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Dates:
Events: 04/28 - Rio's Mangueira Samba School was
founded in 1928; 5/01 - The release of Tropicália
ou Panis et Circenses signals the birth of the Tropicália movement
in 1968; Birthdays: Jair do Cavaquinho, leader of
Portela's famous Samba group 'Velha Guarda' (the 'Old Guard') 04/26; guitarist
Raphael Rabello 04/27; singer Ithamara
Koorax 04/28; singer Nana Caymmi, singer/songwriter
Gonzaguinha, singer Vinicius
Cantuaria 04/29; composer Dorival Caymmi 04/30;
singer Ivete
Sangalo 05/02.
Just
a month away: Ivan
Lins & Trio
da Paz with New York Voices, 8pm at the Rose
Theater, and Rosa
Passos with her quintet, 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm at The Allen Room. Both on May
23-24 at home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York NY.
This
time around, Ivan Lins' band includes Leonardo Amuedo
(guitar), sensational Marcelo Martins (saxophone),
Nehemias Santos (bass) and percussion master Teo
Lima (drums). Trio da Paz is Duduka da Fonseca
(drums), Nilson Matta (bass) and Romero
Lubambo (guitar). The New York Voices consists of vocalists Peter
Eldridge, Lauren Kinhan, Darmon
Meader and Kim Nazarian. Word
is that Trio da Paz will be showcased in the first half of the program,
followed by Ivan Lins and the New York Voices in the second half. Of
course, Ivan
Lins needs little introduction on the pages -
his 35-year career has garnered him a Latin Grammy nomination in 2000 and the
following year, a win - for Best Latin Pop Vocal. Lins' songs have been recorded
by Quincy Jones, George
Benson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah
Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Barbara Streisand. And
ditto for singer/songwriter and guitarist Rosa
Passos - who was first heard in the US on The Sounds of Brazil airwaves decades
ago. She'll make her Allen Room debut, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bossa
Nova, Her quintet includes Helio Alves (piano), Paulo
Paulelli (bass), Celso de Almeida (drums)
and Rodrigo Ursaia (saxophones, flute). Worth the
trip! Singer
Carla
Haasett is packing for Brazil, but you can catch her at the last two
LA appearances this weekend before she leaves town. She plays a solo set tonight
at the Artwater festival (on the Van Gogh stage) and "Sunday with the trio
for a set at Katia Moraes' Brazilian Heart Cultural celebration. Its an all-day
event featuring music, dance, art, and martial arts of our culture. Fabiano, Hector
and I play a short set around 5PM," she writes. Carla returns for the Brazilian
Alternative Music Night at Tangier on Thursday, June 5th.
"I'm
in New York to be more Brazilian - I feel it there
that much more strongly than here in Rio." That's how a recent
interview with singer Vinicius
Cantuaria started out for Tim Cumming from London's Independent.
"There's
so much going on here," he enthuses. "It's very rich musically, you
can barely define it. People come from everywhere to play here." Cantuaria
grew up in the Fifties in Manaus, a city in the Amazon rainforest. "You fly
for more than an hour before you reach it. It's not possible to drive a car, and
it takes four or five hours traveling through the jungle by riverboat. But it's
a fantastic place, full of fantastic sounds, with the rainforest and river and
animals. "In
Amazonas, mainly it's people of European descent and native
Brazilians. So the colour there is different - they call it capoco,
between black and white. They have a lot of percussionists there, but the sound
is totally different, because it's not from Africa. I grew up there until I was
seven. Many of my sounds come from there." Cantuaria
made his name drumming with rock band O Terco in
the early Seventies, and later was a member of Caetano
Veloso's band. Veloso, like Gil
Gilberto and Gal
Costa, were part of the influential Tropicália
movement, but this didn't affect Cantuaria until many years later.
"Personally, at the time it wasn't a big influence for me," he says.
"I was totally into music from England - the Beatles and Rolling Stones,
and the Byrds and Dylan in America. But then I played with Caetano for 10 years,
and I'm there with the man, the master, and we shared a lot of experiences, and
he showed me many, many things. "And
when Tropicália started, radio was so democratic.
Today we have stations that play just one thing only - one plays funk, one does
jazz. But years ago in Brazil, we only had a couple of big stations, and they'd
mix everything - the Beatles, then Sinatra, then Jobim and this really influences
my music. Radio was the most important thing for me." Back
in Rio, he's been soaking up the music of some old friends but he's also there
to nurture a long-held project to record with a string
quartet and Amazonian percussion back in Manaus, and actually in the rainforest
itself. "I'm still on this project," he exclaims, "but it's not
easy! I had a ticket to go a few weeks ago and take some photographs, because
I want to do a book about this, but people called me to say it's not a good time
to come, it's raining and the rain in the rainforest is so strong. It's not easy
to travel. I wanted to record right there in the street markets and out in the
rainforest." Clearly,
while the electronica may have largely gone, the spirit
of experimentalism and exploration still blossoms. But however far he travels,
the core of his sound is solid. "It's Brazilian music with a contemporary
influence," he says. And with many younger Brazilian artists breaking internationally,
Cantuaria believes that as Bossa Nova celebrates its 50th birthday, we are currently
living through something of a golden age. "In
Europe especially, Brazilian music is huge. Especially because of the young musicians
from England and France and Japan - and the DJs, who use a lot of Brazilian music.
You have the big names like Gil Gilberto and Caeteno Veloso who have been touring
Britain and Europe regularly for the past 25 years - and there's young artists
like Bebel
Gilberto and Cibelle who are really great, and
a lot of great electronic music. It's a really good time for Brazilian music."
Fill
'er up - and don't forget the windows:
Gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon for the first time
yesterday here in Chicago, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see close to $5.00
a gallon later this year. And even though we are driving less, prices are on the
upswing - affecting us at the supermarket, too. Conspiracy
theories aside, the demand for oil is up sharply worldwide as China, India
and Russia increase their need. And then there's that whole thing about the US
not having the political will to become energy independent.
But
Brazil's discoveries of what may be two of the world's three
biggest oil finds in the past 30 years could help end the Western Hemisphere's
reliance on Middle East oil, according to a report released by Strategic Forecasting
in Austin, Texas this week. Mere
months ago, Brazil was pushing paper for ethanol futures
with just about any country who could afford to do so. In quick order, they signed
up France, Japan, Germany, Italy and the US for the anticipated supply chain.
That was before Petrobras struck oil off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Now,
even as a large percentage of interior farmland is committing to long-term development
of sugarcane crops for ethanol, the energy picture
has changed. Again. Brazil
may be pumping "several million" barrels of crude daily by 2020, vaulting
the nation into the ranks of the world's seven biggest producers, according to
an article
at Bloomberg.com. "The
finds they've got so far are just the tip of the iceberg," says one industry
analyst. "Brazil is going to change the balance
of the global oil markets, and Petrobras will become a geopolitical supermajor."
Soon, just like the coffee we drink each morning, there could be a little bit
of Brazil in your gas tank, too. And what a shame that the first country to put
a man on the moon has sat idle on its energy needs
for three decades.
Though
the term "jazz" only applies to it in the broadest
terms these days, the mammoth Montreux
Jazz Festival will be making space for some of the biggest names in Brazilian
music this summer. Including a nod to the one of the country's hottest musical
style, three Brazilian-themed events on back-to-back-to-back
nights have been lined up for the 42nd annual event, which will take place on
the shores of Switzerland's Lake Geneva July 4-19.
On
July 11, an entire evening has been aside for the increasingly popular style of
Forró music (see last week's
editon of ths newsletter). Billed as
'Paraíba Meu Amor,' the concert at Miles Davis Hall includes Richard
Galliano & Tangaria Quartet, Chico
César, Flávio José, Hamilton de
Holanda, Pinto do Acordeon, Aleijadinho de Pombal and
Trio Tamanduá. On July 12, Gilberto Gil and Elba
Ramalho share the stage with Mart'nália at Stravinski Hall. And
on July 13, João
Bosco performs on a bill with Milton
Nascimento & Trio Jobim. The following night,
July 14, will feature what is expected to be the biggest jazz-themed event at
Montreux. More than 20 artists are slated to perform
at a 75h anniversary celebration for Quincy Jones - including Brazilian percussionist
Paulinho da Costa. Grammy-winning
producer, composer and pianist Jason Miles, who put
together the 2000 tribute album to Ivan
Lins A Love Affair, has once again mined the music scene of Brazil on his
latest effort. Collaborating with turntablist DJ Logic, Miles has released an
album called Global Noize that attempts to capture
the spirit of music all over the world. Included among the album's 11 tracks is
"Quera Dancar/I Wanna Dance With You," a Bossa Nova that features singer
Vanessa Fallabella and guitarist Romero Lubambo. Next
month, there's a special treat for Brazilian music fans within Turner Classic
Movies' month-long commemoration of the 10th anniversary
of Frank Sinatra's death. Every Sunday and Wednesday will feature Sinatra films
and TV specials - including the rarely seen 1967 special "Frank Sinatra:
A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim," a 50-minute show that features Ol' Blue
Eyes crooning a medley with Jobim that includes "Change Partners," "I
Concentrate on You," and "The Girl from Ipanema." The
show will air May 18 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. EDT.
New
York City is getting up close and personal with the
Amazon Rain Forest. At least until July 13. The touring "Amazonia Brasil"
exhibit opened at the Big Apple's South Street Seaport Museum
on Earth Day this past week. It features a 13,000-square foot recreation
of the rain forest, complete with an indigenous village built by Amazon natives.
Visitors can buy crafts, learn about its ecology and view photographs of the world's
largest rain forest.
More
than 400,000 visitors in cities such as São Paulo, Lausanne and Paris have
already viewed the exhibit, which was launched in 2002 to
raise awareness of the Amazon's importance to the world. "Most people
do not realize that the treatment of the Amazon affects everyone on the planet;
it plays an essential role as Earth's dehumidifier," Dr. Eugenio Netto, one
of the project's organizers, told the Epoch Times. "If we could stop deforestation
there today, it would have the same effect on climate as taking every car off
the road." For more information, click here. Back
to Jobim:
You might be surprised to learn that Maroon 5 singer Adam
Levine includes the 1964 Getz/Gilberto album (featuring Jobim's piano and
compositions) among his "Five Best Makeout Albums"
of all time. "If you drink some wine and put on that record - even if you're
alone, you'll probably make out with yourself," Levine is quoted as saying
in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Levine's list, which also
includes Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Marvin Gaye's
What's Going On, is featured in the magazine's "Best
of Rock 2008" issue.
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