THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAMBA Samba, like many other Afro-Latin music forms, propels and ignites the lower body — the hips, the butt, the pelvis, etc. by letting the downbeat “float.” By de-emphasizing the first beat of each measure, a rhythm becomes more sensual and ethereal; one “floats” outside the time and space of earthly existence. Repetition creates a timeless, communal otherworld, a floating ethereal cycle that is both rooted in biological rhythms and in the beyond or the meta-biological. Any activation of the hips-sex-butt-pelvis relates to the source of all life, the womb. This music is definitely a respectful prayer in honor of the sweet, the feminine, the great mother — the sensuous life-giving aspects of ourselves and our lives — and to the Earth, the mother of us all. To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware. The songs on this collection go straight to the heart of the matter. The first song by Clara Nunes re-tells a legend concerning two of the Orishas: the African (Yoruba) gods, Iansa and Ogun. Each Orisha embodies three levels of existence at once: 1) a force of nature such as wind, lightning, the earth, or the ocean, 2) a person who once lived on this earth (historical personages much like Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed) and 3) a psychological archetype — perhaps a trickster, a strong woman, or a warrior. In northeastern Brazil the worship of the Orishas is called Candomblé, and it incorporates ritual rhythms that have often been appropriated and secularized in popular songs. One can feel the direct link between the ecstatic release of rhythmically based popular songs and the spirituality that is their roots. Sub-atomic particle physics shows us that matter is nothing but interlocking rhythms and energies. There is a common respect for the sanctity of the groove. Although I have chosen many songs that reveal an African influence in their lyrics, one should not get the idea that sambas take only Afro-Brazilian culture as their subjects. One can also be transported by the groove while singing hilarious topical songs such as “S.P.C.” or a classic love song such as “Sufoco.” And, as in all successful popular songs in which the subject is a metaphor, every song is more “about” the attitude than the specifics of what is being said. As an example, in “Olerê Camará,” Alcione asks the Capoeira brothers to “open the circle.” Capoeria is traditionally a male-dominated martial art, dance, musical and philosophical system — choreographed kick-boxing with music. In recent years, women have been brought into the Capoeira Societies, and I suspect the song is as much about redefining women’s changing social roles as it is specifically about being allowed to demonstrate one’s prowess in the Capoeira circle. “Like all art, it is what it is, but it’s something greater besides.” David Byrne MARTINHO DA VILA ON SAMBA I’m a singer and a composer. Samba is the mainstay of my career — my main success. But I’ve only done five out of 20 albums exclusively of samba. Samba is for dancing and listening to — for getting across a message — but all in a very relaxed way. Samba, like all popular music, including almost all American and Brazilian music, has African origins. It began with the slaves to lighten the hard labor. In Brazil, it’s always been more relaxed, to liberate energy. The samba emerged through drums and dancing. It evolved in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro and then spread. I’ve been to New York several times. I like it very much. I’ve sung in Washington and San Francisco. The first time, people thought Brazilian music was only bossa nova, which wasn’t Samba for them, but it is. But samba of the samba schools with mulatto girls and tambourines — the more visual side — is one of the most powerful of feelings. You write a song and it’s sung “dressed up,” with fantasy and fancy dress. It’s a moving theatre with thousands of people. A samba school has about 3,000 members. The great orchestra of 300 or so drummers. An enormous audience of thousands. It’s fantastic... I don’t analyze the things I do, I just do them. Analysis is something else. But, things always evolve. As you advance, you get experience and put more things in. You know more music. You enrich musically. You meet great musicians. You write sambas with richer melodies. It’s like that — the same motivation as writing a letter. Samba is fundamental. In other rhythms you only do one kind of dance. But not in samba. It’s much freer. You can dance samba your own way. M. da Vila Most of these studio recordings were made over the past 15 years. And, although the samba has been through many styles and stages since the early part of the century (the Brazilian recordings of Carmen Miranda are wonderful), I have chosen songs that represent the form as it lives, breathes, and evolves in the contemporary market place... It survives and adapts despite the onslaught of rock & roll, slick ballad singers, and, now, heavy metal (which, incidentally, is quite popular in Brazil). Some of these songs are associated with the famous carnival samba “schools” in which live versions would be performed during carnival with thousands (!!!) of drummers, dancers and singers. Often the lead singers are the same as those on the studio recordings and, although there are many recordings of these massive displays, the sound does not really survive the transition from street environment to speaker. The radio stations in Rio play the versions found on this album along with songs by the likes of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tracy Chapman, the Housemartins, Bon Jovi, the rock group Paralamas do Sucesso, Roberto Carlos and, recently a new wrinkle from Bahia, the vocal and drum ensembles known as bloco afros.

TUDO SAMBA: ALL SAMBA It is said that Brazil is one of the most musical places in the world. It’s hard to argue with that when you consider the prominence of music-making in Brazilian popular culture and take in the nation’s full soundscape, everything from tribal rituals and country traditions to Bossa Nova and the cosmopolitanism of tropicalismo. Samba is the best known and most widely played kind of Brazilian music. Samba also designates festive gatherings, and various kinds of individual, couple and round dancing of Afro-Brazilian character. The word samba probably derives from semba, navel thrust or touching belly buttons while dancing, in the Kimbundu language of present-day Angola, from which millions of blacks were forcibly taken to the New World in colonial times. While samba-type music and dance developed in many parts of Brazil, the birthplace and home of the modern urban samba is Rio de Janeiro. The contagious dance music and song forms of present-day samba evolved from Afro-Brazilian folk expressions. The first officially registered samba was “Pelo Telefone,” a hit during the 1917 carnival in Rio. Filling the need for a powerful street music, samba soon became the dominant carnival music, and it rose as an all-season favorite with radio. Wide-ranging broadcasts helped establish samba as a national patrimony. Since the 1920s there have been dozens of star singers and samba composers. Two of these classic songwriters were Ataulfo Alves and Assis Valente. Their rare collaboration, “Batuca no Chão,” is remembered by current star Martinho da Vila on this disc. While all social classes enjoy samba, it is mainly the musical bread-and-butter of the poor who inhabit the inner-city districts, hillside shantytowns and outlying “suburbs” of Rio and other cities. Some people regarded bossa nova as a kind of middle-class samba, though it wasn’t really dance music. Bossa songwriters of the mid-1960s also composed some standard samba, as heard here in “Formosa” by virtuoso guitarist Baden Powell and Modernist poet-turned-lyricist Vinicius de Morais, whose interest in Afro-Brazilian culture once led him to call himself “the blackest white man in Brazil.” While popular music in general diversified in Brazil in the 1970s, there was a new affirmation of samba, which, while always present, had been somewhat marginalized in the media and performance circuits. Attention and appeal grew with the emergence of a series of new samba stars — Martinho da Vila, João Nogueira (founder of the Clube do Samba), Clara Nunes, Beth Carvalho — and the recognition of some Old Guard composers who had toiled in relative anonymity for decades, like Cartola, who made his first LP at age 70. Clean, energetic (and commercially viable) samba known as samba jóia (gem) rose in the voices of singers such as Agepê, who has developed in the 1980s a romantic style with broad appeal. Although he came to live in a hillside slum in Rio, Agepê was born in the Northeast and has Indian blood, showing that not all name samba players are black and Rio natives. Another “outsider” is Chico da Silva, who hails from the Amazon region, some of whose citizens go so far as to call his sambas typical local music. Stellar vocalist Alcione is from the Northern state of Maranhão, whose regional music she blends into her samba-based repertory. Clara Nunes, a native of the interior state of Minas Gerais, began her career in Rio in 1965 and became one of the foremost samba singers in the 1970s. She was the first female vocalist to have a gold record in Brazil, leading the way for the success of Alcione and Beth Carvalho. Clara made sensitive and self-produced recordings of Old Guard samba, songs by her husband (poet-songwriter Paulo César Pinheiro), and lively sambas exploring elements of folklore or African roots. Perhaps the two most important figures in the world of samba since 1970 have been performing songwriter Martinho da Vila and vocalist Beth Carvalho, both of whom began careers in the mid-1960s. Martinho joined an established samba school in the late ’60s and began an influential phase of innovation in samba de enredo. With a whispery vocal style, Martinho became a blockbuster samba artist, smashing sales records with his 1974 LP. His major contributions over the years include extensive original material, re-recording classics, appreciation of folk and regional heritage and a general broadening of samba’s appeal through varied arrangements and thematic approaches. Beth Carvalho, born in the largely white middle-class south zone of Rio, was initiated in the throes of bossa nova. She found her true vocation in the samba, the orientation of her 15 LPs since 1971, ten of which have gone gold, one platinum. Beth regards samba, as many do, as a form of “cultural resistance” — not just as a vehicle for protest during the military’s rule (1964-1985), but also as a way to assert tradition against the invasion of the multi-nationals and consumer values. Beth’s role in the 1980s surge of new samba is central. In 1977 she discovered a music collective in the Ramos district of Rio whose original tunes were so impressive that she made an album featuring their material. Thus began the slow rise of new talent that exploded in the pagode movement of the mid and late-1980s. For years the word pagode (pah-góh-gee) has meant general revelry; it has also been a local word for backyard samba parties in low-income areas of Rio. With the recent boom, the meaning has grown to cover the new samba music itself and, by extension, everything associated with the movement: larger parties at dance halls, club dates, radio play, TV time and gold records. Musically speaking, pagode is not so much a genre as a style of playing; it is very closely related to straight-ahead samba, with some percussive variations and different instruments. Most pagode players operate in Rio; they can also be found in São Paulo, and other cities and towns. With middle-class interest added to pagode fever in working-class districts, samba has never been so much on the upswing. But, as one Brazilian observer said, “Samba was never really out of fashion and anyway, samba is not fashion but truth.” The current wave of samba is well-represented on this compilation. Zeca Pagodinho, a Ramos original who first appeared on record with Beth Carvalho a few years ago, is a leading act and known as a lyricist of humor, depth and appeal. Before going solo, composer and performer Almir Guineto was a member of the ground-breaking group Fundo de Guintal, the most noted ensemble in the pagode phenomenon and the first to get a platinum record. Some other new big names are former part-time players now in their forties such as the exuberant Neguinho, who comes from the award-winning Beija Flor samba school. But while individual pagode talents do stand out, it’s still somehow a collective business, a group affair. The new crop of samba writers and singers continue time-honored lyrical themes: love, revenge, humorous situations, dancing and partying, changes in music and culture, hustling, the day-to-day struggles of the working poor, shantytown life and contrasts with those better off. With Brazil’s recent economic woes and political transition, some topics get more air time: poverty, violence, abandoned children, government ineptitude. Through it all, ethnic and class consciousness come to the surface. The pride, confidence, and emphasis on Afro-Brazilian culture of ’80s samba are heard on several tracks here. Still, any situation, feeling, idea or notion can generate a song. Everything makes for a samba, tudo dá samba. And this disc, over and over, round and round, is all samba. Tudo samba. Charles Perrone, August 1989