Friday, June 28, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pts. 15 & 16
The policeman’s death & the tanguinho.
Raoul Dufy’s drawing for Le Boeuf
In the unpublished article Influence of Latin-American music on my work, written at Mills College in 1944, Milhaud wrote:
My work was greatly influenced by the memory of Brazil which I had loved so much. After my return to France I thought often of the lively rhythmic maxixes and of the more nonchalant airs of the tangos. I considered making a sort of rhapsody based on the airs which I had heard there but treated very freely. I wanted a piece of uninterrupted movement, colorful and torrential. I was reminded of Charlie Chaplin?s films. Later I gave it the title of an old Brazilian air, Le Boeuf sur le Toit, and as a subtitle “Fantaisie for the movies.”
In Notes Without Music (1949) Milhaud added:
I called this fantasia Le Boeuf sur le toit, which was the title of a Brazilian popular song. I thought that the character of this music might make it suitable for an accompaniment to one of Charlie Chaplin’s films. At that time, the silent films were accompanied by fragments of classical music, rendered by large or small orchestras, or even a single piano, according to the financial means available. Cocteau disapproved of my idea, and proposed that he should use it for a show, which he would undertake to put on. Cocteau had a genius for improvisation! Hardly had he conceived the idea of a project than he immediately carried it out. To begin with, we needed some form of financial backing. Jean took the seating plan of the Comédie des Champs-Elysées to the Comte de Baumont, who undertook to book in advance, at a high price, the boxes and the first rows of the stalls. A few days later, as if at the wave of a magic wand, the whole theatre was booked up, and the Shah of Persia even paid ten thousand francs for a front seat from which he could not see a thing, but was himself in full view of everyone. The expenses of the show being covered, all that remained to be done was to set to work.
Milhaud, Cocteau & Poulenc
Cocteau produced a pantomime scenario which would be adapted to my music. He imagined a scene in a bar in America during Prohibition. The various characters were highly typical: a Boxer, a Negro Dwarf, a Lady of Fashion, a Red-headed Woman dressed as a man, a Bookmaker, a Gentleman in evening clothes. The Barman, with a face like that of Antinous, offers everyone cocktails. After a few incidents and various dances, a Policeman enters, whereupon the scene is immediately transformed into a milk-bar. The clients play a rustic scene and dance a pastorale as they sip glasses of milk. The Barman switches on a big fan which decapitates the Policeman. The Red-headed Woman executes a dance with the Policeman’s head, ending up standing on her hands like the Salome in Rouen Cathedral. One by one the customers drift away, and the Barman presents an enormous bill to the resuscitated Policeman.
Jean had engaged the clowns from the Cirque Médrano and the Fratellini to play the various parts. They followed implicitly all the extremely precise orders he gave them as producer. Albert Fratellini, being an acrobat, could even dance on his hands around the Policeman’s head. In contrast with the lively tempo of the music, Jean made all the movements slow, as in a slow-motion film. This conferred an unreal, almost dream-like atmosphere on the show. The huge masks lent peculiar distinction to all the gestures, and made the movement of hands and feet pass unperceived. Guy Pierre Fauconnet designed them, as well as the costumes. We got together one Sunday at my place to arrange the entrances and dances in accordance with my score, as well for Fauconnet to draw the characters as Jean described them to him. We worked so late that I offered to put Fauconnet up for the night, but he refused and preferred to go home to Montparnasse, after arranging another rendezvous with us. He did not turn up. Anxiously, Jean rushed to his house and learnt that the poor fellow had died trying to light a fire. He was, unknown to us, extremely ill, apparently having an enlarged heart. In him we lost a very dear friend. This was the first loss our little group was to sustain. Later we were to lose Meerovitch, Radiguet, Emmanuel Fay, Nininha Guerra...
Raoul Dufy agreed to take over the work on the scenery for Le Boeuf, keeping our friend’s masks and designs for the costumes. [...]
The Fratellini
We announced three performances of Le Boeuf. Cocteau was so nervous that he was afraid no one would come after the first, which was not open to the public. He persuaded Lucien Daudet to send three hundred pneumatiques (express letters) each entitling the bearer to a “little box.” There was an indescribable crush at the doors which only the skillful handling and diplomacy of Lucien Daudet, who consented to take charge of the situation, managed to keep in hand.
The program included Trois Petites Pièces Montées, especially written by Erik Satie for our show, Auric’s Fox-Trot and Poulenc’s Cocardes sung by Koubitzky, accompanied by violin, trumpet, clarinet, trombone and big drum. Golschmann conducted our orchestra of twenty-five instruments. This isolated demonstration was taken by both critics and public as a declaration of aesthetic faith. The light-hearted show presented under the aegis of Erik Satie and treated by the newspapers as a “leg-pull,” was regarded by the public as symbolizing a Music Hall Circus system of aesthetics, and for the critics it represented the so-called post war music ...
The ballet enjoyed immediate success, repeated at the London Coliseum in July 1920. In October of the following year, Madame Bénédicte Rasimi, director of the famous Ba-Ta-Clan vaudeville theatre (at 50 Boulevard Voltaire in the Bastille quarter), produced an abridged music-hall adaptation, which she included in the revue Ah oui! The Brazilian press did not take kindly to the Boeuf production. The newspaper O Imparcial reported that two Brazilians, one of them being the diplomat Navarro da Costa, had seen this “scene of insults to our country” in Paris. The only comment on the music was made in passing, noting that the orchestra played “maxixes brasileiros e batuques africanos.” Milhaud’s borrowing of Brazilian tunes wasn’t mentioned. What annoyed the Brazilians was the Nothing Doing Bar environment, characterized as a “botequim ignóbil, sujíssimo,” as if the presence of Brazilian music had automatically turned the Prohibition-era American bar devised by Cocteau into a low-class Brazilian botequim and thus besmirched Brazil’s image abroad. According to O Imparcial, at the end of the Boeuf sketch, one of the actors unfurled a sign proclaiming “El Brasil.” This assertion has never been substantiated.*
* Information about the reaction in O Imparcial was provided by Elizabeth Travassos and Manoel Aranha Corrêa do Lago in the article Darius Milhaud e os “compositores de tangos, maxixes, sambas e cateretês” (Revista Brasileira XI:43, April-May-June 2005). The authors relied on research by Anaïs Flechet for her doctoral thesis La réception des musiques brésiliennes en France au XXème siècle.
The Ba-Ta-Clan theatre, Paris
In 1922, Madame Rasimi took her troupe on a tour of South America. In Rio de Janeiro, the Bataclans mounted four successive revues at the Teatro Lírico, all of them staged during the month of August, and each having a run of about a week. The productions were Paris Chic, Pour Vous Plaire, V’la Paris, and Au Revoir. V’la Paris, a revue in two acts and 31 scenes, premiered on 22 August, eight days after the Oito Batutas had returned from Paris. Madame Rasimi wasted no time and engaged the group to constitute Scene 32 in her show. Beginning on 24 August, the Batutas played in V’la Paris the same repertoire they had played at the Shéhérazade in Paris. When this production was replaced by Au Revoir on 30 August, they continued their act for the four-day run, but did not join the company when it moved on to São Paulo, since they were engaged to perform at the Centennial Exposition.
Ba-Ta-Clan returned to Rio in 1926, staging the revue C’est Paris at the Teatro Lírico. This time, Madame Rasimi asked the drummer Carlos Blassifera (“Carlito”) to form a jazz combo that would accompany the troupe on a tour of São Paulo, Salvador, and Recife, with the possiblity of traveling to Europe. Aside from the leader, Carlito’s Jazz-Band included Donga (guitar & banjo), Sebastião Cirino (trumpet), Augusto Vasseur (piano), João Wanderley (violin), Orosino de Souza (saxophone), and Zé Povo (trombone). Following the stage run of C’est Paris in Lisbon, the band was let go and traveled to Paris on its own. There the Brazilian ambassador, Souza Dantas, arranged for them to play a three-month engagement at the cabaret Palermo in Montmartre. The band’s Parisian name was Carlito et son Orchestre. In late January 1927, following a gig at the Café Anglais, Donga and Wanderley left the group, returning to Brazil on 10 February. Carlito’s Jazz-Band remained in Europe until 1939, when the outbreak of WWII prompted the musicians to return home.
The 1926 Latin American tour was a commercial flop, plagued by local insurrections and other unforeseen obstacles. Madame Rasimi was eventually forced to give up her Paris theatre, which would be converted into a cinema in 1930. In 1975, the Bataclan [sic] was reopened as a music venue. Among the Brazilian acts who performed there are Seu Jorge and Neguinho da Beija-Flor. The French-Brazilian connection is maintained by the Brazilian bar Beco da Cachaça, located next door to the theatre at 44 Boulevard Voltaire.
Tune No. 15: “La Mort du Policeman” (unidentified)
This unidentified number has the galloping verve of a czardas. In Cocteau’s ballet, it was played during the policeman’s death by decapitation. In Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit, the tune begins at 8:42 min. 
Tune No. 16: “Tanguinho meio choro” (unidentified)
Tune no. 16, which sounds like a tanguinho, appears at 9:06 min. into the Froment recording. This tune is played in counterpoint with tune no. 15.
As the musicologist Manoel Aranha Corrêa do Lago points out, “it would seem consistent to assume that the few segments in Le Boeuf that remain unidentified should present similar characteristics to those that have been identified, i.e., that they should also be quotations from complete sections belonging to other Brazilian pieces, printed no later than 1919.”
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11:03
 
Thursday, June 27, 2002
Stone Flower revisited
A rock critic’s Jobinian reverie,
and my own.
Flor de Pedra (Pachyphytum longitolium)
Like all self-respecting journalists, Wayne Robins publishes a weblog for “cutting out the middle man, offering opinions on pop music, culture, media and society.”
As would be expected from a rock critic, he usually gives us his thoughts on American pop culture. But a recent hospital stay required stress reduction, so Wayne turned to a subset of Brazilian music—that created for gringos in the US.
In Brazilian Reverie, Wayne writes:
Though many of the records Creed Taylor produced for his CTI label in the 1970s came to define all that was wrong with fusion (dissonance between artist and material, between material and arrangement), Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Stone Flower is a significant exception. I don’t have the credits handy, but its both lush and lean, an intelligent, dreamy soundtrack for active meditation.
Stone Flower (1970) is one of Tom Jobim’s most consistent American albums. A collaboration with arranger Eumir Deodato, it is an extension of their work on the soundtrack of The Adventurers, a film about revolutions in South America, directed by Lewis Gilbert with cinematography by Claude Renoir, and starring Charles Aznavour and Candice Bergen.
 Three tracks came from the film: “Children’s Games,” “Amparo,” and “God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun.” The first two were later to acquire lyrics and new titles. The waltz “Children’s Games”—a tribute to Debussy that quotes Rêverie and La plus que lente and whose title obliquely refers to the Impressionist composer’s Children’s Corner—is now known as “Chovendo na Roseira” (with Tom’s lyrics; the English version by Gene Lees would become known as “Double Rainbow”), while “Amparo” (the film character played by Leigh Taylor-Young) has turned into “Olha Maria,” with lyrics by Chico Buarque and Vinicius de Moraes.
The new compositions on the disc were the bossa nova “Tereza My Love,” dedicated to the composer’s first wife; “Choro”; the folksy maracatu “Stone Flower”; and the dreamy “Andorinha.” Completing the repertoire are the only sung track—the protest ballad “Sabiá” (1967)—and two remarkable takes of Ary Barroso’s “Aquarela do Brasil” (1939).
Initially reissued on CD in the CBS Epic Contemporary Jazz Masters series (1990), Stone Flower has been out of print for several years. This year it received a newly remastered edition from Sony Jazz.
My friend B.J. Major, webmistress of the Remembering Antonio Carlos Jobim site (among many others), has a special page devoted to Stone Flower in which you can follow the various editions of the album in scanned covers and liner notes (all by Arnaldo DeSouteiro), including PDF/Adobe Acrobat files of the most recent set of notes and technical info, prepared for the 2000 Japanese reissue.
Mr. DeSouteiro informs that the Japanese release is the only Stone Flower CD reissue with the original 1970 mix by Rudy Van Gelder. All other reissues utilize a mix done by Mark Wilder at Sony Studios in 1987.
Antonio Carlos Jobim: Stone Flower
(Sony CTI Legacy EK 061616; 1970/2002) 42:17 min.
01. Tereza My Love (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
02. Children’s Games [Chovendo na Roseira] (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
03. Choro (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
04. Brazil [Aquarela do Brasil] (Ary Barroso)
05. Stone Flower (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
06. Amparo [Olha Maria] (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Chico Buarque/Vinicius de Moraes)
07. Andorinha (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
08. God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
09. Sabiá (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Chico Buarque)
10. Brazil [Aquarela do Brasil] (Ary Barroso)—alternate take
Piano, Electric Piano, Guitar, Whistle & Vocals: Antonio Carlos Jobim
Guitar & Electric Piano: Eumir Deodato
Bass: Ron Carter
Drums: João Palma
Percussion: Airto Moreira, Everaldo Ferreira
Flutes: Hermeto Pascoal, Jerry Dodgion, Romero Penque
Bass Flute: Joe Farrell
Trumpets: Burt Collins, Marvin Stamm
Trombone: Garnett Brown
French Horns: Ray Alonge, Joe de Angelis
Trombone solos: Urbie Green
Soprano sax solo on “God and the Devil”: Joe Farrell
Flute solo on “Amparo”: Hubert Laws
Violin solo on “Stone Flower”: Harry Lookofsky
Strings (violins, violas, cellos)
Arranged and conducted by Eumir Deodato
Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, June 1970
Produced by Creed Taylor
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14:10
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
Léo Ortiz, the Grappelli of samba
In Exatamente Assim, the violin takes center stage.
Violin in samba? Why ever not?
Last year, the American violist Jim Nolet released the fine Brazilian music CD Arco Voz (read my short review). Now comes Brazilian violinist Léo Ortiz with an equally fine CD, this one released a year earlier.
Ortiz’s album is an independent production, which means it got practically no distribution in Brazil outside a few connoisseur outlets in Rio. The artist tells me that he and his five brothers pooled their resources to finance the disc. He adds:
It was possible only because the musicians, who are my friends, donated their work and recorded for free. Although they’re professional musicians, they know of the difficulties and also gave up royalties on their unpublished compositions recorded in this disc. I had to pay only for “Na Baixa do Sapateiro” and “Bye Bye Brasil.”
It’s very hard not to make a comparison with Stephane Grappelli whenever a violin is heard in popular music, primarily because there’s no popular violinist alive in the western world who hasn’t heard him and been influenced by him. The comparison becomes so pat that I hesitated to make it until I saw Aldir Blanc do the same in his liner note remarks. And what’s good enough for Aldir is also good enough for me.
Exatamente Assim opens to the welcome sound of a cuíca, played by Ovídio Brito of Toque de Prima fame and soon joined by piano and violin. Not your everyday instrumental lineup, but it works remarkably well and appears often on this disc.
Composed and arranged by bassist Ivan Machado, “Humaitá” is a jazzy samba featuring Humberto Merlino on piano, Ivan on bass, Cláudio Jorge on guitar, Alfredo Machado on solo guitar, Paulinho Black on drums, Ovídio Brito and Marcelo Moreira on percussion. The fluid violin, nicely buoyed by the samba rhythm, finds an apt complement in the jazz piano.
Ortiz lends a gypsy flavor to Cláudio Jorge’s swinging “Osaka 1990,” in which the composer shines in a guitar solo. This tune has a bit of everything: a rock-like refrain on piano and drums, Grappelli-style jazz for the main theme and the violin variations, and jazz-samba in the guitar interlude.
Hamleto Stamato’s lyrical “Tema Lu” allows Ortiz to regale us with a long evocative solo that sets the wings of imagination flying. The composer, who also arranged, accompanies on piano.
The most memorable track may be Alfredo Machado’s deliciously joyous “Felícia.” The rhythm is samba and Ortiz’s violin dances with Zé Carlos’ electric guitar and Victor Neto’s alto sax. Listen to an excerpt .
The Grappellian spirit is particularly strong in Marinho Boffa’s “Balada pra Luiz Eça,” in which Hamleto Stamato on piano tips his hat to the great departed pianist and founder of Tamba Trio.
A group effort closes the CD. “Samba ao Léo,” a tribute to Ortiz by four composers, unites a large cast of musicians to wave us off in style.
The album is available though SindMusi, the Sindicate of Professional Musicians of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
Léo Ortiz: Exatamente Assim
(Independent LFO 01-2000; 2000) 53:24 min.
01. Humaitá (Ivan Machado)
02. Novo Horizonte (Darcy de Paulo)
03. Osaka 1990 (Cláudio Jorge)
04. Tema Lu (Hamleto Stamato)
05. Felícia (Alfredo Machado)
06. Exatamente Assim (Alfredo Machado)
07. Na Baixa do Sapateiro (Ary Barroso)
08. Pensamento (Glauco Fernandes)
09. Bye Bye Brasil (Roberto Menescal/Chico Buarque)
10. Balada pra Luiz Eça (Marinho Boffa)
11. Carioquíssima (Cecelo Frony)
12. Samba ao Léo (Paulinho Trompete/Paulo Henrique/Paulo Soledade/Hamleto Stamato)
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13:19
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 14
Cycle II ends with a mystery.
“The Waltz Dream” by George Grosz
The first cycle of Le Boeuf sur le Toit concluded with tune no. 7. Now, with clock-like precision, tune no. 14 brings the second cycle to a close.
Manoel Aranha Corrêa do Lago’s structural analysis, published in the Latin American Music Review (see an adaptation of his Table 4 here), provides this overview of the second cycle of Le Boeuf:
Cycle II
Rondo 5
1. “Gaúcho” [Corta-Jaca] (section A)
2. “Flor do Abacate” (section A)
Rondo 6
1. “Tristeza de Caboclo” (sections A+B)
2. “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” (section A)
Rondo 7
1. “Carioca” (section A) + ?Escovado? (section A)
2. “Escovado” (section A) + ?Carioca? (section A)
Rondo 8
1. “Ferramenta” (section A)
2. Waltz [unknown no. 1]
Tune No. 14: Waltz (unidentified)
As in Cycle I, the fourth iteration of the rondo theme in Cycle II is followed by Ernesto Nazareth’s “Ferramenta,” which in turn yields to another tune before the third cycle begins.
This final tune of the cycle is a lovely waltz, still unidentified. In Cocteau’s ballet it accompanied the policeman’s dance and is therefore known as “La Danse du Policeman.” In Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit, the waltz begins at 7:26 min.
I’m afraid this will be the shortest of the Boeuf chronicles. It has been suggested by several musicologists and musicians that “La Danse du Policeman” contains a qutation from Chopin’s Barcarolle. Pianist and composer Glenn Jenks provides a precise orientation:
The quote from Chopin is from bar 15 of the Barcarolle and it occurs in Le Boeuf 5 bars before rehearsal letter Q in the four-handed piano score, primo part (LH), just at the end of the first half of the unidentified waltz (Danse du Policeman). I can hear it in the orchestral score as well. Listen for parallel sixths.
With luck, some reader might stumble upon this page and solve the mystery.
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17:43
Monday, June 24, 2002
Os Boeuf chronicles em português
A nova edição está no ar.
A edição em português dos Boeuf chronicles começou a ser publicada hoje. Os primeiros oito artigos, todos traduzidos por Alexandre Dias, já estão prontos no site Musica Brasiliensis.
Esta edição chama-se As Crônicas Bovinas.
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18:16
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 13
A tribute to the astute.
Ernesto Nazareth
At a conference convened in 1926 by the Sociedade de Cultura Artística of São Paulo, Mário de Andrade elaborated about Ernesto Nazareth’s place in Brazilian music:
In general, dance compositions base their vulgarization on imitating the popular orchestral chorus. Popular dances are in the majority sung dances. It has always been so, and the virtuoso instrumentalists of the Renaissance—when they transplanted the gigues, allemandes, and sarabandes from song to instrument—had a considerable task of creative adaptation. This adaptation consisted in extracting from the sung dances their song essence and giving them an instrumental character. They substituted the strophic theme with a melodic motif, the oral phrase with a rhythmic cell. Based on my current state of knowledge, although with reservations, I foresee that like the milonga and her successor, the Argentine tango, the maxixe’s direct origin was instrumental. However, in order to popularize itself, the maxixe, as well as the Argentine tango and the foxtrot, soon became a song form and turned into a sung dance.
This songlike aspect can be perceived even in the most admirable choreographic musicians, like John Philip Sousa or Johann Strauss, through their strophic rather than cellular norm of invention. One feels the sung melody and the oral verse. Ernesto Nazaré stands apart from this general aspect of choreographic composers by way of the almost systematic absence of vocality in his tangos. It is the motif, the melodic cell, or the rhythmic cell that serves as the foundation for his constructions. “Espalhafatoso,” for example, is constructed upon only one rhythmic cell, while “Sagaz” is entirely built on a rhythmic-melodic motif of four notes. [...]
In reality, Ernesto Nazaré is not representative of the maxixe, even less so Eduardo Souto, Sinhô, Donga, and Marcelo Tupinambá himself, who was a provincial variant of the originally carioca dance. Ernesto Nazaré could be taken for the great herald of the maxixe, that is, of the genuinely Brazilian urban dance, already free of the Hispano-African character of the habanera. [...]
Rarely except in these two tangos [“Tenebroso” and “Talisman”] does Ernesto Nazaré abandon joy. He didn’t possess that permanent sadness [Andrade calls it tristura], so typical of our people, with which Marcelo Tupinambá is intimate. It’s the mirthful and jovial stimulation of the carioca that Ernesto Nazaré represents.
Tune No. 13: “Escovado” (1905)
‘Escovado’ in common parlance means ‘astute.’ In his book Panorama da Música Popular Brasileira, Ary Vasconcelos tells us that Nazareth was a devoted family man who generally gave his compositions titles that paid tribute to relatives. “Travêsso” was dedicated to his son Ernesto, “Marieta” and “Eulina” to his two daughters, “Dora” to his wife Teodora, “Brejeiro” to his nephew Gilberto, etc.
The tango “Escovado” falls into the above category. The piano score in my possession dedicates the composition ao seu irmãozinho Fernando Nazareth. In his CD-ROM Ernesto Nazareth, Rei do Choro, Luiz Antônio de Almeida offers this information about the tune:
Tango first published by Casa Vieira Machado & Cia. and dedicated to Fernando, the composer’s younger brother. It became one of Nazareth’s great successes, and its principal theme was later used by the French composer Darius Milhaud in his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (1919). In September 1930, accepting an invitation from Eduardo Souto, then artistic director of Odeon-Parlophon, Nazareth recorded this piece in a disc that was enthusiastically received by the press.
“Escovado” (no. 19 at top left) in Nazareth’s list of his tangos
In Le Boeuf sur le Toit, section A of “Escovado” appears at 6:34 min. into Louis de Froment’s recording. Having just quoted Nazareth’s “Carioca” in the violins with “Escovado” played in counterpoint by the trumpet, Milhaud now quotes “Escovado” in the violins with “Carioca” counterpointed in the flute.
It’s interesting to observe that although the two tunes were composed in different keys (“Escovado” in major, “Carioca” in minor), Milhaud adjusts the key of each counterpoint to fit that of the dominant melody. When “Carioca” is the primary theme, “Escovado” is played in minor key; when “Escovado” takes over, “Carioca” gains a major key.
Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database lists five recording in 78-rpm discs, four of which are undated and three are played by bands. The only dated recording is the one made by the composer himself in 1930. It was one of four sides he recorded for Odeon four years before his death (the other three were “Apanhei-te Cavaquinho,” “Nenê,” and “Turuna”). These four sides represent half of Nazareth’s entire personal output on disc.*
Autor: Ernesto Nazareth
Título: Escovado
Gênero: Tango
Intérprete: Banda do Corpo de Bombeiros
Gravadora: Columbia
Número: B-60
Autor: Ernesto Nazareth
Título: Escovado
Gênero: Tango Brasileiro
Intérprete: Ernesto Nazareth (piano)
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 10718-B
Matriz: 3939
Data gravação: 10.09.1930
Data lançamento: Dez/1930
“Escovado” has been adapted for various instruments and recorded by luminaries such as Custódio Mesquita and his Orchestra, Carolina Cardoso de Menezes and her Conjunto, Dilermando Reis, Turíbio Santos, Arthur Moreira Lima, Raphael Rabello with and without Dino Sete Cordas, Eudóxia de Barros, Joel Nascimento, Henrique Cazes & Família Violão, and many others. Egberto Gismonti adapted the tango for piano and orchestra, and Paulo Porto Alegre created a transcription for guitar quartet executed by Quaternaglia.
We’ll hear an excerpt from the 1979 recording by Turíbio Santos & Conjunto Choros do Brasil in the album Valsas e Choros. Conjunto members included Dino Sete Cordas and Raphael Rabello.
A complete midi file is available here.
= = =
* In 1912, four sides were recorded for Casa Edison, with Pedro de Alcântara on piccolo and Nazareth on piano. They played “Odeon” and “Favorito” (both by Nazareth) “Linguagem do Coração” by Joaquim Callado, and “Choro e Poesia” by Pedro de Alcântara (the latter tune would later receive lyrics by Catulo da Paixão Cearense and become famous as “Ontem ao Luar”).
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16:21
Monday, June 17, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 12
An old-fashioned carioca.
Postcard of Avenida Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro
Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth (1863–1934) was a carioca. He was born in a modest house on the Morro do Nheco—now called Morro do Pinto—in the borough of Cidade Nova, birthplace of the maxixe and the samba.
In the Ricardo Cravo Albin dictionary of MPB, Vasco Mariz tells us that Nazareth was one of the composers of greatest importance to Brazilian culture:
His compositions, although extremely pianistic, often depicted the musical climate of serestas and choros, expressing through the piano the typical musicality of the guitar, the flute, the cavaquinho—characteristic choro instruments. This made of Nazareth the revealer of the Brazilian soul, or, more specifically, the carioca soul.
Adds Vasco Mariz in his critique:
In reality, Nazareth was an essentially carioca composer for his brejeirice and malícia, a precursor of the maxixe. [...] Nazareth portrayed with much grace and flavor the tranquil and delectable ambience of old Rio at the beginning of the 20th century, a time when everyone traveled by tram, went to the center of the city to watch a movie and have some refreshments at a teahouse in Cinelândia. He knew how to capture that romantic atmosphere of bourgeois celebrations, the processions of serenaders and ranchos carnavalescos.
Tune No. 12: “Carioca” (1913)
In his CD-ROM Ernesto Nazareth, Rei do Choro, Luiz Antônio de Almeida, the composer’s biographer, discusses the birth of “Carioca”:
A tango first published Sampaio Araújo & Cia. in 1913 and composed in rondo form with five sections: A-B-A-C-A. It was dedicated to the actor Olympio Nogueira, who at the time was very popular for his interpretation of Jesus in the play O Mártir do Calvário. Olympio had become a friend of Diniz de Nazareth, the composer’s son, because both studied the violin and had mutual acquaintances. This drew him closer to Ernesto.
1930s playbill for “O Mártir do Calvário”
O Mártir do Calvário was written by Eduardo Garrido in 1902 at the request of his friend Eduardo Victorino, who wanted a play about the passion of Christ. Both Garrido and Victorino were playwrights and theatrical producers. The play became a staple of all Brazilian theatre companies, vaudeville and circus troupes, which mounted it every Easter for over two decades. Since 1993, a modern adaptation retitled Rua da Amargura has been in the repertoire of Gabriel Vilella’s Grupo Galpão of Belo Horizonte. This version was shown on Globo TV last year as Paixão Segundo Ouro Preto.
Nazareth’s dedication to Olympio Nogueira in the piano score of “Carioca” reads: “Ao talentoso e inspirado artista Olympio Nogueira.” The actor, born in 1878, would die five years later at the age of 40.
In Le Boeuf sur le Toit, section A of “Carioca” may be heard at 6:16 min. into Louis de Froment’s recording. While the violins are playing “Carioca,” the winds play section A of Nazareth’s “Escovado” in counterpoint.
Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database lists this sole recording:
Autor: Ernesto Nazareth
Título: Carioca
Gênero: Tango Brasileiro
Intérprete: Heriberto Muraro (piano)
Gravadora: Victor
Número: 34689-A
Matriz: 52031
Data gravação: 29.10.1940
Data lançamento: Dez/1940
Since the 1960s, a Nazareth revival has taken place, led initially by pianist Eudóxia de Barros with the release of her LP Ouro Sobre Azul (1963), in which she plays Nazareth’s compositions as he had written them, unarranged. She was followed in the ’70s by Arthur Moreira Lima, who recorded four LPs dedicated to the work of Nazareth for Discos Marcus Pereira. Most of the “Carioca” recordings date from the past quarter century or less. Among them we find piano interpretations by Moreira Lima, Dominique Cornil, Yukio Miyazaki, Eudóxia de Barros, and Marcelo Verzoni and transcriptions by guitarists: Laurindo Almeida & Charlie Byrd (1980) and Spencer Doidge (late ’90s).
This audio sample is part of Arthur Moreira Lima’s recording, to be found on the CD Brazilian Tangos & Waltzes (Pro-Arte CDG 3144).
Another excerpt, this one played by Frank French, is available here.
__________________________
15:27
Friday, June 14, 2002
Crossing chords
Maogani’s second CD is a study in elegance.
Paulo Aragão, Carlos Chaves, Marcos Alves, and Marcus Tardelli, better known as the guitar quartet Maogani, are not prolific recorders, but they make up in quality for their paucity of albums.
Cordas Cruzadas is the quartet’s second disc in five years, and it sallies forth from where their debut CD Maogani had left off. This is no faint praise, considering how superb the first album was.
Not only crack instrumentalists, the Maogani four have made a name for themselves as top-rung guitar arrangers, about whom their mentor Guinga spares no accolades (he called Paulo Aragão “the best Brazilian guitar arranger of all time”).
Essentially a tribute disc, Cordas Cruzadas shows off the group members’ arrangements of tunes composed by their heroes.
Opening the disc is Baden Powell’s “Samba Novo” [Babel], previously recorded by the composer and by guitarist Marco Pereira. Here it’s presented in a virtuosic and exuberant arrangement by Marcus Tardelli. The liner notes inform that in creating the guitar effects that sound like marimbas at the end of the track, Tardelli was inspired by Mauricio Carrilho and João de Aquino’s recording of “Elfos” (1986).
Joyce joins the quartet in her own composition, “For Hall”—a tribute to jazz guitar legend Jim Hall and also a pun on ‘forró,’ which suits this baião to a T. Carlos Chaves arranged a percussive rhythm for the guitars, which contrasts with the smooth guitar solos and with Joyce’s vocalese.
Tom Jobim’s “Chovendo na Roseira” was influenced by Claude Debussy (it quotes his famous Rêverie and La plus que lente) to such an extent that its original title before it had acquired lyrics was “Children’s Games,” in honor of the French composer’s Children’s Corner. Heitor Villa-Lobos also receives an homage by way of a quotation from his serenade “Abril.” Marcos Alves and Paulo Aragão gave the arrangement an appropriately Impressionist ambience, with a delicate harp-like tone.
Leandro Braga’s “Choro No. 2” has been previously recorded only once, in the composer’s own piano & guitar arrangement in the disc And Why Not? Marcus Tardelli’s version is remarkably faithful to the original, maintaining the key in E-flat minor, which is unusual for the guitar. Fabiano Salek enhances the rhythm on pandeiro.
In “A Foggy Day em Teresópolis,” receiving here its first recording, Ed Motta tips off his hat to George and Ira Gershwin’s tune and to John Paul Jones’ pre-Led Zeppelin “A Foggy Day in Vietnam.” Paulo Aragão’s delicate arrangement weaves vocalese (Motta), clarinet (Cristiano Alves), and flute (Alexandre Maionese) through the strings.
Aragão’s arrangement for “Passaredo” unites disparate elements from the very different original recordings made by the two songwriters: Chico Buarque in Meus Caros Amigos and Francis Hime in Passaredo. Effects such as pizzicatos, tempo changes, and bird-like trills help make the synthesis possible.
Receiving its first recording, “Choro Réquiem” is Aldir Blanc’s farewell to his mother, who passed away in early 2001. Guinga sings movingly in an arrangement shared by Marcos Alves, Paulo Aragão, and Marcus Tardelli.
A pair of tributes to the masters follow. Hélio Delmiro is saluted in Tardelli’s arrangement of the beautiful choro “Chama,” and Hermeto Pascoal receives Carlos Chaves’ treatment of “Ilza No. 83,” a waltz composed in 1999 (the year in which O Bruxo was writing a tune each day) and eventually named—like the whole series—after Pascoal’s wife, who died in November 2000.
“Choro de Bela” is the first tune by a Maogani member to be recorded by the group. Carlos Chaves arranged his choro to include solo clarinet (Cristiano Alves) and pandeiro (Fabiano Salek). The Bela of the title is Alves’ little daughter and Chaves’ niece Isabela.
One of the most easily recognized tracks on the disc is João Donato’s “Bananeira,” arranged here by another mentor of the group, Celia Vaz, who added a passage from Donato’s “Amazonas.” Another first recording as well as a tribute, “Guingando” sings the virtues of Guinga in Mauro Aguiar’s tongue-twisting lyrics, the verbal equivalent of Guinga’s music, delivered in Mônica Salmaso’s lyrically earnest voice:
[...] Craque do bordão traz no patuá
Som de mil Brasis fusas de condão
Zanza de saci urro de aruá
Pacto com o cão reza ao Deus dará [...]
The harmonies, full of twists and turns like the ziguezagueando of the lyrics, are a collaborative effort by Paulo Aragão, Marcos Alves, Carlos Chaves, and Sergio Valdeos.
Longtime Hermeto bandmember, the bassist Itiberê Zwarg contibuted “Pra Lúcia"” which he also arranged. The tune grew out of a simple chord played while the group was visiting Itiberê and evolved into this lovely composition dedicated to the composer’s wife.
Paulinho da Viola’s famous choro “Inesquecível” closes the album with yet another tribute—this one to Jacob do Bandolim. The arrangement by Paulo Aragão, Sergio Valdeos, Marcos Alves, and Carlos Chaves preserves the bandolim sound and magically evokes the great musician.
Audio samples are available on the Maogani website.
Quarteto Maogani: Cordas Cruzadas
(Rob Digital RD 042; 2001) 45:34 min.
01. Samba Novo (Baden Powell)
02. For Hall (Joyce) — w/ Joyce
03. Chovendo na Roseira (Anotnio Carlos Jobim)
04. Choro No. 2 (Leandro Braga)
05. A Foggy Day em Teresópolis (Ed Motta) — w/ Ed Motta
06. Passaredo (Francis Hime/Chico Buarque)
07. Choro Réquiem (Guinga/Aldir Blanc) — w/ Guinga
08. Chama (Hélio Delmiro)
09. Ilza No. 83 (Hermeto Pascoal)
10. Choro de Bela (Carlos Chaves)
11. Bananeira (João Donato/Gilberto Gil)
12. Guingando (Edu Kneip/Mauro Aguiar) — w/ Mônica Salmaso
13. Pra Lúcia (Itiberê Zwarg)
14. Inesquecível (Paulinho da Viola)
__________________________
08:42
Tuesday, June 11, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles have a new home
The unified Web edition just went up.
Darius Milhaud
The weblog format, perfect for real-time publishing, hasn’t proven to be the ideal medium for navigating within a long series of articles.
That’s why I’m pleased to announce that the Boeuf chronicles have a new Web home in an environment more conducive to browsing.
All the articles published thus far are up on the new site with their images, audio samples, and a useful table of contents. I’ll continue to publish upcoming chapters here, but henceforth, all links to articles in the Boeuf series will lead to the new Web address for ease of navigation.
For the same reason, the disc reviews are now catalogued and available at the new site, Musica Brasiliensis, where I’m also republishing other noteworthy items from this magazine.
I trust this arrangement will make it much easier and faster to find articles from now on.
As always, I invite comments and suggestions.
__________________________
21:35
Friday, June 07, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 11
Maricota or Borboleta? Will we ever know?
Marcelo Tupinambiná in 1925
The caboclo melody of Marcelo Tupinambá had enormous success in Europe at the concerts of Villa-Lobos. A Parisian critic asked this musician of ours if the French modernist composer Darius Milhaud, having lived some years in Brazil, would not have been inspired by Tupinambá. Villa-Lobos, to sum up, replied: “He copies, he edits Tupinambá.”
— Dr. Ulisses Paranhos, História da Música
Ernesto Nazareth was the forefather of our rhythm. Marcelo Tupinambá is the follower. The latter is the only musician who would create his rhythm to differ from the others, to be his and Brazil’s.
— Fernando Mendes, O Ritmo Brasileiro
Almost two years ago, when I first dipped my toe into the Boeuf puddle and began to stir the mud, I did a search in Usenet, where I found a post from Marcelo Meira, identifying one of the quoted tunes as “Borboleta” (Northeastern Folklore), a song recorded by Marisa Monte in her 1991 CD Mais:
Borboleta pequenina
Que vem para nós saudar
Venha ver cantar o hino
Que hoje é noite de Natal
Eu sou uma borboleta
Pequenina e feiticeira
Ando no meio das flores
Procurando quem me queira
Borboleta pequenina
saia fora do rosal
Venha ver quanta alegria
Que hoje é noite de Natal
Borboleta pequenina
Venha para o meu cordão
Venha ver cantar o hino
Que hoje é noite de Natal
A month later I discovered that the melody of “Borboleta” was identical to that of “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” by Marcelo Tupinambá. The question that arose and hasn’t been put to rest since then is: which came first?
“Borboleta” is the name of a reisado—a dance executed in the north and northeast as part of the Christmastime celebrations. The reisado was imported to Brazil from the Iberian peninsula in the 19th century and was customarily danced on the eve of the Dia de Reis (6 January) to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
The lyrics above invite the little butterfly to come to the singer’s cordão. Another folkloric Christmas manifestation is the Pastoril. Divided into two cordões, one blue and the other red, pastoras dance and sing about the birth of Jesus amid rustic ornamentation.
Did “Borboleta” precede “Maricota, Sai da Chuva,” or were the “Borboleta” lyrics added to Marcelo Tupinambá’s melody? The questions don’t end there. Professor Aloysio de Alencar Pinto uncovered yet another tune whose first part corresponds exactly to that of “Maricota.” Titled “O Roceiro,” it is attributed to Eduardo Bourdot, a composer active in São Paulo at the beginning of the 20th century.
Whether it originated as a folk tune or a popular one, composed by Bourdot or by Tupinambá, we can be certain of one thing: when Milhaud bought his “quantité de maxixes et de tangos” in order to get the hang of that imperceptible pause in the syncopation, he was buying Tupinambá’s piano scores.
Tune No. 11: “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” (1917)
Like “Viola Cantadeira” (tune no. 2, by the same authors), “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” is a tanguinho first presented in the opereta sertaneja Scenas da Roça, written by Arlindo Leal.
Like the “Viola Cantadeira” piano score, “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” (or “Maricóta, Sáe da Chúva,” as it was called then) sold for 1,500 réis, carried the subtitle Canção Sertaneja, and announced that the song was part of the repertoire of the duettistas Os Garridos. Here, too, Arlindo Leal’s name appears as original author of Scenas da Roça, with no specific credit for the lyrics. Like “Viola Cantadeira,” “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” was first published by Sotero de Souza—the very same Sotero to whom the youthful João de Souza Lima, aka Xon-xon, used to sell his impromptu creations for 20 mil réis (the retail price of 13 piano scores) whenever “Os Voadô” needed pocket change for a night on the town.
Section A of “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” can be heard at 5:44 min. into Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit.
The earliest “Maricota” recording listed in Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database was made by the group O Passos no Choro in 1919. On its flip side (121516), the same disc bore “Viola Cantadeira.”
Autor: Marcelo Tupinambá
Título: Maricota, Sai da Chuva
Gênero: Tanguinho
Intérprete: Grupo O Passos no Choro
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 121515
In 1952, the song was recorded again, this time by Trio Madrigal and Trio Melodia. The baião arrangement was written by Radamés Gnattali.
Autor: Marcelo Tupinambá
Título: Maricota, Sai da Chuva
Gênero: Baião
Intérprete: Trio Madrigal e Trio Melodia
Gravadora: Continental
Número: 16.600-A
Matriz: C-2813
Data gravação: 19.03.1952
Data lançamento: Jul/1952
In October of the same year the two trios performed the song live on the Rádio Nacional program Quando Canta o Brasil.
Trio Madrigal was a feminine vocal group formed in 1946 by the maestro Alceu Bocchino at Rádio Mayrink Veiga. The members at the time of the recording of “Maricota, Sai da Chuva” were Edda Cardoso, Magda Marialba, and Lolita Koch Freire. The trio began recording in 1949 and was heard in all the Rádio Nacional programs. They registered two hits among the top 100 Brazilian songs of 1951 and one in 1954. They often sang on the radio with Trio Melodia, and the two trios recorded 38 songs together.
Trio Melodia was made up of the well-known singers Nuno Roland, Paulo Tapajós, and Albertinho Fortuna, all of whom had solo careers. The trio was formed by Paulo Tapajós for the launch of the radio program Um Milhão de Melodias in 1943. That program ran for 13 years on Rádio Nacional, and both it and its substitute Quando Canta o Brasil were conceived and directed by Tapajós, with musical arrangements by Radamés Gnattali, who also conducted the Orquestra Brasileira de Radamés Gnattali, created especially for Um Milhão de Melodias. Trio Madrigal and Trio Melodia were regular fixtures on the programs during the ’40s and ’50s.
Listen to an excerpt from Trio Madrigal and Trio Melodia’s 1952 recording.
Paulo Tapajós & Radamés Gnattali
Several instrumental versions have been recorded by pianists Mário de Azevedo (in the LP Marcelo Tupinambá, Sinter SLP 1.090; year unknown), Marcelo Guelfi (1983), and Eudóxia de Barros (in the CD Lua Branca,1999).
The lyrics, once again poking fun at caboclos, sound outrageous but in fact are quite innocent. “Aconstipar” in the context of the song has to do not with intestinal constipation but with the nasal kind (i.e., catching a cold).
The Brazilian author Mário de Alencar tells of another context for the song?s title. In his essay Cousas do Tempo, published in 1920, Alencar unleashes a long harangue about dance music of the day, reporting that for greater effect, dance orchestras often stopped playing in the middle of a tune, and the band leader would yell “Maricota, sai da chuva!” or a similar refrain before the music was resumed:
Agora a música dos bailes não tem o compasso de ondulação suave: chocalha; não deslizam os pés: sapateiam; não se alinham os corpos em par que revoa, apenas unidos pelo toque leve dos braços: agarram-se, aferram-se; nem o movimento é composto pela atitude da beleza: os troncos dobram-se, chocam-se, sacodem-se e pulam, desconjuntam-se e descambam, ou só remexem, jungidos, em quebros de melopéia ou batuques de cateretê, durante os quais não raro, para maior efeito, há uma pausa na música e um grito do batuta: Maricota, sai da chuva! ou estribilho equivalente. E o saracoteio recomeça mais vivo, num gingo-gingo estonteado e suado de samba.
The following lyrics come from the piano score published by Sotero de Souza. Below them you’ll find the poem “Tanguinho Macabro” by Vinicius de Moraes, which puts a whole new twist on the Maricota story.
Maricóta, sáe da chúva...
Tanguinho
Canção Sertaneja
Da opereta sertaneja “Scenas da Roça”
Original de Arlindo Leal
Musica de Marcello Tupynambá
Côro:
Maricóta, sáe da chúva
Deixa, deixa de embromá
Maricóta, sáe da chúva
Que tu vaé te aconstipá
A chúva tá penêrano
Tá penêrano no á
Maricóta, sáe da chúva
Que tu vaé te aconstipá
Maricóta:
Não tenho medo da chúva
Nem do ronco do trovão
Eu quero mêmo que chôva
Pra lavá meu coração
Penêra, chuva, penêra;
Não deixa de penêrá...
E prô sê triste rocêra
Como tu anda a chorá...
Côro:
Maricóta, sáe da chúva, etc...
Maricóta:
Não tenho medo da chúva, etc...
Lá no ceo tá fuzilano
Vejo as nuvens a se mexê,
Pode sê que seja engano
Se chovê logo se vê...
Côro:
Maricóta, sáe da chúva, etc...
Maricóta:
Não tenho medo da chúva, etc...
Óia o sór já pareceu...
Já, não chóve, nhô Vadô,
Óia o arco, lá no céu,
A trovada já passô...
Côro:
Maricóta, sáe da chúva, etc...
Maricóta:
Não tenho medo da chúva, etc...
Cala a bocca, nhô Vadô
Que essa chúva não me móia...
Vá s'imbora, minha gente,
Que moiada eu não estô...
Tanguinho Macabro
(Vinicius de Moraes)
- Maricota, sai da chuva
Você vai se resfriar!
Maricota, sai da chuva
Você vai se resfriar!
- Náo me chamo Maricota
Nem me vou arresfriar
Sou uma senhora viúva
Que náo tem onde morar.
- Maricota, sai da chuva
Você pode até morrer!
Maricota, sai da chuva
Você pode até morrer!
- Pior que a morte, seu moço
É ser moça e náo poder
Mais morta que estou náo posso
Tomara mesmo morrer.
- Maricota, vem comigo
Para o meu apartamento!
Maricota, vem comigo
Para o meu apartamento!
- Fico muito agradecida
Pelo generoso intento
E sem ser oferecida
Aceito o oferecimento.
- Maricota, meu benzinho
Tira o véu para eu te ver!
Maricota, meu benzinho
Tira o véu para eu te ver!
- Ah, estou tão envergonhada
Que nem sei o que dizer
Só mesmo a luz apagada
Poderei condescender.
- Maricota, esse perfume
Vem de ti ou de onde vem?
Maricota, esse perfume
Vem de ti ou de onde vem?
- E o odor que se tem na pele
Quando pele não se tem
E o meu cheirinho de angélica
Que eu botei só pro meu bem.
- Maricota, dá-me um beijo
Que eu estou morto de paixão!
Maricota, dá-me um beijo
Que eu estou morto de paixão!
- Satisfarei seu desejo
Com toda a satisfação
Aqui tem, seu moço, um beijo
Dado de bom coração.
- Maricota, os seus dois olhos
São poços de escuridão!
Maricota, os seus dois olhos
São poços de escuridão!
- Não são olhos, são crateras
São crateras de vulcão
Para engolir e etcetera
Os moços que vêm e vão.
- Maricota, o teu nariz
São duas fossas de verdade!
Maricota, o teu nariz
São duas fossas de verdade!
- Não é nariz não, mocinho
E uma grande cavidade
Para sentir o cheirinho
Dessa sua mocidade.
- Maricota, a tua boca
Não tem lábios de beijar!
Maricota, a tua boca
Não tem lábios de beijar!
- Não é boca, meu tesouro
É um sorriso alveolar
São quatro pivôs de ouro
Presos no maxilar.
- Maricota, tuas maminhas
Tuas maminhas onde estão?
Maricota, tuas maminhas
Tuas maminhas onde estão?
- Estão na boca de um homem
E do seu filho varão
Maminhas não eram minhas
Eram coisas de ilusão.
- Maricota, que engraçado
Onde está seu buraquinho?
Maricota, que engraçado
Onde está seu buraquinho?
- Buraco só tenho um
De sete palmos neguinho
Mas é melhor que nenhum
Pra caber meu amorzinho.
- Maricota, estou com medo
Estou com medo de você!
Maricota, estou com medo
Estou com medo de você!
- Não se arreceie, prometo
Que nada tens a perder
Mais vale amar um esqueleto
Que uma mulher, e sofrer.
E a Morte levou o moço
Para o fatal matrimônio
Deu-lhe seu púbis de osso
Sua tíbia e seu perônio
Diz que o corpo decomposto
De manhã foi encontrado
Mas que sorria o seu rosto
Um sorriso enigmático
__________________________
14:01
Thursday, June 06, 2002
Mazzaropi and the Garfunkels
In Com Pacto Duplo, Jean and Paulo
Garfunkel sing a hymn to nostalgia.
Nothing gives me as much pleasure as finding connections where they are least expected. The comic actor Amácio Mazzaropi (1912–1981), screen personification of the crafty caboclo Jeca Tatu, made an appearance in these pages earlier this week, and here he is again.
Mazzaropi
(Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
Calça na canela borzeguim
Um bigodinho de pó de café
Era o sertão lá no telão da matinê
E o povo todo sendo o Jeca com você
Era uma coisa divertida de se ver.
Pra ser um palhaço
Um carlito, um caipira
No grande circo da vida
Tem que ser louco e não ser
E o povo todo sendo o Jeca com você
Era uma coisa muito linda de se ver.
Saco de pipoca, amendoim
Mais a Rosinha de braço dado
Era nós três das quatro as seis
No cine Roque
Era teu filme o nosso sonho Mazzaropi
Era uma coisa brasileira dando IBOPE.
Pra ser um palhaço...
You can listen to Jean & Paulo Garfunkel’s 5-minute live recording of this moving toada in the anthology UMES Cantarena 1. Opening their recent CD Com Pacto Duplo, the brothers’ studio version is even better.
A little masterpiece, “Mazzaropi” has been recorded several times before—by the Garfunkels with César Brunetti and Celso Viáfora, by Pena Branca e Xavantinho (twice), and by Trovadores Urbanos. In Com Pacto Duplo the song is arranged as a vocal duet with guitar and clarinet accompaniment that pays tribute not only to the actor but to Nino Rota (whose “Amarcord” theme is quoted) and to Angelino de Oliveira’s “Tristeza do Jeca” (listen to part of Ney Matogrosso’s recording).
Like the Garfunkels, Mazzaropi was a city-bred paulista who took on a caipira persona. He was also a good singer who included songs in his movies, including “Tristeza do Jeca” in the eponymous film of 1961.
In a Web chat last year, Jean Garfunkel said: “My music is above all a love declaration to Brazilian song, including various genres from waltz to rock ’n roll, and I don’t imitate those who came before but try to seek the same thing they sought. [...] I think that rock is part of our history, like chorinho, maxixe, and forró. At present I’m more for maxixe.”
The songwriter’s declaration is borne out by Com Pacto Duplo, a disc featuring a variety of musical styles (although heavy on the country accent) with arrangements by Roberto Lazzarini, Sizão Machado, Bocato, and Mozar Terra. A good distance away from “Mazzaropi” is “Yara,” an ethereally romantic song that progresses from a dreamy opening reminiscent of “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” into a vaguely oriental creation in Francine Lobo’s astonishing voice.
Yara Yara Yá
Vem soltar os teus cabelos
Se mirar
No espelho transparente
Destas águas
Luas e alvoradas
No seu corpo de sereia
Yara do Amapá
Grande rio, verde mata
Azul do céu
O teu reino é belo e pleno
De mistérios
Entre os hemisférios
Onde a vida floresceu [...]
The beautifully restrained “Por Toda Vida” poetically expresses all the ups and downs of a love affair:
Foi quando um raio de luar
Riscou um sim no seu olhar
Chamei por mim mas nem olhei pra trás
Fiquei assim como se o mar
Me convencesse a naufragar
Vi meu veleiro se afastar do cais
Aconteceu de acontecer
Inferno e céu
Medo e poder
Você e eu
Eu e você [...]
Jean sings, accompanied by Yamandú Costa (7-string guitar), Mozar Terra (piano and arrangement), Paulo Garfunkel (bass clarinet, clarinet, and G flute), Prata (Bandolim, flute, and G flute), Sizão Machado (bass), and Francine Lobo (vocalese).
“Maxixe da Neuza” is the kind of hilariously boisterous tune Mazzaropi might have sung. Paulo G. gives it all the right vocal nuances:
Minha Neuza me mandou embora
Ai ai chorei
Ai chorei que nem que
Se tivesse cascado cebola
E não casquei
Se eu soubesse eu ficava com a Aurora
Arrependi
Justo a Neuza está honesta
Ela está costurando fora
E logo vi
E logo vi
Eu logo virei bicho do mato
Virei a mesa quebrei os pratos
Virou-se a Neuza e me deu um sopapo
Eu caí de quatro
E ela disse assim
Dando ultimatum pra mim
"Arreda o pé daqui seu Merda
Vê se te enxerga e queima o chão
Que eu não tô pra vagabundo
Pondo banca de patrão
Vá curar tua tristeza
Com canjibrina no lombo
Vá procurar outras Neuzas
Na Bósnia Herzegovina
Ou no Congo
Que tu é, um homem ou um camundongo?"
E o que será que eu respondo?
Another fine vocalist, Ana Amélia, steps in to sing the brief “Má Água,” a lyrical song in the Villa-Lobos line, with an arrangement for piano, cello, and clarinet:
Água parada
Má Água
Mágoa
Estagnada essa tristeza
Escura
E o olho d'água que espelhava a lua
Agora turva refletindo
Nada
Nada
And there’s more: the humorous samba “Dois Cachorro”; “Boi Tatá,” with a long bass solo by Sizão Machado; and the reflective “Em Suma” that closes the disc on the songwriters’ summation of life:
Uma a uma
A vida carregou minhas paixões
Luzes se apagaram
Sonhos soçobraram
Em suma so sobraram canções [...]
The Garfunkels won Fampop 1985 with “Filhos do Sol”
Garfunkel & Garfunkel: Com Pacto Duplo
(Rainbow Records RR-RG 010/01; 2001) 41:45 min.
01. Mazzaropi (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
02. Tio Barnabé (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
03. Yara (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
04. Banzo (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
05. Lua de Erê (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
06. Boi Marruá (Jean Garfunkel/Oswaldo Viana)
07. Por Toda Vida (Jean Garfunkel)
08. Maxixe da Neuza (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
09. Má Água (Paulo Garfunkel)
10. Dois “Cachorro” (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
11. Boi Tatá (Jean Garfunkel)
12. Em Suma (Jean & Paulo Garfunkel)
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11:08
Tuesday, June 04, 2002
More audio samples in the Boeuf chronicles
Now you can compare Milhaud’s quotations with the original tunes right here.
Owing to a perceived lack of mp3 storage space, I had been offering only audio samples of the original Brazilian tunes quoted in the Le Boeuf sur le Toit. Having found that the space is more commodious than I’d previously thought, I've now added excerpts from Le Boeuf itself to all ten articles published so far, and I will continue to provide them in all future installments of the series.
This should make it easy for readers who don’t have a Boeuf recording to draw comparisons between the original compositions and Milhaud’s quotations. The recording I’m using is Louis de Froment’s, since the timings in the series are based on it.
Enjoy.
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11:29
Monday, June 03, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 10
On caboclos, matutos, caipiras,
roceiros, sertanejos & other clowns.
“Violeiro na Janela” by Almeida Júnior
Ambling through the first nine melodies quoted in Le Boeuf sur le Toit, we’ve encountered Marcelo Tupinambá (1889–1953) three times. As previously mentioned in Doutor Tanguinho, seven of his tunes can be found in Le Boeuf. Milhaud’s tenth quotation is also Tupinambá’s fourth composition in the rondo. “São Paulo Futuro,” “Viola Cantadeira,” and “O Matuto” were all northeastern, country-flavored songs with lyrics to match, and the tune we’re about to discuss is no exception.
In 1978, on the 25th anniversary of Tupinambá’s death, singer and music researcher Léa Vinocur Freitag wrote:
Fernando Lobo’s pseudonym synthesizes an acculturation that is quite Brazilian, a mixture of Italian opera and caboclo culture: Marcelo, from La Bohème, and Tupinambá, a sertanejo tribute.
Fifty-four years before Vinocur, Mário de Andrade wrote:
What exalts the dance music of Marcelo Tupinambá is the melodic line, very pure and varied. The composer encloses within it the heterogeneous indecision of our racial formation. At one moment it has the affectation of the almost-white city dweller, at another, the melancholy of our interior. At times it is of desperate fatalism, an immensely nostalgic longing that is heard, as in this extraordinary “MATUTO,” a song of Ceará that attains that pained sorrow of certain Russian melodies. [...] And it is in this genre of caboclo melody that Marcelo Tupinambá became admirable. In this genre that he calls tanguinho with lamentable disdain for other genres.
The Michaelis dictionary offers several definitions for ‘caboclo.’ The first three are:
ca.bo.clo adj (tupi kariuóka)
1. Copper-colored.
2. Mestiço of white with Indian.
3. Caipira, roceiro, sertanejo.
It is the third definition that concerns us here. Peasants of the sertão have always had reasons by the bushel for being sad, including regular droughts, grinding poverty, overbearing landlords, and rampaging discrimination. Yet despite the inherent sadness in many caboclo melodies, the caboclo, matuto, or roceiro type in popular Brazilian culture is typically a figure of mirth, a country bumpkin to be poked fun at.
The laughable aspects of country folks were central themes of the theatrical revues in which Tupinambá’s early songs were launched: the revista de costumes São Paulo Futuro (1914), the opereta sertaneja Scenas da Roça (1917), and Flor do Sertão.
The image of the indolent and crafty rustic simpleton was bolstered by Monteiro Lobato, who was a plantation owner prior to becoming a celebrated author. In 1914, Lobato dispatched two letters to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, complaining about the uncivilized and rebellious caboclos of his region. The second letter carped:
A nossa montanha é vítima de um parasita, um piolho da terra, peculiar ao solo brasileiro... Este funesto parasita da terra é o cabloco, inadaptável à civilização...
Começa na morada. Sua casa de sapé e lama faz sorrir aos bichos que moram em toca...
Só ele não fala, não canta, não ri, não ama. Só ele, no meio de tanta vida, não vive...
It was in this second letter that Monteiro Lobato created the figure of the quintessential caboclo Jeca Tatu, since then immortalized in numerous films by the famed comic actor Amácio Mazzaropi.
Jeca Tatu, caboclo celebrated in song,
on stage and screen
Tune No. 10: “Tristeza de Caboclo” (1919)
“Tristeza de Caboclo” is a tanguinho, the first tune Tupinambá composed under contract with Campassi & Camin, the São Paulo publishers. With Arlindo Leal’s lyrics, it became an instant hit, selling a phenomenal number of 120,000 piano scores in one year.
In Le Boeuf sur le Toit, sections A and B of “Tristeza de Caboclo” may be heard beginning at 4:58 min. into Louis de Froment’s recording.
A piano transcription of the same passage was published separately as Le Tango des Fratellini, Op. 58c and has since been recorded by classical and popular musicians such as Françoise Choveaux, Polly Ferman, Marcel Worms, Mari Kumamoto, Jeff Cohen, Alberto Neuman, I Salonisti, and the Tango Total trio (see the Le Boeuf sur le Toit select discography).
The Fratellini brothers were the artistically innovative Cirque Médrano clowns so beloved by Milhaud, his Les Six cohorts, and their artist friends. When Jean Cocteau staged Le Boeuf sur le Toit in 1920 as the ballet-pantomime farce The Nothing Happens Bar (later retitled The Nothing Doing Bar), he hired Paul, François, and Albert Fratellini to play key roles in the production. François was cast as the Red-Headed Woman, and Albert as the Woman in the Low-Cut Dress. During the course of the ballet, the two women dance a tango to the tune of “Tristeza de Caboclo.” Raoul Dufy’s drawing of the ballet characters, including the tango-dancing women, illustrates the cover of the Boeuf piano four hands edition published by Dover.
Dufy’s scene from “The Nothing Doing Bar” (courtesy of Laurent Gloaguen)
In its original version, “Tristeza de Caboclo” was recorded by the singers O Francês (on a radio program) and Roberto Fioravante (1968) and pianists Mário de Azevedo (Sinter SLP 1.090; year unknown), Marcelo Guelfi (1983), and Eudóxia de Barros (1999).
The earliest recording and the only one listed in Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database is the one by the vocal duo Os Geraldos:
Título: Tristeza de Caboclo
Gênero: Tango
Intérprete: Os Geraldos
Gravadora: Gaúcho
Número: 4043
The author isn’t named, but a piano score published by Sassetti & Cia. in Lisbon—equally anonymous but with the correct notation and lyrics—announces the song to be Repertório dos Geraldos.
Os Geraldos
We’ll hear both an excerpt sung by Roberto Fioravante in his 1968 LP Mensagem de Saudade and the complete 1983 recording by pianist Marcelo Guelfi.
In the scores of the day, “Tristeza de Caboclo” was arranged for piano or for piano & sextet. A Brazilian piano score in my possession (registered P5383, whereas the Portuguese score was registered P5380) bears the headline Cine-Orchestra and lists on the cover piano, violin A, violin B, flute, clarinet, cello, and bass.
Both scores offer these lyrics:
Tristeza de Caboclo
Tanguinho
Letra de Arlindo Leal
Musica de Marcello Tupynambá
Quando na roça anoitece
Fico sempre a meditá!..
(Côro) Fica sempre a meditá!.. [bis]
Meu coração, que padece,
Não me deixa socegá!..
(Côro) Não o deixa socegá!.. [bis]
Estribilho:
Minh'arma, com fervô,
Quando ha luá
Chora o seu amô
E sem podê se aconsolá
Garra logo a suspirá!..
(Côro) Quem ama, com fervô, etc.
Meu coração, com tristeza,
Quando surge o bom luá,
(Côro) Quando surge o bom luá!... [bis]
Sabe, com muita firmeza,
Seus queixumes disfarçá!
(Côro) Seus queixumes disfarçá!.. [bis]
Estribilho:
Minh'arma, com fervô, etc.
Quem sabe amá, com ternura,
Nunca deixa de sonhá!
(Côro) Nunca deixa de sonhá! [bis]
Não soffre a negra amargura
Que me anda a acabrunhá!..
(Côro) Que o anda a acabrunhá!.. [bis]
Estribilho:
Minh'arma, com fervô, etc.
Quando eu pego na viola,
Com vontade de cantá,
(Côro) Com vontade de cantá!... [bis]
Meu coração se aconsola,
Alliviando seus pená!...
(Côro) Alliviando seus pená!... [bis]
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13:32
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