20/11/2002
- Tamsin Austin
Just how much can be gleaned about the culture
and music of a country one hundred times the size
of Scotland in just ten days...? My research trip
to Brasil was a activity packed whistle stop trip
from São Paulo to Recife to Baracena in Pará
and finally to Rio. On route we met, played with,
danced with and talked to a great many musicians,
and absorbed a quite breath-taking miasma of sounds.
From the raw grate of the rabeca fiddle and the
plaintive singing of Mestre Salustiano in the dust
of a Forró in Olinda to the hip-swaying,
honeyed vocals of a young samba singer in a smoky
Rio bar. Open-fire rapping and beat boxing of Z'África
Brasil and the delicious melancholy grooves of Orquestra
Popular de Câmara in São Paulo, the
tightest funkiest jangle of lamabada rhythms in
the Pará jungle through to stabbing horns
and improvised Maracatu singing in Recife...not
to mention the persistant city soundtrack of MPB
on the radio... it was all there, laying out the
musical map of a country rich in not only its own
indigenous music but the musics of its many settlers.
Music which while retaining a sense of its origin
has in many areas developed into a highly contemporary
sound.
Music
as a common language the world over is never more
apparent than when travelling in a country where
you don't speak the language. Where music is played
for the same reasons as it is everywhere in the
world, for dancing, for celebration, for entertainment,
the roots are the same. The Forró in Olinda
for example, a dance for the community with music
played by members of the community, a social event
along exactly the same lines as a Scottish ceilidh,
a Cajun dance or an Argentinian Milonga.
Coming
from Scotland where little is generally known
about Brasilian music, bar Astrud Gilberto and
DJ Marky and where avid fans must stay up until
all hours of the night to hear Radio 1's Gilles
Peterson play Azymuth or Gilberto Gil or tune
in to the occasional 'world music' show on Radio
3, it was a revelation to find so much other music
out there and fantastic to think that the MPBBPM
project was going to open our eyes and ears and
deepen our understanding of Brasilian music in
Scotland and ultimately influence new music to
be created by the musicians from both countries.
|
|
|
