samba Day' in Brazil, marking the 1935 creation of the very first 'Bloco'
(Samba School) called "Vai Como Pode", which today is known as Portela. April
marks a new season - and another new Editors Choice CD exclusively
for members of our Connectbrazil.com Buyers Club: Jorge Vercilo's CD, titled
'Perfil'
(Profile). Who? Ask around the Rio studio scene and you find out that this singer/songwriter
(relatively unknown in this part of the world) is a favorite among a
growing list of Brazilian stars, including pianist Marcos
Ariel, Maria Rita and Brazilian guitar masters Sandro Albert and Torcuato
Mariano. With 11 albums and three DVD's to his credit, this next-gen pop star
has steadily built an image that's ready for prime time north of the equator.
In fact, this
best-of CD is a perfect introduction to Vercilo's music, whose knack for catchy
hooks is matched by the good musical taste necessary to keep the Brazilian beat
vital and exciting. Vercilo's voice inevitably draws comparisons to Djavan
- as does his swinging style. Jorge
Vercilo also ushers in an exciting extra for our
Connectbrazil.com Buyers Club with the launch of our Members
Page, filled with the latest news, contests and exclusive 'members only' offerings.
If you've been thinking about joining, why not check it out? And here's more good
news - our new membership discounts will continue through to the final day of
April's 'Discovery Month'! Click here. Passports,
Please:
Several of America's best-known Brazilians are back in Brazil this month: Kenia
hopes to glimpse Roberto Menescal's Bromeliad
orchid collection while in Rio this week, guitarist Sandro
Albert is also in Rio to produce a new pop recording for an unnamed, but up-and-coming
female singer (what's the big secret?) and from the world of Brazilian art, Miami's
Naza sends us an update from Piaui, where she's working
on a new portrait series and her very popular wearable art project. If
Naza's selling, there's a good chance that Casa Brasil's
Isolda is buying: she's in São Paulo and Belo Horizonte this week
to explore handcraft and artwork from Brazil's top artisans at Sao Paulo's Vila
Madelena in Pinhieros. Their 'Arte
da Vila' runs this weekend and features hundreds of Brazil's most talented
creators. That's
good news for Chicagoans. Casa
Brasil opened its doors earlier this year in northwest suburban Long Grove,
Illinois. The scenic village is the perfect setting for their shop, which features
music, books, tropical juices, items for the pantry (and the grill) as well as
a unmatched showcase for Brazilian artworks, jewelry, perfumes and more. Even
an extensive section for kids. I love to search out Brazilian shops of this kind
wherever my travels take me, and I'm pleased to say that Casa Brasil's commitment
to quality with everything they do is nothing short of amazing. Makes me very
proud to be a Brazilian, if only by association! Plan a visit and you'll see what
I mean. Type keyword: CASA BRASIL from the top of most any page at Connectbrazil.com
- or click here. Celebrations
commemorating the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova
will continue this June 4 when the Hollywood Bowl hosts a concert that will include
Oscar
Castro-Neves, Maria
Rita, Ivan
Lins and Luciana
Souza, along with special guest Kenny Rankin and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony
Orchestra. But
as far as celebrations go, it will be hard to top the one that took place March
1 on Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema Beach. The 80,000 fans
in attendance for the free concert saw an an assortment of 18 artists perform
their own tributes to the music that became a worldwide phenomenon, not too long
after João
Gilberto recorded "Chega
de Saudade" in 1958. Castro-Neves,
one of the event's chief organizers and a guitarist who performed on many of the
Bossa Nova's classic recordings, said he was surprised by the relative youth of
the crowd. "I was expecting more people my age," said Castro-Neves.
"But, in reality, so many young people came. There is a rediscovery of the
music." Many
of them apparently came to see Maria Rita, the daughter of the legendary Elis
Regina and a rising superstar in Brazil. One of the highlights of the evening
saw Rita sing the Antonio Carlos Jobim Bossa Nova standard, "Corcovado,"
for the the first time. "For
me, it was a very good party," Castro-Neves said. "If you see the photos,
the smiling faces showed that everybody was there because they wanted to be there." Cooperation
wasn't only taking place on the human level. On the morning of the concert, Castro-Neves
and other Cariocas awoke to a torrential downpour after
a week's worth of sunny weather. But by the time the three-hour concert got underway
at 7 p.m., the skies were completely clear. At 10:30, just a short while after
the last artist had left the stage, heavy rain began to pour again. Said Castro-Neves:
"People were saying 'God not only loves Rio de Janeiro, but he loves Bossa
Nova."
There's more good news about Souza that should excite her
growing fan base in the United States. This week will mark the release of the
debut album from Moss, a vocal supergroup that includes Souza among its five members.
To be released on April 8, the 13-track CD from the quintet includes brand new
interpretations of works from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell,
Tom Waits and e.e. Cummings, as well as originals
composed by the group's members: Souza, Theo Beckmann, Peter Eldridge, Lauren
Kinhan and Kate McGarry. In the CD's liner notes, Souza writes about how the project
came together after she bumped into Eldridge on a train a few years ago. "We
fantasized about a project where we could join other like-minded singers to write,
study, rehearse and blend our different styles of singing, creating a collective."
Supporting
the CD, the group will perform live around the northeast starting with Scullers
in Boston on April 9th. Another
female vocalist
with a background in Brazilian music is celebrating the release of her latest
album. Grammy-winning vocalist Karrin Allyson has
just released her second album entirely filled with Brazilian music, titled appropriately
enough 'Imagina: Songs of Brasil'. Produced by Allyson and Nick Phillips, Allyson
said the project started to come together after her friend Lúcia Guimarães
started introducing her to lesser known compositions by Antonio Carlos Jobim and
Vinicius de Moraes such as "Imagina," "Correnteza," "Medo
de Amar" and "Estrada Branca." Alyson sings new and old English
lyrics to many of these songs - some of them supplied by longtime collaborator
Chris Caswell, others from Paul Willliams, Susannah McCorkle, Jon Hendricks and
Gene Lees. Alyson also sings several of the album's 11 songs in the original Portuguese,
saying in her liner notes that she wanted to make the CD "user friendly"
to non-Brazilians. "I wanted folks to get these songs no matter what language
they speak, while trying to remain as true to the Brazilian feel and sound as
possible," she said. The album comes nearly 10 years after Allyson released
the critically acclaimed 'From
Paris to Rio' in 1999, a set that included her cover of the classic 'Coração
Vagabundo." ("Vagabond Heart") Moto
Boys.
You'll see them everywhere when driving along the byways of Brazil's larger cities;
the motorcycle delivery corps that keeps things moving around the clock. As many
as 300,000 of them. From
side streets to freeways, these well-paid, leather-clad road warriors show up
out of nowhere, skirting through traffic left and right, between lanes - inches
from your side mirrors - glued to the painted white dividers like maniac
slot car racers. Think you'll pass a Moto Boy? In the urban jungle, these guys
are the gazelles among the lions. They'll
herd together at traffic lights by weaving through the queue of buses, trucks
and mini-sized Fiats and VWs to take their self-proclaimed place at the head of
the pack. And when the light turns green, the Moto Boys are gone, only to be immediately
replaced by the next wave of riders who will repeat the process all over again.
For you it's your daily commute. For them it's every rider for himself. Brazilians
are world-famous for their friendliness and many of them see life on the road
with the Moto Boys as just another 'courtesy' in coping with the crowded pace
of cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. But
many more are beginning to realize that this was a courtesy
taken, not offered and that the long-term consequences of this traffic
tolerance has resulted not in a mutual sense of respect between the Moto Boys
and the Rest of The World (in Brazilian Portuguese, the word "everyone"
is translated as "todo mundo", or 'all the world') but in anger and
resentment. To
be sure, the life of a Moto Boy is a perilous one. An estimated dozen or so die
each day and scores more escape that fate only through their wit, experience and
luck. Maybe it's a sense of survival that has given the Moto Boys the 'right'
to their aggressive, 'take no prisoners' approach in the workplace but for whatever
reason, recently the Moto Boys boiled over into collective
road rage, and it wasn't pretty. Overnight, they organized into large groups
across São Paulo, clogging main routes through the city with packs of riders
to slow traffic to a crawl at the peak of the day. And again, a few days after
that - with plans for more 'strikes' next week. And
what was the cause of this Brazilian summer of discontent?
Was it over a fallen comrade? Retaliation against frustrated four-wheeled motorists?
Rising gas prices? Nope. The spark that ignited the Moto Boy ire was a new law
requiring Brazil's backstreet boys to wear improved helmets, carry insurance,
provide proper riding gear for passengers, and a ban on certain highways around
the city. In
short, the Moto Boys are protesting measures to keep themselves and São
Paulo's motoring public safe. "Banning
us from these highways will force us to take longer routes, and the side streets
are more dangerous," they say. "And besides, no one should make us wear
helmets if we don't to." No doubt the blockades will continue in the coming
weeks - especially near holidays - when many Paulistas flee the city for a mini-vacation
at the beach. But
not if the Moto Boys have their way. After all, they own the roads. The
British DJ and recording artist known as Fat Boy Slim is
all about Brazil these days. Describing himself to the United Kingdom's Independent
newspaper as having "a burgeoning love affair with Brazil," Fat Boy
Slim recently returned to the country to perform during Carnaval. Fat Boy Slim
a.k.a Norman Cook, who claims his 2004 gig at Flamenco Beach in Rio drew 360,000
people, was back in part because of efforts by his favorite charity, Bottletop.
The U.K.-based group supports efforts to improve sexual health around the world
and is now focusing on Salvador, where 77 percent of the population is said to
live below the poverty line. Cook is contributing a remix of a song called "Amazonas,"
which Bottlecap will release on its album Sound Affects Brazil - a release that
will feature performances by Brazilian artists on one CD and remixes of those
songs by popular DJs on the other. Forty-four
years after Getz/Gilberto
topped the charts, could another record featuring contributions from Astrud
Gilberto make it all the way to the top of the American playlist? Perhaps.
The producers of the Oscar-winning film Juno have
announced plans to release through Apple's iTunes a second soundtrack called "Juno
B-Sides: Almost Adopted Songs." The 15-track collection includes "Once
I Loved" from Gilberto - a song heard late in the movie, but not included
in the original soundtrack, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in January.
"They are all essential members of the Junoverse," the film's director,
Jason Reitman, writes about the songs in the liner notes to the CD, which will
be released April 8. Maybe
you didn't catch the big news published in a Los Angeles-based publication earlier
this week. It said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva plans
to mark Brazilian Independence Day on September 7 by announcing that 'Brazilian'
will replace Portuguese as the country's official
language. The move is said to be an acknowledgment of the way Brazilian language
has evolved differently from that which is spoke in Portugal today, as well an
expression of widespread resentment over Portugal's historical exploitation of
its former colony. Several of Brazil's biggest music legends were
quoted in the article including Gilberto Gil ("Cool dude. Way to go!"
- the magazine's reporter quoted him as saying) and Caetano Veloso ("I would
be happy to say goodbye to Portuguese because it is a sad, heavy language that
does not fit in with our temperament. Let's be Brazilian and speak and sing Brazilian!") One
more thing to mention about the article: It was datelined April 1. So yes, it
was an April Fool's joke.
Connectbrazil.com
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