“Verde”  is a Samba akin Bossa Nova, composed by Eduardo Gudin and Jose Carlos Costa  Netto in 1985. At that time, after more than 20 years of a cruel military dictatorship, Brazil was at the very edge of getting a brand new Constitution democratically. Claiming for popular elections, there was a touching movement called “Diretas Já” (in English: “Direct Popular  Elections Right Now !”). After all, time had arrived.

The literary part of the song embraces both the democratic dream and the color “green” which, to Brazilian, means “hope”. The other aspect is the always present preoccupation with environmental destruction, giving a complete meaning for the name of the song.

The melodic structure is on the frontier of traditional Samba and Bossa Nova, something very typical of Gudin’s work. He is also a guitarist and arranger, besides being a respected professional composer.

Costa  Netto´s lyrics are simple and amazing. He is one of the less known Brazilian lyricists but has more than 100 songs registered. In his professional life, he´s a lawyer specialized in one of the biggest problems in Brazilian legislation for authors of any kind: intellectual properties and rights.

Leila Pinheiro is a truly Brazilian singer. Born in the north, she came to Rio de Janeiro in her young years. She could have brought her northern influences to her music, but to my ears, she seems to have been completely bewitched by Bossa Nova. Her vocal ability and strict professional discipline turned her into one of the most consistent Brazilian singers. “Verde” is the song that revealed Leila Pinheiro as a singer.  It was first presented in one of the Brazilian music festivals in the ’80s and caused a huge emotion in the festival audience when performed.

I  choose two videos for this post. The first one is the excerpt from a Leila Pinheiro recent show. She sings “Verde”  beautifully as always.

The second one is an English version of the same song, made by Costa Netto and Marsha Furutani, an American singer and lyricist. The desire of having lyrics in English came from the composer Eduardo Gudin, due to the very sad and hopeless political and environmental situation nowadays in Brazil.  In the video, Gudin plays guitar.  Naila Gallotta plays piano and sings along with Marsha Furutani.  Beautiful version.

As  stated in this YouTube video comment: “Everyone involved in the making of this video/recording hopes this offering can in some way expedite changing the current condition of the world from gray and sad to GREEN and hopeful for our future.”  That´s my hope too.

N.B. : This post uses part of the above YouTube video description with updates.

I believe it´s almost impossible to assign a label to any kind of music. But I will dare to label Joyce´s work: It has the face of Rio de Janeiro. Sometimes calm, sometimes fuzzy, sometimes happy, sometimes introspective but always beautiful.

Joyce Silveira Moreno, a.k.a. Joyce, was defined by Down Beat magazine a couple of years ago as a “Brazilian treasure.” I dare to state that they are wrong. Joyce is a Worldwide treasure. Born in Rio de Janeiro, four-times Grammy nominee, singer, composer, arranger, teacher, and instrumentalist Joyce Moreno has authored more than 400 songs, interpreted by the greatest names in Brazilian popular music.

In order to give you a glimpse of Joyce’s presence, I selected two  YouTube videos: the first one is a chapter of Nelson Faria´s “Um Café Lá em  Casa” (excellent You Tube channel, look for it…)  featuring Nelson on  guitar and Joyce singing “Monsieur Binot”, one of her signature songs in  a very relaxed way.

The other video is a beautiful song by Joyce with amazing lyrics of Ana Terra, “Essa Mulher”. This 2006 recording was done during a Berklee College of Music presentation featuring a student band and Helio Alves on piano.

I also selected a Spotify playlist as a sample of Joyce´s work: older songs recorded around Bossa Nova’s golden years and newer work which was mostly produced out of Brazil. Like many other Brazilian musicians and singers, Joyce´s work is today much more praised in foreign lands than in-home… anyway hope you enjoy.

I heard João Gilberto’s version of “Chega de Saudade” for the first time at Radio Jornal do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro. I was 12-13 years old. At that time, I was used to hearing a lot of Jazz, a few Brazilian singers, and musicians. The song itself was not that new. I had heard it before sang by Elizeth Cardoso, one of the dames of the Brazilian music of the time. Latter I somehow got to know that João was the guitar player in Elizeth’s recording. But I was shocked by the tenderness, the minimalism and, to be true, the orchestra that was behind him. I thought it was overkill compared to João’s voice…

But even polluted by the big orchestra, João sounded for my untrained young ears like nothing I have ever heard before. Seems that there were three guys in one person. One playing the grove of the song, the other playing the bass lines, and the last one singing. I had heard something similar in Dave Brubeck’s albums, “Take Five” for instance. But they were four different guys… I bought the record.

I heard it maybe 20 times before understanding that the simplicity of his singing was not so simple. Unlike almost all singers of that time, he didn’t use vibrato in his singing. He was used to stretching out the sentences of the lyrics to an almost unbearable degree for the listener. Inversely, he obliterated verses singing them partially, skipping words… The way he played a six-string classical guitar was absolutely fresh.

But how dare would I be to question arrangements by Tom Jobim, Claus Ogerman…among others. I might be wrong. When I began researching João Gilberto to write this post, I found a publication by Fred Thomas on Aquarium Drunkard. His article touches the very point I had always thought about João and his recordings, including the Stan Getz stuff that made Bossa Nova knew worldwide: it was too much polluted to be enjoyed…

Fred Thomas wrote exactly what I would like to have written.. So I encourage you to read his article in the link below:

I tried also to illustrate in a Spotify playlist what both Fred Thomas and myself had in mind complaining about the arrangements of most of João’s recordings. In the link below, there are examples of what João called “the simple truth”. João, his guitar, and little else. Get your headphones and enjoy. If you are in a hurry, get back another time.

Choro is the first Brazilian urban music. It was back in the late 19th century in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian musicians started to blend European melodies, Afro-Brazilian rhythms to create Choro. It is credited as being the first musical expression of Brazil’s melting pot. It for sure had a prominent place in the development of Brazil’s cultural identity. Choro remained a major popular music style until the 1920s. Samba took the lead later. After a slight decline in popularity, It has made a remarkable comeback over the past few decades.

“Roda de Choro” is a traditional Brazilian kind of private jam session. In these sessions, Choro musicians meet and play. They also remember key events in the history of this Brazilian urban music. It is Brazilian jazz, many people say. It could be true if Brazil’s chorinho hadn’t appeared before on the scene. Its relevance begins fading with the introduction of Bossa Nova in the ’60s. Now, this Brazilian music par excellence is getting a new lease. Youngsters in bars and concert halls play it and have a lot of fun.

The fascinating thing about Choro is its flexibility. How it changes and develops depending on the ensemble and musicians playing it. It fits any occasion. You can play it alone or in a big band, in a concert, in a jam session, you can listen to it or dance to it, it’s very social music.

The title of capital of Choro belongs to Rio de Janeiro but it is also played all over Brazil.  The song in the clip is a classic: “Noites Cariocas”, a Choro masterpiece written by Jacob do Bandolim. Jacob (1918-1969) was the typical representation of the amazing Brazil melting pot: born from a Brazilian Catholic father and a Polish Jewish mother. He worked all his life as a civil servant in Rio de Janeiro. When he was 40 years old, he was already an active amateur musician. He played in jam sessions in his house in the Rio de Janeiro suburbs and then, agree to began playing publicly on radios;  Instant success and recognition by the public and other musicians. Noites Cariocas was his signature song. The clip presented on this post was recorded at Clube do Choro in Brasilia. It features Grammy Nominated artist Dudu Maia, a mandolin virtuoso, Pedro Vasconcellos on cavaquinho, Dudu Sete Cordas on a Brazilian style 7-string guitar, and Breno Alves on tambourine. As usual with Choro musicians, we can feel the happiness they get from their performance. Wish you have fun too…..

Recorded on a show at Canto da Ema in São Paulo on November 2017. 

Brazilian music has many facets. One of the most energetic local rhythms is from the Northeast of the country. It’s a place that is beautiful by the sea,  but it is hard for people living in the country’s interior. No rain sometimes for years. But even this kind of stressful life can’t spoil the nature of the people there. They love a party.

Their music shows this kind of mood.  We can trace its origins to Europe as the Northeast was colonized by Dutch, French, and Portuguese.  The influential Catholic tradition defines the worship of the Northeastern people’s favorite saints: Saint Paul and Saint John. As you can imagine, their way of worshiping the saints is with parties.  Huge parties.

The name “Forró” has controversial origins: some say that it goes back to when English engineers were in the region building railways in the early 1900. Others say that during WW2, the American Air Force had bases in the area. When they were not searching for nazi submarines, they were used to join the locals and partied! There were 2 different types of parties in both stories:  foreigners only and “for all”.   Most of the locals didn’t understand English, so they called the second type of parties, “Forró”  (a word with a similar sound in Portuguese). The real origin indeed may be not so peculiar: Earlier than 1910s, there were written pieces of evidence of a type of party called “Forrobodó”. That’s why the music and the dance were named “Forró”.

Forró keeps on being hugely popular today. Its rhythm is terrific so few people can resist dancing.   It represents the fun, the enjoyment found in the Northeast Brazil parties.  That’s the case of the group in the next video. All of them  have some kind of family ties with the North and Northeastern Brazil: Feeh Silva on “Zabumba”. Felipe Cordeiro on Guitar. Léo Rodrigues on tambourine. Marcelo Geneci playing “Sanfona” (similar to an accordion). Mariana Aydar – voice and Triangle. The composers are Sivuca and Gloria Gadelha. I dare you will not be able to stay put….

Marcos Valle & Stacey Kent feat. Jim Tomlinson. This recording was done in a 2013 show. Their collaboration was materialized in live shows, a DVD and Cd box “Live at Birdland – New York City” and a single.

“Amando Demais” is one of the most beautiful and less known Brazilian songs. Seems to be from the Bossa Nova epoch, but it is somewhat newer. The story goes that a journalist gave to Vinicius de Moraes’s family after his passing, a small poem written in a piece of paper. It had an annotation: “Carlos Lyra.” They handed the paper to Lyra, an accomplished Vinicius de Moraes partner in composing. Instead of writing a song for that lyrics, Lyra kept the piece of paper. In 2013 at a party held by old friends to celebrate Moraes’s 100th birthday, Lyra gave Marcos Valle the text. Valle wrote the tune for those lyrics. Lyra’s generosity enabled the first and unfortunately, only collaboration between Vinicius de Moraes and Marcos Valle. It’s a marvelously simple song.

But I’m not sure if the result would be so marvelous without Stacey Kent’s interpretation. Her voice is perfect for this kind of song. Stacy is an established Jazz singer. A good one with a crisp sound. Besides her voice fitting Bossa Nova songs entirely, she can sing in a very palatable Portuguese, something not that easy for a native English speaker.

It is also necessary to pinpoint Jim Tomlinson’s sax solo, which fits nicely into the arrangement and adds a calm, “summer sunset” mood. Marcos Valle plays with his usual band, a group of talented Brazilian contemporary musicians that keeps the heritage of Bossa Nova: to perform smoothly and precisely. Even João Gilberto would not complain… Feel the chemistry between Marcos, Stacy, Jim, and the band: Tender moments, nothing short of perfection.

“Rio” sung by Luíza Brito, Jana Vasconcelos on guitar.

The influences on the early work of Roberto Menescal are clear. The sea, the bright Rio de Janeiro sky, and Rio’s South neighborhood in the 1960s. Born in a middle-class family in Espirito Santo state, he raised himself to be an architect. Still, he found music a lot more fun: music and the sea. I’m not sure how good he was at scuba diving, but for sure, he is an amazing music professional. Composer, musician, arranger, you name it. As a long time producer, he helped many young musicians. There’s one of his songs with explicit references to the sea and to his beloved city: “Rio”. In fact, this is the definitive description of Rio de Janeiro’s mood in the 1960s and, if one’s not suspicious, even today.

“Rio” had its lyrics written by Ronaldo Boscoli. Boscoli was a journalist, “bon vivant,” and somehow representative of the mood of that time in Rio de Janeiro: Everybody had to earn life, but this included having a lot of fun. It is difficult to figure out when these guys slept. Boscoli was an excellent journalist, but he was better at song lyrics. Besides that, due to his work as a music critic in newspapers and producer, Boscoli disseminated Bossa Nova in Brazil and later internationally. Boscoli and Menescal composed other relevant songs, such as “O Barquinho” and “Você.” As myself a “carioca” (people born in Rio de Janeiro), “Rio” is my favorite.

In this video, Luiza Britto sings “Rio.” She is not a well-known singer, at least as I’m writing. But I believe it’s a matter of time. She has a powerful voice, knows what is she’s doing, and has an amazing stage presence.
Enjoy…

Banda Pequi e Special Guests – Show and DVD recorded live, Centro de Eventos e Cultura da Federal University of Goias, november, 2014. The very special guests are singer and composer João Bosco and Nelson Faria on guitar.

João Bosco was born in Minas Gerais from a family of musicians. He grew up listening to traditional Brazilian music besides the influences that all teenagers had at the time, Rock and Jazz. While studying Engineering, João met Vinicius de Moraes. The poet was always aware of the traditions and roots of the Brazilian culture. He was impressed by the mix up of influences that he saw in João’s guitar playing.

Indeed, João was later recognized by vibrant melodies that mixed up the traditions of “Samba de Breque” with Bossa Nova and Brazilian modern music. The partnership with Vinicius de Moraes resulted in a few songs: “Rosa dos Ventos,” “Samba do Pouso,” e “O Mergulhador.” In the ’70s, when he met Aldir Blanc, he found a way to succeed in his musical career. Aldir dropped out of the Medical school to became a successful writer, poet, and lyricist, Together they created dozens of songs that represent the Brazilian mood in the ’80s and ’90s. Many singers sang João and Aldir songs, but in some instances, João’s interpretation is the best of them all.

This is the case of “Incompatibilidade De Gênios.” Those who do not understand Portuguese: the song replicates a guy complaining about his wife with a police officer, maybe. This would not be funny, but it is. He tells the officer about his tentatives to make her happy or to create a pleasant atmosphere in the relationship. But anyway, she mistreats him. It is hilarious…one of the masterpieces of Aldir’s storytelling capabilities. This is also a typical song that nobody else can sing like João Bosco…

There are some other highlights in this 2014 video: First, the Pequi Orchestra led by Professor Jarbas Cavendish was superb. Formed with musicians and students of Goias Federal University School of Music and Scenic Arts, this orchestra is more than 10 years old. To my ears, it keeps the tradition of Brazilian orchestras of the late ’40s and ’50s, popular in dancing rooms, parties, and on the radio shows. These orchestras represented the local way to emulate the American “big bands” of the time. The drums and percussion sessions of the Pequi Orchestra in this video maintained the Samba high energy. Bororó, a master musician, played the bass. Nelson Faria, as always, doing his best on guitar, also authored the amazing arrangement.

Hope you enjoy this samba…