Music in Brazil John P. Murphy | Oxford University Press Global Music Series

Mestre Salustiano visits the interior from John Murphy on Vimeo.
Mestre Salustiano visits the places in the interior of Pernambuco where he grew up and learned to perform cavalo-marinho and other traditional genres.
Mestre Salustiano visita os lugares no interior de Pernabuco onde nasceu e foi criado a aprendeu a brincar cavalo-marinho e outros folguedos tradicionais.
Recorded/gravado 16 june/junho 1991 by/por John Murphy

[originally posted 2008-12-11 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

Sérgio Gusmão sent these four photos he took on Sept. 4, 2008 at Mestre Salustiano's funeral service.

[originally posted 2008-12-08 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

On May 19,1991, Mestre Batista, master performer of cavalo-marinho, a Brazilian performance tradition that combines music, dance, drama, comedy, and costume, gathered the musicians of his cavalo-marinho group and some friends and neighbors for an afternoon of music-making. Batista was in the last year of his life, suffering from throat cancer; he is directing, with a white towel around his neck. I had interviewed him multiple times during my ethnomusicological field research. His full cavalo-marinho group was not performing. He suggested this music session so I could get a sense of the music his group played. We had done a similar, smaller session in March that I had recorded in audio and photos. This is how cavalo-marinho music sounded as played and sung by the best players and singers of the region at that time. The members of the banco (musical group) are Luiz Paixão, rabeca; Manoel Deodato, vocal and pandeiro (now deceased); Biu Roque, vocal and bage (reco-reco), Mané Roque (Biu's son) bage; Sidrak, mineiro (ganzá). Inácio Lucindo da Silva is in the yellow shirt. The tall man in the white shirt who does the Mateus role and strikes a plastic bottle (a substitute for the inflated ox bladder or bexiga) against his thigh is Mané Jacó; his shorter colleague in the Sebastião role is Basu. I recorded this in Hi8 video and audio at Mestre Batista's farm, Sítio Chã de Camará, município de Aliança, Pernambuco, Brazil. Higher-quality versions of this video can be found at web3.unt.edu/murphy/brazil

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[originally posted 2008-10-05 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

This is an excerpt from the most complete performance of cavalo-marinho I saw during my fieldwork in 1990-91. Siba and I recorded 8 hours of it on video, starting around 9 p.m. and continuing through dawn as Mestre Inácio's group, with Cravo Branco as Mateus and Luiz Paixão on rabeca, played in front of a bar in Condado, Pernambuco.

[originally posted 2008-09-14 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

Maracatu rural at Mestre Batista's house at Chã de Camará, near Aliança, Pernambuco, on November 24-5, 1990. Mestre Juruti do Norte and Mestre Cigarra are the poet/singers.

[originally posted 2008-09-14 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

This video in two parts is a sampling of music and dance from a patron saint festival in Condado, Pernambuco, on Jan. 27-28, 1991. In part one there is ciranda, mamulengo, an MC Hammer song, a glimpse of a truck that carries a trío elétrico, and cavalo-marinho (Inácio Lucindo da Silva's group with Luiz Paixão on rabeca). In part two there is Maracatu Leão Cordoado from the town of Tupaoca (their improvised lyrics refer to being videoed for Rede Globo, but it was just me filming) and more cavalo-marinho.

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Part two

[originally posted 2008-09-08 | reposted here 2010-12-27]

This man in Aliança, Pernambuco, Brazil let me video his rooster gig bag on Jan. 27, 1991. For a while I called this his "cock fight gig bag," but I don't know for sure that he was headed to a cock fight. I wish I had asked more questions about it at the time. Maybe he deals in roosters and was taking this to a customer. Maybe he will see this video and get in touch to set me straight. It's definitely a gig bag, though (musicians' term for a soft instrument case that's lighter than a regular case). This is part of the video I shot during ethnomusicological field research in 1990-91. Most of that footage is of performances, but I also recorded landscape/soundscape shots and street scenes, plus family stuff.

[originally posted 2008-09-08 on musicinbrazil.blogspot.com | moved here on 2010-12-27]

Está no ar a Rádio Batuta, web rádio do Instituto Moreira Salles, coordenada por este escriba (Francisco Bosco).
A rádio tem o objetivo primordial de interpretar o acervo musical do IMS, composto por cerca de 100.000 fonogramas, na sua maioria em 78 rpms.
Tem também aulas, conferências, documentários, cursos .
Espalhem pelos colegas simpatizantes da música e cultura brasileiras.
O endereço é www.ims.com.br/radiobatuta.
Francisco Bosco
via
Prof. Charles A. Perrone
===
Radio Batuta, the web radio station of the Instituto Moreira Salles, is on the air, coordinated by Francisco Bosco. The goal of the radio is to make available the musical archive of the Instituto Moreira Salles, which includes approximately 100,000 sound recordings, most in 78rpm format. There will also be classes, conferences, documentaries, and courses. Please spread the news among colleagues interested in Brazilian music and culture.
The address is www.ims.com.br/radiobatuta.
Francisco Bosco
[Thanks to Charles Perrone for the link.]

Hermeto Pascoal interviewed at The Checkout

Describing forró as "accordion-driven" has become a cliché. I've done it myself. How did this happen? Who was the first to describe forró this way? What other "[instrument name]-driven" style labels are there? The answer lies in some asterisk-driven web searching that I lack the time to do at the moment. Just wanted to put this thought on here in the hope that someone else has already determined the first use of this phrase and is willing to share that information.

Forró is not the only genre that attracts this tag (see zydeco, vallenato, conjunto. Accordion is not the only instrument that can drive. Guitar, bass, and piano drive a lot more.

Some preliminary google searching:
8/20/2010
"accordion-driven" 24,900
"saxophone-driven" 6,920
"trombone-driven" 1,980
"trumpet-driven" 3,320
"guitar-driven" 1,250,000
"bass-driven" 105,000
"piano-driven" 72,500

Where did this "-driven" formula come from? What does it mean to say a style or song is "driven" by an instrument?