Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Choro
Much less known,
choro
(literally “crying”) appeared in Rio around the time of World
War I, and by the 1930s had evolved into one of the most intricate and enjoyable of
all Brazilian forms of music. It's one of the few Brazilian genres that owes anything to
Spanish-speaking America, as it is clearly related to the Argentine
tango
(the real River
Plate versions, that is, rather than the sequined ballroom distortions that get passed off
as tango outside South America).
Choro
is mainly instrumental, played by a small
group; the backbone of the combo is a guitar, picked quickly and jazzily, with notes
sliding all over the place, which is played off against a flute, or occasionally a clarinet or
recorder, with drums and/or maracas as an optional extra. It is as quiet and intimate as
samba is loud and public, and of all Brazilian popular music is probably the most
delicate. You often find it being played as background music in bars and cafés; local
papers advertise such places. The loveliest
choros
on record are by
Paulinho da Viola
,
especially on the album
Chorando
. After years of neglect during the post-war decades
choro
is now undergoing something of a revival, and it shouldn't be too di
cult to
catch a
conjunto de choro
in Rio or São Paulo. The eponymous
Casa de Choro
in Brasília
is another outpost.
North by Northeast
A full list of other “traditional” musical genres would have hundreds of entries and
could be elaborated on indefinitely. Some of the best known are
forró
,
maracatú
,
repentismo
and
frevo
; you'll find them all over the Northeast but especially around
Recife.
Baião
is a Bahian style that bears a striking resemblance to the hard acoustic
blues of the American Deep South, with hoarse vocals over a guitar singing of things
like drought and migration.
Axé
, also from Bahia, is a samba-and-reggae mix that is
the basis of inescapable and rather repetitive, light Brazilian pop in Salvador and
elsewhere.
Carimbó
is an enjoyable, lilting rhythm and dance found all over northern
Brazil but especially around Belém; a souped-up and heavily commercialized version
of
carimbó
enjoyed a brief international vogue as
lambada
in the 1990s.
Bumba-meu-
boi
,
the haunting music of Maranhão,
is one of the strangest and most powerful of all
Brazilian genres.
A good place to start is with one of the dozens of CDs and DVDs by the late
Luiz
Gonzaga
, also known as
Gonzagão
, which have extremely tacky covers but are
musically very good. They have authentic renderings of at least two or three
Northeastern genres per record. His version of a beautiful song called
Asa Branca
is
one of the best loved of all Brazilian tunes, a national standard, and guaranteed to
reduce any homesick Northeasterner to tears immediately.
The golden age: 1930-60 and the radio stars
It was the growth of radio during the 1930s that created the popular-music industry
in Brazil, with home-grown stars idolized by millions. The best known was
Carmen
Miranda
(1909-55), spotted by a Hollywood producer singing in the famous Urca
casino in Rio and whisked off to film stardom in the 1930s. Although her hats made
her immortal, she deserves to be remembered more as the fine singer she was. She was
one of a number of singers and groups loved by older Brazilians, including
Francisco
Alves
,
Ismael Silva
,
Mário Reis
,
Ataulfo Alves
,
Trio de Ouro
and
Joel e Gaúcho
. Two great
songwriters,
Ary Barroso
and
Pixinguinha
, provided the raw material.
Brazilians call these early decades
a época de ouro
, and that it really was a golden age
is proved by the surviving recordings. It is slower and jazzier than modern Brazilian
music, but with similar rhythms and beautiful, crooning vocals. Even in Brazil it used
to be di
cult to get hold of
records
of this era, but after years of neglect there is now a
widely available series of reissues called
Revivendo
.
