...there is so much music, so many musicians and so much more to come...for each drug addict musician there are several clean cut sober musicians.
Anyway.
Here are my two favourite clips of the week...
I have seen Gal Costa several times; in Brazil she is considered Number One female singer. Unlike Miriam Makeba, Aretha Franklin and Alicia Keys (below) Gal is not a songwriter but more of an excellent "interpreter" of other people's music. A sort ofElla Fitzgerald .
One of those singers with the gift of making any song (by anyone) shine.
Singer's singer.
I chose this song by the great Antony Jobim because Gal Costa turns "Wave" into ...what is the word? Magic. Heavens. Beleza...
...mmmh...
Thought Jobim and Gal Costa sound dated and old fashioned? Check out the youthful ever last, Alicia Keys, below.
Alicia Keys is a role model for young (especially female) musicians. She plays the goddamn instrument well and sings superbly. We havent started on her looks (up to you)...
Through experience teaching music to young people in the (last two decades or so) I have noticed a tendency amongst today's youth not taking time to learn and practise instruments. Rapping(hip hop) is most common for boys and girls just want to sing and dance. Playing an instrument well (although I am not saying the voice is not an instrument) is very demanding and takes years and years to accomplish. (Was it the great pianist and singerRay Charles who told BBC's Jools Holland that you will never quite "beat" your instrument but try to know it somehow?)
... Alicia Keys is a hardworker.
(She meshes classical European style with jazz and blues in her piano technique).
Hard working ethic cooked with talent breeds more beauty.
...Here is a fascinating link : from traditional soul and jazz singers: Ella Fitzgerald,Billie Holiday , past Dionne Warwick through Aretha Franklin to...
...the Keys...
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
A Photo from the Past...
Playing Music in Capelinha, Salvador, Bahia...1993.
It was a hot day. Summer. Few weeks before Christmas 1993.
Salvador is a special place. This used to be Brazil's capital for several centuries, until Rio De Janeiro became THE city. Nowadays Brasilia is the government's nexus. You rarely hear of tourists and visitors going to Brasilia, around the Amazon forest. Chiefly because there is no sea, no beaches, nothing of the kinky stuff that attracts folks to Salvador and Rio. So then, i would like to talk about this photo, taken by who?
The neighbourhood is São Caetano de Capelinha, right at the heart of Salvador, credited as one of the poorest and "most dangerous" in the city. In the blue distance you can catch the Atlantic ocean. When checked carefully, a bit of the architecture can be seen as well; typical Portuguese housing style; Roman almost in outlook and history.
From left is the bass player, also called Freddy. Freddy is one of the coolest dude i have ever played with. He rarely spoke and when he did it was very quiet; lots of sense and played the most amazing bass lines.
I am clutching the guitar which i still own and play today, an acoustic-electric Takamini, except that i have changed the suitcase, since that day. You can vaguely see all the stickers, taken from thousand places i had been.
Then Denilson. Holding his kit-drum pedals. Exceptionally gifted musician and storyteller. He played kit drums and percussion. He is the man who helped shape my Samba rhythms and i learnt a lot about tambourine (called "Pandeiro" in Brazil) from him. You cannot play Bossa Nova or Samba well, if you don't know the Pandeiro, which is as central to Brazilian music as tablas are to Indian music. The word Pandeiro, according to historical sources, as told by the late, English writer, Peter Fryer, in his exciting book "Rhythms of Resistance", comes from "Bandir" (an Arab word) and is Middle East, in origin. World wide, we call it the tambourine. Dielson loved to talk apart from music, the economic misery of this region, where most of the art movements in the country originates. Here, the highest number of slaves from Africa (globally) were taken and to date 80% of the Bahia population is of African origin. The subsequent inter marriage with native Indians and the Portuguese, has in several centuries, produced the most beautiful looking humans.
Denilson would remind us.
Samba began in Bahia. Capoeira, the Brazilian martial arts began here. Samba Reggae (also known as Axé Music) as well; "yet you find the most absurd poverty in Brazil here."
At one point I got a scabby (skin itching) infection while playing Capoeira barefoot, it was spreading and i scratched like a man possessed. Denilson, joked that scratching, was part of the dancing culture of the region, that to feel "the love" one had to scratch and understand the agony. Metaphorical, huh?
Intelligent Dielson was a twin and it was his brother, Dielson, who snapped this pic.
These twins were however, complete opposites. Whereas Denilson roved and drummed with no spouse yet; Dielson was a practical man, with nothing much to say, raising a huge family; his kids running around, in this dilapidated impoverished area, filled with pick pockets, guns, stray dogs and cats.
At the far right is Daniel, a cheerful American keyboards player. Daniel was always having fun. We hanged around the Porto beach alot where women would flock around and i recall him asking me :
"Fred (Americans always call me Fred instead of Freddy), what do all these girls see in me? My body is not as well chiseled as these Brazilian guys. Tell me. In California no woman looks at me but here I am the man!"
It was a funny, interesting topic which we looked at with laughing eyes. Music brings people together, makes instant pals, and may raise crucial questions without any qualms.
This particular day we had been in a studio top of this high building and tried recording a song of mine, which i would re-record years later : I Wanna Kiss You.
I have to repeat one thing about Salvador-Bahia.
In here you feel musical twenty four hours. Buses filled with chanting youths singing and drumming on the window panes and seats. Daily carnival. The actual carnival in February runs three days in the rest of Brazil, here it goes on forever. Bahia the region, Salvador the city: special place.
If you ever go to Brazil be there and learn the history especially of slavery, art, music and get to visit the home ofJorge Amado, in Pelourinho, one of the biggest writers in Latin America born and raised not so far from where we are standing.
It was a hot day. Summer. Few weeks before Christmas 1993.
Salvador is a special place. This used to be Brazil's capital for several centuries, until Rio De Janeiro became THE city. Nowadays Brasilia is the government's nexus. You rarely hear of tourists and visitors going to Brasilia, around the Amazon forest. Chiefly because there is no sea, no beaches, nothing of the kinky stuff that attracts folks to Salvador and Rio. So then, i would like to talk about this photo, taken by who?
The neighbourhood is São Caetano de Capelinha, right at the heart of Salvador, credited as one of the poorest and "most dangerous" in the city. In the blue distance you can catch the Atlantic ocean. When checked carefully, a bit of the architecture can be seen as well; typical Portuguese housing style; Roman almost in outlook and history.
From left is the bass player, also called Freddy. Freddy is one of the coolest dude i have ever played with. He rarely spoke and when he did it was very quiet; lots of sense and played the most amazing bass lines.
I am clutching the guitar which i still own and play today, an acoustic-electric Takamini, except that i have changed the suitcase, since that day. You can vaguely see all the stickers, taken from thousand places i had been.
Then Denilson. Holding his kit-drum pedals. Exceptionally gifted musician and storyteller. He played kit drums and percussion. He is the man who helped shape my Samba rhythms and i learnt a lot about tambourine (called "Pandeiro" in Brazil) from him. You cannot play Bossa Nova or Samba well, if you don't know the Pandeiro, which is as central to Brazilian music as tablas are to Indian music. The word Pandeiro, according to historical sources, as told by the late, English writer, Peter Fryer, in his exciting book "Rhythms of Resistance", comes from "Bandir" (an Arab word) and is Middle East, in origin. World wide, we call it the tambourine. Dielson loved to talk apart from music, the economic misery of this region, where most of the art movements in the country originates. Here, the highest number of slaves from Africa (globally) were taken and to date 80% of the Bahia population is of African origin. The subsequent inter marriage with native Indians and the Portuguese, has in several centuries, produced the most beautiful looking humans.
Denilson would remind us.
Samba began in Bahia. Capoeira, the Brazilian martial arts began here. Samba Reggae (also known as Axé Music) as well; "yet you find the most absurd poverty in Brazil here."
At one point I got a scabby (skin itching) infection while playing Capoeira barefoot, it was spreading and i scratched like a man possessed. Denilson, joked that scratching, was part of the dancing culture of the region, that to feel "the love" one had to scratch and understand the agony. Metaphorical, huh?
Intelligent Dielson was a twin and it was his brother, Dielson, who snapped this pic.
These twins were however, complete opposites. Whereas Denilson roved and drummed with no spouse yet; Dielson was a practical man, with nothing much to say, raising a huge family; his kids running around, in this dilapidated impoverished area, filled with pick pockets, guns, stray dogs and cats.
At the far right is Daniel, a cheerful American keyboards player. Daniel was always having fun. We hanged around the Porto beach alot where women would flock around and i recall him asking me :
"Fred (Americans always call me Fred instead of Freddy), what do all these girls see in me? My body is not as well chiseled as these Brazilian guys. Tell me. In California no woman looks at me but here I am the man!"
It was a funny, interesting topic which we looked at with laughing eyes. Music brings people together, makes instant pals, and may raise crucial questions without any qualms.
This particular day we had been in a studio top of this high building and tried recording a song of mine, which i would re-record years later : I Wanna Kiss You.
I have to repeat one thing about Salvador-Bahia.
In here you feel musical twenty four hours. Buses filled with chanting youths singing and drumming on the window panes and seats. Daily carnival. The actual carnival in February runs three days in the rest of Brazil, here it goes on forever. Bahia the region, Salvador the city: special place.
If you ever go to Brazil be there and learn the history especially of slavery, art, music and get to visit the home ofJorge Amado, in Pelourinho, one of the biggest writers in Latin America born and raised not so far from where we are standing.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Olodum from Bahia, Brazil.
You know what?
One of the most famous percussion bands in the world, if not the most known, is Olodum from Bahia, Brasil. At the time this photo was taken in 1992, in Liverpool, England; Olodum would perform with over thirty percussionists. It was after American musician Paul Simon released the album “Rhythm of the Saints” which had a mesmerising tune played by Olodum, “Obvious Child.” Before that Olodum was mostly known in Brasil but this record introduced them to the rest of the world. Today, they are an institution.
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