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Brazilian music studies at the fountainhead, where it's still brilliantly played and danced to, in Salvador da Bahia, Brasil and in the Bahian Recôncavo (the concave-shaped region around Bahia's Baía de Todos os Santos, where the sugarcane plantations were and are located, a region swathed-over in a rich reddish brown soil called massapê, where samba was born in the hands, hips and souls of the Bantus brought to work them). Matrizes is Sources, and that's where we're going to, literally in terms of places...Cachoeira and São Braz, and in terms of instrumentalists and teachers who will come to you and your companeiros. Matrizes is open for groups of six and more likeminded (musically) people coming to Brazil in order to study music. Group participation apart, individual lessons may be arranged across different instruments and skill levels.
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Cachoeira, with the headquarters of sisterhood Irmandade da Boa Morte to the right...
We'll begin with a trip to Cachoeira (situated on the Paraguaçu river, an hour and a half from Salvador), together with cachoeirense Matheus Aleluia, last surviving member of Os Tincoãs, a legendary group Cachoeira born and bred. Cachoeira is a beautiful colonial-era town, one-time capital of Bahia and redoubt of samba.
Mateus Aleluia
Capela d'Ajuda in Cachoeira, Bahia
Os Tincoãs, active in the '60s and '70s, sing Capela d'Ajuda, inspired of course, in the same.
Mateus was raised in candomblé (the terreiro of Ventura, just outside of Cachoeira) and was the first in Brazil to base "popular" music directly in the music of candomblé. After the demise of Os Tincoãs, Mateus moved to Angola in order to study the roots of Bahia and Brazil in Africa. He returned to Bahia after a number of years, seeing his music picked up and popularized by Carlinhos Brown, his Obaluaê becoming one of the monster hits of Carnival.
In Cachoeira, among other activities, we'll stop by to see Dona Dalva...
Dona Dalva (Dalva Damiana de Freitas) of Cachoeira, sambadeira
Dona Dalva and her ensemble sing Beira Mar (Seaside)
From Cachoeira, moving back in the direction of Salvador, we'll turn right some five kilometers before reaching Santo Amaro, at the north end of the Baía de Todos os Santos, and then left into a community founded as a quilombo, a refuge for runaway slaves.
This is the tiny community of São Braz, home to the Saturno brothers João do Boi and Alumínio, and their friends and family. And their group, Samba Chula de São Braz...
Samba Chula de São Braz
Samba Chula de São Braz are arguably the most rhythmically subtle (a great deal of this having to do with congo player Mário Santana) of the few groups left playing this kind of music, and the most charismatic. An evening of samba beneath the thatched area next to João do Boi's house will be followed by moqueca de camarão (Afro-Bahian shrimp gumbo), with locally caught shrimp, prepared by the women. The samba itself will be fueled with beer and cachaça.
Mário Santana, samba-chula and candomblé
We'll be back in Salvador before midnight.
Rhythms of Candomblé in the Terreiro and in Popular Music
Few people are better placed than Gabi Guedes to expound upon and demonstrate the links between the religous music of African Brazil and Brazil's popular music. Gabi is an alabé, principal drummer in Salvador's most storied house of candomblé, Gantois. He was appointed by Mãe Menininha herself (of the song Oração pra Mãe Menininha by Dorival Caymmi, sung by Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia).
Gabi Guedes of Gantois
Gabi in the Lonely Planet Magazine
Among many other subjects covered will be the link between cabila in candomblé angola and samba-de-roda. We'll visit a house of candomblé (Gantois, if it's functioning during the time of year of the particular visit in mind) after the ceremony has been explained, and Gabi will give classes in in the rhythms of candomblé and samba.
Having worked with Jimmy Cliff for a number of years, Gabi speaks English.
The Man from Monkey Heights
Alex Mesquita, Virgínia Rodrigues, and Rowney Scott in Amsterdam
That would be Alex Mesquita, from Colina dos Macacos (Monkey Heights, what else?), Bahia (in the Santo Amaro area). Alex, aside from teaching the history of Brazilian popular music at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, plays and records with Virgínia Rodrigues, Caetano Veloso, Carlinhos Brown, Raimundo Sodré, and others. In addition to intimately understanding (and playing) the music of the area he was born in, he also studied guitar and recording techniques at the Guitar Institute of Technology (now incorporated into the Musicians' Institute in Los Angeles, California.
Alex, who speaks fluent English, will teach several classes ranging from the everchanging course of samba in Brazil to actual guitar technique in a range of Brazilian styles.
Questions? sparrowroberts@gmail.com
Pardal "Sparrow" Roberts & João do Boi Saturno
