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JOHN ARMSTRONG'S BRAZILIAN
CHARTS - JANUARY 2006 FIVE FOR THE DIVE:CONTEMPORARY DANCE PICKS 1 VANESSA DA MATTA- AI AI AI. Bahian Vanessa's been around a few years now, but this tune is set to break her into the big time. Top of almost every Brazilian radio pop playlist at present, it harnesses a classic Jorge Benjor-like melody to a merciless commercial House hook. Also check EU SOU NEGUINHA from the same LP, which is more on the drum & bass tip - both magic. 2 ALCIONE- MEU EBANO Mangueira's most celebrated daughter celebrates nearly 40 years in the business with her biggest hit for years. 3 IVETE SANGALO - ABALOU Unstoppable: that's the only epithet for Ivete. I'm still playing SORTE GRANDE and PERERE from her last LP and she's already hitting with another bomb. The new album finally establishes her (as if we didn't already know) as a major international artist: consistently good (at least five cuts I'm playing out, but ABALOU is probably the most immediate choice), and with a cracking production sound to match. 4 SKANK - VAMOS FUGAR (BAILE FUNK REMIX) Just as the whole pancadao/popazuda thing reaches that 'yeah, yeah, heard it all before, so what?' stage that reggaeton hit at about the middle of last year, it's refreshing to hear the baile funk influence used in a number of Brasil Rock remixes, one of the most effective of which is this new twist on the supergroup's massive 2004 hit. 5 RAPAZOLLA - CORACAO Every so often on the forro scene, a song comes along that's so cool that everyone wants to (and does) record it. We saw it a couple of years back with ESPERANDO NA JANELA from the movie soundtrack Eu, Tu E Eles, with Targino Gordim's composition catching the ear of everyone from Gilberto Gil to Calcinha Preta. And now, this beautiful Dorgival Dantas tune's had the forro pe de terra (rootsical) treatment from O Karaiva, as well as the pop-forro version by Os Avioes de Forro. Rapazolla, though, give the song a Salvador-style axe treatment that works perfectly. ...AND FIVE FOR THE DRIVE: FOR LISTENING AND CHILLING 1 TOTONHO VILLEROY - SAO SEBASTIAO Potentially the most fertile semi-undiscovered Brazilian music scene at present is that of Porto Alegre: it has all the buzz that Rio did in the 60s, or Recife in the 90s, with its contrast of gaucho and country & western acts every bit a match for their North American counterparts (Dallas Company and Tradicao being particular favourites of mine), and its boho 'Portunhol' (Portuguese/Spanish) coffee-bar singer-songwriter scene, the only artist from which has achieved truly national recognition being Adriana Calcanhoto..to which can now be added Vitor Ramil (see my two compilations NU BRAZIL VOLS 1 & 2), Bebeto Alves - and the startlingly brilliant Totonho Villeroy. This song deservedly won the Brasil Grammy 2005 in the Singer-Songwriter category, and the whole (live) album is a poetic joy from beginning to end. 2 PAULINHO PEDRA AZUL - QUARENTA ..although frankly, it could have been any one of Paulinho's twenty-odd LPs - but this 1994 album, unlike almost all the rest of his works, which are on shoestring independent labels, had national distribution and thus is easier to find. Hardly known outside of the interior singer-songwriter club circuit of his native Minas Gerais and South Bahia (forget internationally), but now living, I'm told, partly in Rio and partly in Porto Alegre, he's a songwriters' songwriter, a cult artist among his peers, and said to be one of Chico Buarque's two or three favourite composers - so he must be doing something right. This record mixes Paulinho's own compositions with some real beauties by Elomar, Flavio Henrique and Milton Nascimento. 3 SEU JORGE & ANA CAROLINA - E ISSO AI What can you say about Seu Jorge - a prince among men, creative, politically aware, funny, modest, universally respected across Rio society from Urca to Cidade De Deus - and (as your girlfriend will tell you, guys) bloody gorgeous looking. Makes you sick, right? This is taken from a live album pairing him with one of Rio's best young female vocalists. The record's had mixed press at home - and sometimes, it does sound as if they're freewheeling a bit - but I just love this particular song. 4 ZEZE DI CARMARGO & LUCIANO - FOI It really pisses me when smug middle-class Brazilians and Europeans sneer at Brazilian caipira ( Country Music) and dupla (duet) acts - they're the lifeblood of Brazilian CD sales, accounting for almost 70% thereof and keeping the ailing national record industry afloat. They sell to a galera from Para to Goiania, from Rio Grande Do Sul to Tocantins: an electorate for whom bossa nova is an obscure historical footnote, drum & bass an electrified form of batucada...alright, rant over...Zeze and Luciano sell literally millions of every record they release, this being from their most recent album: because they're actually very good. OK? 5 JURALDES DA CRUZ - LUGAR SEGURO ..and yet another outstanding singer-songwriter whose day is yet to come. This 2000 release is generally considered his best, having given birth to several successful covers by other artists. Of particular note is the tune NOIS A JECA MAIS E JOIA, a Jackson Do Pandeiro-inspired satire on the snobbish parochialism of Brazilian acquisitiveness, recently given a fine funky-forro treatment by Juraldes' buddy GENESIO TOCANTINS: '...if they told us that farofa was American, we'd all want to eat it...' Amen. AND FIVE OF JOHN'S RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE GUANABARA RECORD SHOP: 1 IVETE SANGALO - AS SUPA NOVAS See above. A must-have. 2 CARLINHOS BROWN-CANDOMBLES Soteropolitano renaissance-man Carlinhos Brown's work sometimes suffers from inconsistency. His genius is sufficiently versatile to become too thinly spread: 1999's 'Omelete Man' tries to please too many musical factions, and finishes up a bit of a mess; whereas 1995's 'Timbalada Dance' sounds more progressive today than most 'contemporary' Brazilian dance music. CANDOMBLES is a brave attempt to translate the notoriously elusive magic of the music of the Candomble (Yoruba/Afro-Brazilian religious) ceremony into somethng more than just the usual unlistenable field-recording. The sound becomes a bit muddy at times (I suspect, through dint of respect for the actual ceremony and the undesirabililty of overimposing 'technique' onto the essentially pure religious process). But AGUAXIRE/SALEROMI is three minutes of deep afoxe percussion and singing, worth the price of the album alone and crying out for a few tasteful Afrocentric remixes a la Joe Clausell or Osunlade. 3 DJAVAN - NA PISTA, ETC An increasingly-popular feature of the Brazilian dance scene is the remix homage to A Big MPB Star: DJ Meme probably started it all with his Tim Maia tribute set from 1999, since when DJ Ze Pedro did a good 'various artists' remix set - and now here's Alagoa's claim to international fame, Djavan, submitting to the mercies of producer/remixer Liminha. The results are very good, partly because Liminha's wisely kept things simple, but mainly because it would be hard to ruin a voice and repertoire so personal and powerful as Djavan's. The European bossa-jazz faves are there - FATO CONSUMADO, SINA - but the most effective cuts are two blindlingly clever AfroCuban-esque re-rubs of TANTA SAUDADE - in cha cha cha and Latin House formats respectively. 4 NEREU - SAMBA POWER Apart from a few impossible-to-find 70s 7" singles, this is the debut solo work from the celebrated Trio Mocoto's resident percussionist and stage comedian - and it comes up to all the high expectations voiced by the Brazilian music press over the last few months prior to its final unveiling. This is Samba With a Smile, Pagode With Pzazz, Gafieira With Guffaws (that's enough corny alliteration-Ed.) 5 ALCYMAR MONTEIRO - CARNAVAL MULTICULTURAL Having been a big fan of this Recifense forrozeiro since 1990's wonderfully O.T.T. version of BESAME MUCHO, I was excited to see that he's back on form after several years out of the studio. And make no mistake, this may be filed under 'MID-PRICE REGIONAL' , but small budget it ain't. Monteiro's taken all the North-Eastern Carnival rhythms and styles - Coco, Maracatu, Bumba-Meu-Boi, Frevo, Ciranda and the rest - and given the whole thing a big-band forro treatment in the style of his fellow accordionist Flavio Jose. There's a frevo horn section, big bloco drumming beats, and everything else you'll ever need to transport you (in spirit, at least) to Olinda, mid-February. And the last track revisits BESAME MUCHO in a sort of Jacques Morelembaum string-quartet style - weird, or what? |
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