Tuesday, July 30, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pts. 19 & 20
The goat’s wife makes an entrance.
1954 LP cover by Lan: Almirante (tl),
Pixinguinha (tr), João da Baiana (bl),
Donga (br) (see complete list)
Henrique Foréis Domingues (1908–1980), better known as Almirante, was one of the most important personages in the history of MPB. Singer, songwriter, radio man, and prodigious archivist, he left his mark on everything he touched.
Still a lad of 21, Almirante co-founded the legendary Bando de Tangarás along with Noel Rosa, João de Barro (Braguinha), and two other young friends. The 1930 carnaval sang his hit “Na Pavuna,” whose disc was the first-ever studio recording to utilize samba percussion instruments (recorded in late 1929, it quickly set a trend for percussion in popular music and made it possible for black sambistas like Mano Elói Dias and Getúlio Marinho “Amor” to record pontos de macumba at the venerable Casa Edison).
As a singer, Almirante launched many a carnaval hit during the 1930s, including “O Orvalho Vem Caindo” (Noel Rosa/Kid Pepe), “Yes, Nós Temos Bananas,” and “Touradas em Madri” (both by Alberto Ribeiro & João de Barro). He was a close friend of Carmen Miranda and appeared with her on stage and film. Beginning in 1934, he turned his attention to radio and soon became Brazil’s most innovative and popular radio programmer, known as A Maior Patente do Rádio. In the course of 18 years, he ran 20 radio programs that served as music schools for several generations of Brazilians and lifted from oblivion great names like those of Pixinguinga and Noel Rosa. One of Almirante’s programs was called O Pessoal da Velha Guarda, which ran on Rádio Tupi during the late ’40s and early ’50s. Its orchestra presented a number of the tunes quoted by Milhaud in Le Boeuf sur le Toit in arrangements by Pixinguinha, who also conducted. The tunes were always preceded by a spoken preamble that shed some light on their origins.
Tune No. 19: “A Mulher do Bode” (1918)
“A Mulher do Bode” (The Goat’s Wife) is a polka-tango by Oswaldo Cardoso de Menezes Filho (1893–1935), a popular pianist of the type known in Brazil as pianeiro rather than pianista. As a teenager he spent several years playing in a beer hall on Rua Visconde do Rio Branco in Rio de Janeiro. He was a member of several carnaval associations such as Sociedade Dançante Carnavalesca Paladinos Brasileiros and Grupo Dançante Carnavalesco Tome Abença da Vovó. While still a youth, he became the pianist of the famous rancho Kananga do Japão. The artistic name he used was simply Menezes Filho. Although he published a number of tunes, Cardoso de Menezes never recorded or appeared on the radio. Today he’s best known as the father of famed pianist Carolina Cardoso de Menezes.
Thanks to Almirante, who presented “A Mulher do Bode” in 1950 and again in 1952, we know that several anecdotes surround this tune, all of them interesting. One of them tells that the author was inspired by a woman of ample physical attributes who used to frequent a Rio cinema accompanied by a gentleman sporting an equally copious beard. It’s unfortunate that the radio announcer, perhaps for lack of time, desisted from telling the other stories, for I found no other source for them. The full text of the presentations is provided at the bottom.
Section A of “A Mulher do Bode"” may be heard at 10:36 min. into Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit.  In counterpoint are section A of “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” and Tune No. 20,  still unidentified.
Only one recording of “A Mulher do Bode” was released during its composer’s lifetime, to judge by the listings in Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database:
Autor: Arranjo: Cardoso de Menezes Filho
Título: A Mulher do Bode
Gênero: Maxixe
Intérprete: Orquestra Cicero
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 121547
There are, however, two radio transcriptions of “A Mulher do Bode” from Almirante’s program O Pessoal da Velha Guarda, released on audio cassettes by Collector’s. Both were arranged by Pixinguinha and played by the Orquestra Pessoal da Velha Guarda.
We’ll hear an excerpt from the 1950 recording.
Almirante (right) at Rádio Nacional, 1944
Announcements from Almirante’s Rádio Tupi program O Pessoal da Velha Guarda*
“A Mulher do Bode” (from a program recorded in 1950):
A respeito da música que se segue, corre uma série de histórias, todas elas interessantíssimas. Uma delas, por exemplo, conta que o autor dessa musica, que era o saudoso pianista Cardoso de Menezes, se inspirou em um certo cavalheiro portador de um vistoso cavanhaque e cuja esposa se fazia notar por excelentes atributos fisicos que logo davam na vista. A história bem pode ser verdadeira, pois se ajusta perfeitamente ao título que Cardoso de Menezes deu a sua música: “A Mulher do Bode”. Seja como for, a célebre polca é das mais interessantes do repertório da Velha Guarda, e por isso aqui vai num arranjo de Pixinguinha.
“A Mulher do Bode” (from a program recorded in 1952):
Muitos de nossos ouvintes conheceram pessoalmente vários daqueles músicos que temos aqui frequentemente. Muitos conheceram, por exemplo, o querido pianista que foi Cardoso de Menezes, cujo virtuosismo dentro de sua classe foi motivo de admiração no seu tempo. Essa é a razão por que recebemos insistentes pedidos de músicas de Cardoso de Menezes. E a razão é porque aí vai pelo Pessoal da Velha Guarda uma de suas composições mais conhecidas e mais curiosas. Trata-se de “A Mulher do Bode”, charge em que o autor fixou certa criatura que frequentava um de nossos cinemas acompanhada de um cavalheiro de cavanhaque. Querem ouvir essa musica nessa audicão dois amáveis ouvintes do Rio: Raul Queiroz e Pedro Rosa, sendo que este se declara velho companheiro do saudoso pianista. Pois, ouvintes, aí vai, no belo arranjo de Pixinguinha, “A Mulher do Bode” de Cardoso de Menezes.
* Announcements transcribed by Alexandre Dias.
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13:45
 
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Masterful samba
Cláudio Jorge’s Coisa de Chefe
is in line for a Latin Grammy.
Few living musicians can boast of having been Cartola’s partners. Cláudio Jorge is one of those few, although boasting is not his style. I asked him how this partnership with Cartola came about, and he obliged:
I met Cartola through João Nogeira. We recorded a TV program at the Tijuca Tennis Club in Rio de Janeiro. After the recording, João called me to come over to a corner with Cartola and said: “Claudinho, listen to Cartola's new song.” Cartola sang “As Rosas Não Falam.” It was a shock, an emotion. We continued to meet at shows and parties, and in one party at the house of a friend of his, we were alone in a room, exchanging ideas on guitar harmonies. That’s when we came up with the outline for the waltz “Fundo de Quintal” that we later completed, and Hermínio Bello [de Carvalho] wrote the lyrics at Cartola’s request.
At a later time we traveled together in the Projeto Pixinguinha, presenting shows throughout Brazil. During the trip, our other song was hatched—the samba “Dê-me Graças, Senhora.” I remember that we were in Salvador, Bahia, and Cartola pushed the second part of the lyrics, written on the paper of a cigarette pack, under the door of my room. I have it saved somewhere...
I worked with him in other shows and used to visit his house in
Jacarepaguá. I recorded our waltz in my first album, Cláudio Jorge (EMI-Odeon). Our samba was recorded by Cartola in the disc commemorating his
70th birthday [Cartola 70 Anos], by the vocal group Arranco [Samba de Cartola], and I plan to record it for my next disc.
Cláudio was 41 years younger than Cartola.
Other samba legends he accompanied as a youth were Ismael Silva, Nelson Cavaquinho, and Clementina de Jesus. Today he’s one of Brazil’s most respected guitarists, a permanent fixture in Martinho da Vila’s band, and arranger for Martinho’s albums. A member of the Ala de Compositores of GRES Unidos de Vila Isabel, he’s closely allied with other sambistas affiliated with this escola de samba, including Nei Lopes, Luiz Carlos da Vila, and Agrião, whose discs (Sincopando o Breque, A Luz do Vencedor, and Samba Vadio, respectively) he produced and arranged.
All of the above accomplishments don’t prepare the listener for Coisa de Chefe, which is not only an accomplished songwriter’s and instrumentalist’s album but demonstrates his considerable singing talents as well. With backup from many of Brazil’s top instrumentalists (too numerous to list here), the disc is a party from beginning to end.
The opening number, “O Samba Melhor do Brasil,” is an obligatory tribute to the samba school of Cláudio's heart. “Amor de Fato” is a lively call for renewing a love affair. In “Novos Tempos,” the rainbow after a shower is a metaphor for soul cleansing:
A chuva chega e ela vem lavar.
Vem me livrar do mal.
É água fresca para aliviar meu coração
que secou de tanto pranto derramado
pela mágoa que se instalou no peito
de um jeito tão perverso
hoje se desfaz nestes versos. [...]
“Princípio do Infinito” sings of that which encompasses everything in life, while “Coisa de Chefe” is a manifesto reaffirming the central role of samba in the composer’s life:
[...] O samba é a minha matriz, raiz
Presente de Deus mais puro, futuro [...]
“E o Vento Levou,” a partnership with the great drummer Wilson das Neves (a mainstay of GRES Império Serrano), examines with regret a love that is no more. “O Que É Carnaval,” by the same pair, longs for the days when Escola de Samba pra gente era como família, before carnaval had become a tourist attraction.
“Panela na Pia” is a humorous samba in which the singer, having cooked an ample meal for everyone, asks the various celebrities present—Carla Perez, Caetano, Romário, Bill Clinton, Fernando Henrique, Faustão, etc.—to wash the pots. Needless to say, everyone has an excuse for not helping.
In “Solidariedade Humana,” the traditional samba percussion is augmented by strings and feminine vocals reflecting the introspective mood of the lyrics:
É...
Essa vida é dura de entender
Vou vivendo, vou pagando pra ver
Aonde é que vou chegar
Canções, violões, pandeiros e corações
Vivendo a noite das ilusões
Onde eu fui te encontrar
Se sentou junto de mim
Me olhou no fundo, assim...
Me deitou na tua cama e adeus.
Foi só solidariedade humana.
Cláudio gives over a full half of the beautiful “Só Você” to a flute solo by José Carlos. The lyrics tell a story of disillusion in the loved one. “Quando Toco na Viola” relates the pleasure and emotion of playing guitar, and the connections it makes between the past and the present in Brazil. “Estrela Cadente,” a tale of longing for more illuminated times, features a rich arrangement of strings, soprano sax (Zé Nogueira), and chorus in addition to the samba ensemble.
In “Coco Sacudido,” Nei Lopes dispenses a long string of amusing folk wisdom, with instrumental accompaniment to match. The disc concludes with the jazzily instrumental “Samba pro Luizão,” in which Cláudio shines on guitar and Leny Andrade vocalizes.
Grammy or not, this disc already is a Coisa de Chefe.
Cláudio Jorge: Coisa de Chefe
(Carioca Discos/Caravelas 270.012; 2001) 51:59 min.
01. O Samba Melhor do Brasil (Cláudio Jorge)
02. Amor de Fato (Cláudio Jorge/João Nogueira) — w/ Humberto Araújo (tenor sax)
03. Novos Tempos (Cláudio Jorge)
04. Princípio do Infinito [Sonho Doce] (Cláudio Jorge/Luiz Carlos da Vila) — w/ Luiz Carlos da Vila
05. Coisa de Chefe (Cláudio Jorge)
06. E o Vento Levou (Wilson das Neves/Cláudio Jorge) — w/ Wilson das Neves
07. O Que É Carnaval (Wilson das Neves/Cláudio Jorge)
08. Panela na Pia (Jamil Joanes/Cláudio Jorge) — w/ Toque de Prima
09. Solidariedade Humana (Cláudio Jorge) — w/ Nilton Rodrigues (trumpet), Analimar Ventapani (vocals), Cláudia Telles (vocal arrangement)
10. Só Você (Cláudio Jorge/Luiz Alfredo) — w/ José Carlos (flutes)
11. Quando Toco na Viola (Ivan Lins/Cláudio Jorge)
12. Estrela Cadente (Cláudio Jorge/Nei Lopes)
13. Coco Sacudido (Cláudio Jorge/Nei Lopes) — w/ Nei Lopes
14. Samba pro Luizão (Cláudio Jorge) — w/ Leny Andrade (vocalese), Fernando Merlino (piano)
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17:54
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
The Guinga discography
Now as a stand-alone.
I have updated the Guinga discography included in my article Guinga Rising (Brazzil, November 2001). As a magazine is not the ideal venue for a continuously udpated discography, I established a stand-alone version in my website, Musica Brasiliensis.
The discography now includes album covers, and texts of interest may follow.
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15:18
Friday, July 19, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 18
Another country damsel abducted from the carnaval.
Corso in Rio
The Rio carnaval left indelible marks on Darius Milhaud’s memory. He may not have remembered the titles of all the Brazilian carnaval tunes he had quoted in Le Boeuf sur le Toit or the names of their composers, but some images stayed with him for decades. In the unpublished article Bresilien Music [sic], written at Mills College in 1942 or ’43, Milhaud wrote:
I arrived in Brazil just in the middle of the carnaval. It is a time during which popular mirth bursts forth with a violence undreamed of by Europeans accustomed to the three days of festivity of a carnaval in Nice or Aix, interrupted by the sternness of Ash Wednesday giving way to Lent.
In Brazil three days are not enough. During the months preceding a carnaval, one organizes it. Clubs are founded, a group of friends decides that they will remain together during the carnaval festivities and thus forms a committee with a president, a vice-president, a secretary and a treasurer. The major part of their savings goes into the making or the renting of gorgeous costumes, in which ostrich feathers play an important part. For several weeks on Saturday evenings these small clubs sing and dance along the streets; they take part in the popular dances held in public squares or enter the dance halls.
In the country these same groups, seated on floats covered with foliage, sing their favorite songs on the roads, accompanied by the different instruments indispensable to all carnavalesque clubs.
It is at this period that the song of the year comes into the limelight; very soon it becomes hackneyed. One hears it sung in the street, whistled by workers going to work or by peddlers selling sherbets or green plants, carrying their merchandise on a table which they place on their heads. This song is ground out by the municipal band and creeps into the homes through victrolas and radios.
If I insist upon the importance of the carnaval, it is because the popular elements, deeply implanted in the country’s folklore, have taken an outstanding value in the contemporary music. One finds in popular Brazilian music the three main elements which are the foundation of that nation: the Indians, the negros and the Portuguese. [...]
I had also met a young cellist who played in a movie theater to earn his living; I went to his house and he showed me his first compositions. This man was Heitor Villa-Lobos. I met him again later in Paris. He was amongst the group who gathered on Thursdays at Florent Schmitt’s house in Saint Cloud, and Villa-Lobos himself invited his friends on Sundays to his apartment on the Place Saint Michel. The list of his works is tremendous. His romantic character addresses itself to every source: Portuguese, negro and Indian. Did he not even tell me that when traveling in the Amazon in search of Indian folklore he had found some themes which the Indians themselves had forgotten but that the parrots who live for two hundred years were still singing!
As they did in the case of “Caboca di Caxangá,” Milhaud and Villa-Lobos share a history of borrowing the next song.
‘Villa-Lobos:
Souvenirs de l’Indien Blanc’
by Anna Stella Schic
Tune No. 18: “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” (1918)
“Vamo Maruca, Vamo” is a carnaval song by Juca Castro and Paixão Trindade, variously tagged a samba, cateretê, baião, and maxixe (the boundaries between genres were quite blurred in those days). According to Manoel Aranha Corrêa do Lago, two of the song’s four sections are insertions of the folkloric tunes “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” and “Co-Co-Có,” both included in singer/music scholar Elsie Houston’s collection Chants Populaires du Brésil (Paris, 1930).
An article in the Collector’s website points out that the first carnaval samba, “Pelo Telefone,” was not called samba carnavalesco on the disc label but simply samba. On the other hand, “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” is one of three so-identified sambas carnavalescos released by the Phoenix and Gaúcho record companies during the same period.
Both Phoenix and Gaúcho released the composer’s own recording(s), listed in Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database along with several other interpretations:
Autor: Juca Castro
Título: Vamo Maruca, Vamo
Gênero: Samba
Intérprete: Juca Castro
Gravadora: Phoenix
Número: 213
Matriz: 1263
Título: Vamo Maruca, Vamo
Gênero: Samba Carnavalesco
Intérprete: Juca Castro
Gravadora: Gaúcho
Número: 4011
Título: Vamo Maruca, Vamo
Gênero: Samba
Intérprete: Zapparoli e Coro
Gravadora: Gaúcho
Número: 1291
Autor: Juca Castro/Paixão Trindade
Título: Vamo Maruca, Vamo
Gênero: Baião
Intérprete: Trio Madrigal & Trio Melodia
Gravadora: Continental
Número: 16.600-B
Matriz: C-2812
Data gravação: 19.03.1952
Data lançamento: Jul/1952
Autor: Juca Castro/Paixão Trindade
Título: Vamo Maruca, Vamo
Gênero: Maxixe
Intérprete: Zezinho de Lima
Gravadora: RGE
Número: 10100-A
Matriz: RGO-632
Data lançamento: Jun/1958
Another recording was made by Francisco Alves (released in 1918 according to the Collector’s site).
“Vamo Maruca, Vamo” was quite successful in the carnaval of 1918, for it appears at no. 17 of the top 20 songs of 1918 on the Time Machine 1918 website.
In Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit, one can hear section B of “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” in counterpoint against “Caboca di Caxangá” around 9:35 min. At 9:52 min. it is very audible.
The tune returns at 10:36 min., where its opening is played in triple counterpoint with section A of “A Mulher do Bode” by Oswaldo Cardoso de Menezes (1918) and the fourth unidentified tune (Tune No. 20).
Villa-Lobos also was fond of “Maruca,” which found its way into two of his compositions. It is quoted in the fourth movement (“Miudinho”) of Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4 (1930) and in his Guia Prático (1932–1949), a collection of children's and folk songs.
We’ll hear excerpts from four recordings: first a sung version of section B, performed by an unidentified children’s chorus, followed by pianist Guiomar Novaes, playing her own arrangement of section B in a Columbia recording from the 1920s. Pianist Anna Stella Schic also plays section B as arranged by Villa-Lobos in the Guia Prático, and finally our friend Alexandre Dias plays sections A and B from a period piano score published by A. Di Franco and provided by Manoel Aranha Corrêa do Lago.
Anna Stella Schic
These lyrics were published in the piano score from A. Di Franco, Editor, S. Paulo:
Vamo Maruca, Vamo...
Versos de Paixão Trindade
Musica de Juca Castro
Canto
A carta que te mandei...
Que te mandei...
Foi papé das minha mão...
Das minha mão...
A tinta foi dos meus óio...
Dos meus óio...
A penna meu coração...
Meu coração...
Vamo Maruca, vamo...
Vamo pra Jundiay...
Co's ôtro vancê vai,
Só cumigo não qué i... [bis]
Ella
Não vô não...
Não vô não quero i!
Longi de meus parente,
Vancê que judiá de mim.
II
As ave de mim tem pena...
De mim tem pena
Os campo de mim tem dó...
De mim tem dó
As ave pur me vê triste...
Pur me vê triste
Os campo pur me vê só...
Pur me vê só
Vamo Maruca, vamo...
= = =
* “Vamo Maruca, Vamo” was enough of a success to become the object of imitation. In 1919, the legendary guitarist Canhoto released “Nhá Maruca Foi S’Imbora,” a song that bears great resemblance to “Vamo Maruca, Vamo.”
Autor: Américo Jacomino “Canhoto”
Título: Nhá Maruca Foi S’Imbora
Gênero: Catira
Intérprete: Grupo O Passos no Choro
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 121514
Autor: A. Jacomino “Canhoto”
Título: Nhá Maruca Foi S’Imbora
Gênero: Samba
Intérprete: Os Geraldos
Gravadora: Gaúcho
Número: 4042
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11:19
Thursday, July 11, 2002
The Ary Barroso discography
Four hundred 78-rpm recordings
arranged in chronological order.
Ever since I discovered the Funarte 78-rpm disc database housed in the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco website, I’ve been wanting to extract the recordings of Ary Barroso’s tunes and create a table for them.
The database covers recordings made in Brazil between 1902 and 1964, a period that parallels almost exactly Ary Barroso’s life (he was born in 1903 and died in 1964).
In this database I found 400 recordings of Ary’s songs, made between 1928 and 1963. The table turned out to be so enormous and unwieldy that I broke it up into eleven manageable pages, each with three or four years’ worth of recordings. The discography begins here.
Most of the recordings were precisely dated, some were not. For additional information I combed the discography prepared by Paulo Cesar de Andrade for the chapter endings in Sérgio Cabral’s No Tempo de Ari Barroso (Lumiar Editora). Further clues as to dates were provided by Paulo Cesar de Andrade and the collector Dijalma M. Candido.
There are also pages listing LPs and CDs by category, as well as interesting articles about the composer.
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01:06
Monday, July 08, 2002
The Boeuf chronicles, Pt. 17
A country damsel and multiple thefts.
Catulo da Paixão Cearense, “um boêmio na terra”
O Pequeno Jornaleiro
O vendedor de jornais é o tipo mais despreocupado e alegre do mundo.
Tem uma alma de pássaro. [...]
Fuma, bebe aguardente, pragueja, solta pilhérias torpes, pisca os olhos maliciosamente à passagem das mulheres, canta trovas obscenas com a música da “Cabocla de Caxangá”.
— Graciliano Ramos, Paraíba do Sul, 1915
Almost from the time of its publication, Le Boeuf sur le Toit was the subject of plagiarism accusations, not a few of them inaccurate.
The Franco-Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), Milhaud’s librettist in La Création du Monde who was dubbed “Blaise du Blaisil” by Oswald de Andrade, cried out plagiarism (as apparently was his habit) on behalf of his friend Donga, whose music wasn’t even quoted in Le Boeuf. This is particularly amusing, in light of Donga’s having only a few years earlier registered to his name the communally created samba “Pelo Telefone.” In his recorded conversations with Michel Manoll, Cendrars attributed “O Boi no Telhado” to Donga. According to Alexandre Eulalio in A aventura brasileira de Blaise Cendrars, Cendrars quoted Donga as having said, “As he has used my music, tell Mr. Milhaud, your friend, to send me a postcard. He owes me this from Paris, and it would give me pleasure, as I now would like to compose The Cow on the Eiffel Tower in honor of this Paris where I have not yet been.”*
When might Donga have said this to Cendrars? Surely not in 1923, when the poet made his first visit to Brazil, as Donga had already been to Paris with Os Batutas the previous year. I suspect this quotation was born in Cendrars’ fertile imagination.
Whether or not Le Boeuf is a work of plagiarism (we?ll return to this question at a later date), it most certainly quotes at least one work with disputed authorship.
Tune No. 17: “Caboca di Caxangá” [Cabocla de Caxangá] (1913)
“Caboca di Caxangá,” a northeastern country tune, has been variously classified as canção, toada, embolada, batuque sertanejo, and samba. With the appellation samba, it predates “Pelo Telefone” by three years.
Both music and lyrics are registered to the popular poet Catulo da Paixão Cearense (1866–1946), although it’s commonly accepted that Catulo learned the tune from João Pernambuco (Pixinguinha averred at his Museu da Imagem e do Som interview that he had heard João Pernambuco play it before Catulo wrote the lyrics). The guitarist (1883–1947) very likely collected the tune from the public domain.
João Pernambuco
During the course of many years, Almirante mounted a campaign to redress the omission. In his book No Tempo de Noel Rosa (Rio de Janeiro, Livraria Francisco Alves, 1963), Almirante devoted several pages to the issue. He quoted from an interview that Catulo had given to the Diário de Notícias of Lisbon on 30 January 1935:
[...] when my most important poetic work was at its start, there appeared to me João Pernambuco, who had come from the north and, in addition to playing guitar very well, brought me a vocabulary still unperverted by contact with cultured language.
The website Cifra Antiga summarizes:
In an interview with Joel Silveira in the 1940s, Catulo da Paixão Cearense declared himself “a sertanejo of the sertão,” boasting of his ability to describe it very well, even though he didn’t know it. Part of this ability he should have credited to the guitarist João Pernambuco (João Teixeira Guimarães), to whom he was close for a number of years and who furnished him not only with several musical themes but also with a varied sertanejo vocabulary that he would use in his verses. One exemple of this collaboration is the composition “Caboca de Caxangá,” which entered history signed only by the poet.
Inspired by a toada that João showed him with the guitarist’s melody composed over popular verse, Catulo wrote extensive lyrics, impregnated with names of trees (taquara, oiticica, imbiruçu), animals (urutau, coivara, jaçanã), localities (Jatobá, Cariri, Caxangá, Jaboatão) and peregrinations around the nordestino sertão, from which was born in 1913 the embolada “Caboca de Caxangá,” classified in the disc as batuque sertanejo. And it was born for success, which would extend to the carnaval of 1914, much to the disgust of Catulo, who thought the song was been depreciated in the mouths of the foliões.
Almirante informs that the song was first published in the volume Lyra dos Salões (Rio de Janeiro, Quaresma, 1913), and that as a gesture of gratitude to his undoubted collaborator, Catulo dedicated the song “Ao Pernambuco, o insigne violãonista.”
Cláudio Carvalho Moreira and Zezão Castro, who created the website Música Nordestina, identify “Caboca de Caxangá” as “a primeira música de tonalidades rítmicas regionalistas, lembrando os folguedos do ‘Norte’” and add that the first recording “constitui-se portanto no momento zero em que a incipiente indústria fonográfica categorizou um segmento musical com referência nítida à região de onde teria vindo.”
The controversy surrounding Catulo’s usurpation would not be the only one. In this plenary session of the Assembléia Legislativa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, there’s a record of a lawsuit involving copyright infringment—probably the first one of its kind in Brazil:
1915-27/3—Fred Figner entra na Justiça Federal de Porto Alegre com ação contra Savério Leonetti por ‘infração de direitos autorais’. Com apreensão de discos e 19 matrizes, acreditamos que seja este o primeiro processo do gênero, no Brasil. Entre as músicas está Caboca de Caxangá.
Villa-Lobos, emphatic about Catulo’s plagiarism, arranged the very same song for voice & piano and included it in his song cycle Canções Típicas Brasileiras (1919–1935), with only himself credited as author.
In Louis de Froment’s recording of Le Boeuf sur le Toit, one can hear the opening of “Caboca di Caxangá” at 9:22 min. In counterpoint is section B of “Vamo Maruca Vamo” (Juca Castro/Paixão Trindade; 1918).
At 10:19 min. into Froment’s recording, the distorted chorus of “Caboca de Caxangá” is heard against section A of “O Matuto” (Marcelo Tupinambá/Cândido Costa; 1918).
The first recording was made by Eduardo das Neves, as announced on the disc itself, although the disc label identified the performers as Bahiano, Júlia [Martins] & Grupo da Casa Edison. Fundação Joaquim Nabuco’s database lists these 78-rpm recordings:
Autor: Catulo da Paixão Cearense
Título: Caboclo de Caxangá
Gênero: Batuque Sertanejo
Intérprete: Eduardo das Neves e Companheiros
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 120.521
Autor: Catulo da Paixão Cearense
Título: Cabocla de Caxangá
Gênero: Tango
Intérprete: Banda da Casa Edison
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 120.947
Autor: Catulo da Paixão Cearense
Título: Cabocla de Caxangá
Intérprete: Grupo o Passos no Choro
Gravadora: Odeon
Número: 120.954
Autor: Catulo da Paixão Cearense
Título: Caboca di Caxangá
Gênero: Toada
Intérprete: Trio Itapoan
Gravadora: RCA Victor
Número: 80.1776-B
Matriz: 13H2PB0056
Data gravação: 08.02.1957
Data lançamento: Mai/1957
Other recordings were made by Paulo Tapajós, Paulo Soledade, Os Caretas, Stellinha Egg, and Orquestra Mocambo. Trio Melodia (Nuno Roland, Paulo Tapajós & Albertinho Fortuna) sang it in the radio program Um Milhão de Melodias. The most recent recordings were made by guitarist Leandro Carvalho (in the CD João Pernambuco, o Poeta do Violão) and by Mário Adnet (in Villa-Lobos—Coração Popular).
As part of Villa-Lobos’ Canções Típicas Brasileiras, the song was committed to disc by the Quintet of the Americas and Sine Nomine Singers (in the album Xangô) and by the American soprano Roberta Alexander with pianist Alfred Heller (in the CD Villa-Lobos: Songs).
We’ll hear an excerpt from the recording by Paulo Soledade.
Catulo da Paixão Cearense, “um boêmio no céu”
In A Mulher na Música Popular Brasileira , Neusa Meirelles Costa states that Catulo’s cabocla from Caxangá, like Joubert de Carvalho’s Maringá, represented the calamitous situation in the arid northeast. They are feminine figures who stand for the purity and beauty of the sertão amidst the longing for the rural and the sadness of parting from it that were prevalent in the 1920s.
The lyrics vary considerably from one version to another. The first set below, published by Guimarães Martins and claiming exclusive proprietorship throughout the world, preserves Catulo’s original spelling of the lyrics and his name:
Cabôca di Caxangá
Canção
Catullo da Paixão Cearense
Canto
Laurindo punga, Chico Dunga, Zé Vicente
i esta gente tão valente
du sertão di Jatobá,
i u danadu du afamado Zeca Lima,
tudo chóra numa prima,
i tudo qué ti traquejá.
Estribilho
Cabôca di Caxangá,
minha cabôca, vem cá [bis]
Solo
Quiria vê se essa gente também sente
tanto amô, cumo eu sinti,
quando eu ti vi em Cariri!
Atravessava um regato no Patáu
i escutava lá nu mato
u canto triste du urutáu.
Estribilho
Cabôca, demônio mau,
sou triste cumo u urutáu! [bis]
Há muino tempo, lá nas moita das taquara,
junto ao monte das coivara,
eu não ti vejo tu passá!
Todo us dia, inté a boca da noite,
eu ti canto uma toada
lá debaixo du indaiá.
Estribilho
Vem cá, cabôca, vem cá,
rainha di Caxangá. [bis]
Na noite santa du Natá na incruziada,
eu ti isperei i discantei
inté u rômpê da minhã!
Quando eu saía du arraiá, u só nascia
i lá na grota já se uvia
pipiando a jassanã.
Estribilho
Cabôca, frô da minhã,
sou triste cumo a acauã! [bis]
Vinha trotando pula istrada na mujica...
vi-te imbaixo da oiticica
cunversando cum u Mané!
Sinti, cabôca, istremecê, dentro do couro
arriliado, atrapaiado,
u coração du meu quicé.
Estribilho
Cabôca, inda tenho fé
di fazê figa ao Mané! [bis]
Dizapiei-me da mujica...andei a toa,
lá na beira da lagôa
chorei mais que um chorão!
Vinha di longe, dus ataio da baixada,
u mugido da boiada
que saía du sertão!
Estribilho
Cabôca, sem coração,
ó rosa dêste sertão! [bis]
Eu nessa noite, nu mucambo du Zé Móla
suspirei nesta Viola
i pru via só di ti!...
Laurindo, Pedro, Chico Bode, Nhô Francisco,
Zé Portêra i Zé du Visco,
um a um, eu lá venci!
Estribilho
Cabôca, eu morro pru ti,
só pra ti amá eu nasci! [bis]
Im Pajaú, im Caxangá, im Cariri,
im Jaboatão, eu tenho a fama
di cantô i valentão!
Eu pego u touro mais bravio, quando in cio,
cumo ponho im disafio
u cantadô logo nu chão!
Estribilho
Cabôca, sem coração,
ó rosa dêste sertão! [bis]
Cabra danado, assubo pula gamelêra,
cumo a onça mais matrêra,
u mais ligêro punangê!
Eu faço tudo, só não faço é mi querê
teu coração mais ruvinhoso
du que u sací-pererê.
Estribilho
Pru quê ti fêz Deus, pruquê,
da cô das frô dus ipê? [bis]
Mas quando eu canto na Viola a natureza,
tu não vê cumo a tristeza
mi põi tristi i jururú?
Ansim eu canto a minha dô, só quando a noite
vem fechá tôdas as frô
i abre a frô du imbirussú.
Estribilho
Caboca, um demônio és tu!...
ó frô du imbirussú. [bis]
This variation, published by Casa Mozart, utilizes conventional spelling and different names for the singer’s rivals:
A Cabocla de Caxangá
Cabocla di Caxangá,
Minha cabocla, vem cá.
Mané Francisco, Joaquim Pedro, Zé Augusto,
essa gente
tão valente
do sertão de Jatobá
e o afamado
do damnado
Juca Mola
nos gemidos da viola
tudo qué te conquistá.
Cabocla de Caxangá,
O flor morena vem cá
Queria vê se essa gente
também sente
tanto amor como eu senti
quando eu te vi
em Cariri.
Atravessava
um regato
no quartáo
e escutava
lá no matto
o canto triste do urutáo.
Cabocla demonio máo
Sou triste como o urutáo
Na noite santa do Natal
na encruzilhada,
Eu te esperei
e descantei
até o romper da manhã.
Quando eu sahia
do arraial
o sol nascia
e lá na grota já se ouvia
susirando a jassanã.
Cabocla flor da manhã
Sou triste como a acauã
Vinha trotando pela estrada
na mugica
vi-te em baixo da oiticica
conversando cum o Mané.
Senti, cabocla, estremecê
dentro do couro
atrapaiado
arreiíado
o coração du meu quicé.
Cabocla inda tenho fé
que não será do Mané
Cabra danado assubo pula gameleira
como a onça mais matreira
o mais ligeiro punangê
eu faço tudo só não faço
me querê
teu coração inda mais duro
que o muri amunganguê.
Cabocla não sei porque
tens a cor da flor do ipê
Em pajaú em caxangá em Cariri em Jaboatão
eu tenho a fama de cantor e valentão
eu pego o toro mais bravio
quando em oio
como ponho em desafio
o cantor logo no chão
Cabocla sem coração
O rosa deste sertão
Mas quando eu canto na viola a Natureza
tu não ves cumo a tristeza
me põe triste e jururú.
Por isso eu canto a minhas dores
só a noite quando se fecham as flores
e abre a flor do embirussú.
Cabocla um demônio és tu
es flor du imbirussú
Another version of “Caboca di Caxangá”—the toada “U Poeta du Sertão”—was recorded in 1927 by Patrício Teixeira and again in 1936 by Paraguassú. It was dedicated to the memory of fellow nordestino (Catulo came from Maranhão) and theatre man Arthur Azevedo, who died in 1907. Paulo Tapajós’ 1957 recording was reissued on the Revivendo CD Catulo da Paixão Cearense nas vozes de Paulo Tapajós e Vicente Celestino.
U Poeta du Sertão
Catulo da Paixão Cearense
Si chora o pinho
im desafio gemedô
não hai poeta cumo os fio
du sertão sem sê doutô
Us óio quente
da caboca faz a gente
sê poeta di repente
qui a Puisia vem do amô
Não há poeta, não há
cumo os fio do Ceará!
Dotô fromado, home aletrado
lá de côrte
se quisé mexê comigo
muito intoncê tem qui vê
Us livro dá intiligença
i dá sabença
mas porém u mato virge
tem Puisia como quê!
Poeta eu sô sem sê dotô
Sou sertanejo
Eu sô fio lá dus brejo
du sertão do Aracati
As minha trova
nasce d'arma sem trabaio
cumo nasce na coresma
nu seu gaio a frô de Abri
__________________________
15:00
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Tem gringo no samba
Non-Brazilians make Brazilian music too,
and it’s not all bossa nova.
Brazilian music seduces. The first taste came in the early 1940s, when Carmen Miranda took the world by storm, teaching it to samba. Twenty years later, jazz musicians got hooked on bossa nova. The musicians of today explore further, often working with Brazilian colleagues and sometimes producing hybrid genres.
Judy Handler & Mark Levesque
The guitar duo of Judy Handler & Mark Levesque included five Brazilian compositions in the handsomely produced CD Acoustic Blend, a collection of international tunes. They’re not Brazil specialists, although Mark is deeply interested in Brazilian music. In this album the selections veer toward choro and bossa nova. From Waldir Azevedo’s repertoire they chose the somewhat atypical Spanish-tinged waltz “Chiquita” (albeit one of the composer’s hits), in which Mark plays bandolim and Judy guitar, with flute counterpoints by Anne Lemke, all at a leisurely pace, which prevails throughout the Brazilian section.
João Pernambuco’s classic “Sons de Carrilhões” is a challenge for any guitarist, having been interpreted by so many great musicians, including the composer. I would like to have heard more variety in tone and cadence here. In “Tico-Tico no Fubá” the two permit themselves some improvising and pick up the speed somewhat. Particularly tasty is Mark’s mandolin solo. “Pé de Moleque,” delivered in bossa-nova tempo, is enriched with bandolim (Mark plays both mandolin and bandolim on this album), flute, and discreet percussion. The final Brazilian cut is the most successful: Bonfá’s “Samba de Orfeu,” where the couple, with flute, bass, and drum accompaniment, takes off on a truly personal statement.
Listen to audio samples from Acoustic Blend.
Judy Handler & Mark Levesque: Acoustic Blend
(Independent JM 01; 2001) 51:37 min.
Brazilian tracks:
Chiquita (Waldir Azevedo)
Sounds of Bells [Sons de Carrilhões] (João Pernambuco)
Tico-Tico no Fubá (Zequinha de Abreu)
Pé de Moleque (Celso Machado)
Samba de Orfeu (Luiz Bonfá)
Chris Wells
English drummer/percussionist Chris Wells works primarily with Brazilian artists, as both writer and producer. This year he released his debut album Pra Sempre, a culmination of his various collaborations. The disc, recorded last year in Rio, São Paulo, Memphis, and London, features performances by Ivan Lins, Coro do Batacotô, Mestres da Bateria da Mangueira, American keyboardist and Hammond B-3 crack Charlie Wood, Cassiano (from Mestre Ambrósio), drummer Téo Lima, and bassist Sizão Machado. Most of the singing is done by two of Chris’ co-authors, Valdo Silva and Mônica Vasconcelos.
Chris has been writing songs with his three Brazilian partners for the past five years. “Valdo Silva,” tells Chris, “is a very talented singer/songwriter without an outlet for his work, so for the time being this CD is as close as he is to an album of his own. Mônica is a singer based in London, while Pedro Casadalma, also living in the UK, is a mineiro and Milton Nascimento's godson.”
Pra Sempre is an interesting mix of MPB and R&B, with a heavy dose of drums and keyboards. Says Chris:
Although I was born in England, my musical roots are American, through jazz, soul, blues and gospel, and I felt it appropriate that the album reflect this in some way. Charlie Wood’s contribution was the vehicle for this. I wanted to introduce something different into the equation, so as not to stand accused of making yet another “gringo latin jazz” record. Similarly, I didn’t want to pursue the route of mixing Brazilian music with drum ’n bass, as taken very successfully by labels such as Trama, principally because it doesn’t reflect my musical background. So I decided to tap into R&B and blues, because they are the forms with which I have been most closely involved, other than MPB.
The keyboard side of things took care of itself, in that I took the tracks recorded in Brazil to Memphis, for Charlie to record. Apart from mapping out my basic ideas to him, I specifically wanted Charlie to play in his way, rather than adapting his style too much. As far as I am concerned, swing is swing wherever you happen to be in the world, and I was very happy that the experiment proved successful. It was also interesting to see the reaction of the various musicians in Brazil, which was one of unanimous approval.
As far as the drumming was concerned, aside from the tracks with Téo Lima, my aim was to combine my studies of Afro-Brazilian percussion with R&B, both conventional drums and loops, and use them alongside each other on certain songs. Another major influence was the way in which (for example) Marcos Suzano uses traditional percussion instruments, particularly pandeiro, in a different context from that in which they would usually be found, thus creating new timbres without resorting to electronics.
Pra Sempre is a thoroughly enjoyable and well-designed production, both aurally and visually.
Download an mp3 sampler.
Chris Wells: Pra Sempre
(moo-phonix 120101; 2002) 58:29 min.
01. Todos os Santos (Chris Wells/Pedro Casadalma) — Coro do Batacotô
02. Velas Içadas (Ivan Lins/Vitor Martins) — Ivan Lins
03. Chuva de Junho (Chris Wells/Valdo Silva) — Valdo Silva
04. Samba da Ponte (Chris Wells/Mônica Vasconcelos) — Valdo Silva, Fabiola, Coro do Batacotô
05. Notícias (Chris Wells/Pedro Casadalma) — Valdo Silva
06. Atabaque (Chris Wells/Mônica Vasconcelos) — Mônica Vasconcelos
07. Música e Letra (Chris Wells/Pedro Casadalma) — Valdo Silva, Coro do Batacotô
08. Jesus Índio (Chris Wells/Mônica Vasconcelos) — Mônica Vasconcelos
09. Sobre o Papel (Chris Wells/Pedro Casadalma) — Coro do Batacotô
10. Transformação (Chris Wells/Valdo Silva) — Valdo Silva
11. Agosto (Chris Wells/Valdo Silva) — Valdo Silva
12. Pra Sempre (Chris Wells/Valdo Silva) — Valdo Silva, Coro do Batacotô
Joe Carter
Guitarist Joe Carter is a Brazilian jazz expert. He’s performed in Brazil since the 1980s, alongside some of the greatest names of the genre.
Carter has released three elegant Brazilian discs in the past six years. The earliest, Um Abraço no Rio, is a quartet album recorded in Rio de Janeiro with harmonica virtuoso Maurício Einhorn, bassist Luís Alves, and drummer João Cortez. This was followed by The Samba Rio Trio, with New York-based bassist Nilson Matta and drummer Portinho. His most recent release is the duo album 2 for 2, with Nilson Matta.
The harmonica is one of the two most distinctive accent instruments in Brazilian music (the other is the accordion), and Um Abraço no Rio wastes no time in introducing it at the beginning of the opening track, Tom Jobim’s “Wave,” which sets the tone for this beautifully contemplative album.
“Swingingly contemplative” is how one could describe all three albums. The Samba Rio Trio is more resonant in its sound than Um Abraço no Rio, although I suspect that this has to do more with the engineering than with the playing. In addition to standards, the disc offers some original compositions: Nilson Matta’s “Paraty” and “This Is for Luisa” and Carter’s “Samba Contente” and “Sonho de Marina.”
Listening to the CDs in chronological succession, one can observe the music becoming sparser as the number of instruments diminishes. In 2 for 2, the melodies often are pared down to distinctive strings of single notes, with no loss of sophistication (indeed, the opposite is true).
The original tunes in the latest disc include Carter’s “Papa’s Baião” and “Olinda” and Matta’s “Nascente.” Particularly striking is the interaction between Carter and Matta as they pass the melody back and forth between guitar and bass. They do this brilliantly in “Influência do Jazz,” and then Joe takes off on a flight of fancy that culminates with tune quotations galore. Considering how Carlos Lyra’s song was a lament against the influence of foreign music on MPB, making real jazz out of “Influência do Jazz” is the final riposte in the debate.
Another favorite track is “Berimbau”—often performed in a somewhat frantic mode but here done in the meditative style of Baden’s later years.
A truly gorgeous CD.
Listen to audio samples from Joe Carter’s discs.
Joe Carter with Nilson Matta: 2 for 2
(Empathy Records E1011; 2001) 54:13 min.
01. Feitio de Oração (Vadico/Noel Rosa)
02. Papa's Baião (Joe Carter)
03. Luciana (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
04. Olinda (Joe Carter)
05. Lígia (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
06. Influência do Jazz (Carlos Lyra)
07. Berimbau (Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes)
08. Feitiço da Vila (Vadico/Noel Rosa)
09. Nascente (Nilson Matta)
10. Do You Remember That Picture, Chicão? (Maurício Einhorn/Alberto Araújo)
11. Estrada do Sol (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Dolores Duran)
Joe Carter: The Samba Rio Trio
(Empathy Records E1009; 1996) 53:09 min.
01. Insensatez (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
02. Paraty (Nilson Matta)
03. Alvorada (Maurício Einhorn/Arnaldo Costa/Lula Freire)
04. Lamento no Morro (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
05. This Is for Luisa (Nilson Matta)
06. Samba Contente (Joe Carter)
07. Se É Tarde Me Perdoa (Carlos Lyra/Ronaldo Bôscoli)
08. Sonho de Marina (Joe Carter)
09. Fungi Mama (Blue Mitchell)
10. Amor em Paz/Inútil Paisagem (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
The Joe Carter Quartet: Um Abraço no Rio
(Empathy Records E1008; 1996) 54:05 min.
01. Wave (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
02. Dindi (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Aloysio de Oliveira)
03. Samba de Orfeu (Luiz Bonfá)
04. Tarde em Itapoã (Toquinho/Vinicius de Moraes)
05. O Leãozinho (Caetano Veloso)
06. Joyce's Samba (Maurício Einhorn/Durval Ferreira)
07. Brigas Nunca Mais (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes)
08. Triste (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
09. Tristeza de Nos Dois (Maurício Einhorn/Durval Ferreira/Bebeto)
10. Esperança Perdida (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Billy Blanco)
__________________________
13:29
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