Brazil

Finally, some distaff musicians.

Elza da Conceição Soares was born in a Rio de Janeiro favela (slum) in the 1930s. Since the 1950s she has been a renowned samba singer. The samba has been danced in Brazil since its inception in the late 19th century. A variation of samba became popular in the mid 1940s, called Samba de Gafieira. It derived its name from the gafieira, popular urban nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro at that time. By the 50s, samba de gafieira had Rio & the rest of Brazil under its hypnotic spell.

Elza's transformation began when she was about 16. She won a radio talent contest. The shows celebrated host, the samba composer Ary Barroso, looked at her borrowed dress & muddy shoes, then asked: “My dear, which planet did you come from?” The feisty teenager replied, “From the same planet as you, sir. Planet hunger.” Then she proceeded to win the winning song, a popular favela hit called “Lama” (Mud). 

In those days, radio talent shows were a direct route to singing with the famous dance bands. Elza performed in swanky clubs & hotels, but sometimes hidden, sometimes seated, sometimes not even allowed to sing at all because she was black instead of Portuguese. Her success lay (& still lies) with her infectious presence & versatile voice, a husky croon which transmutes into seductive girlishness. Her powers of mimicry enabled her to follow the musical stylings of the day, but samba is her true music.

In 1962, on the night Brazil won the football World Cup, the singer met the young black footballer, Manuel Garrincha, a huge star at the time. It was instant passion. The relationship unleashed a tabloid feast of photographs of the starry couple, but Garrincha was married with 10 children. Elza was a black nightclub singer, a single parent. She was labeled the villain. Their affair survived several volatile years: their son was later killed in a car crash; Elza was regularly crucified by the press; & Manuel succumbed to alcohol. She was left broken-hearted. Soares is reluctant to discuss Garrincha, though she says poignantly, “He gave me my first Billie Holiday album.”

The break-up traumatized her, but she fought on. In the early 1970s, at the height of the military dictatorship, she sang “Opiniao” (Opinion), railing against the military repression. She was arrested at home without explanation: “Soldiers came to my house with machine guns, & put my children on to the streets,” she says. She was forced to flee to Rome for a time.

By the 1990s, Soares was reduced to the charrascarias  (barbecued meat restaurants) circuit. Then in 1999, BCA invited her to London to perform in "Since Samba has been Samba", a reunion of leading musicians from the revolutionary 1970s. The retro disco-samba-queen's cabaret style seemed incongruous, but the Brazilians hailed her as a queen. In 2000 Elza Soares was nominated to represent Brazil in Radio 3's "World Milliennium Singers" program.

 Elza Soares - Se Acaso Você Chegasse, Odeon BR-XLD 10.453-.454, 1960.
all decryption codes in comments

Side 10.453 –

Se Acaso Você Chegasse

Casa de Turfista / Cavalo de Pau

Mulata Assanhada

Era Bom

Samba em Copa

Dedo Duro

Side 10.454 –

Teleco-Teco #2

Contas

Sal e Pimenta

Cartão de Vista

Nêgo Tu...Nêgo Vós...Nêgo Você...

Não Quero Mais

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Silvia Maria Peixoto Vieira (born September 16, 1951 in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil - died June 25, 2008 from complications from breast cancer) was better known as Silvinha or Sylvinha Araújo. She was a great Brazilian singer & songwriter. She has been called the Janis Joplin of Brazil.

Silvinha began singing folk songs arranged by her mother who was a music teacher in São João del Rei. She was performing on radio & at cultural programs by 1963. Along with the folk songs she sang, her repertoire now included music of the Beatles & famed Italian songbird Rita Pavone, as well as other artists that she liked. In 1965 she was invited by Aldair Pinto to move to Belo Horizonte to act on a television program just for women. Two years later to she moved to Rio de Janeiro to be a member of the singing cast of the populat TV program Do Chacrinha. She was then hired by TV Excelsior São Paulo & sang for some time on Dos Incríveis, then moved to the TV show of singer Eduardo Araujo called O Bom. Silvinha & Eduardo were subsequently married & were together until her death in 2008.

In 1967 she recorded for the first time, a single containing the songs “Vou Botar pra Quebrar” & “Feitiço de Broto” (both by Carlos Imperial) on the Odeon imprint. The following year she toured with the musical Da Rhodia, singing in Fenit, in São Paulo, & at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro. When the tour ended, she was hired by TV Tupi to rejoin the program Dos Incríveis, but six months later she left television to more fully pursue her recording career.

She recorded three LPs for Odeon in the years 1968, 1969, & 1971.

Silvinha was an integral part of the Música Popular Brasileira & Jovem Guarda movements in Brazil in the late 60s & early 70s. MPB is a trend in post-bossa nova urban popular music. It is a combination of original songwriting & updated versions of traditional Brazilian urban music styles like samba & samba-canção with contemporary influences, like folk, rock, pop, & jazz. MPB debuted in the mid-1960s. MPB artists & their audiences were largely connected to the intellectual & student population, causing later MPB to be known as ‘university music’. Like the bossa nova, MPB was an attempt to produce a national Brazilian music that drew from traditional styles. MPB made a considerable impact in the 1960s, thanks largely to several televised music festivals & prorams, particularly Jovem Guarda.

Jovem Guarda (young guard) was a Brazilian musical television show first aired by Rede Record in 1965, though the term soon expanded so as to designate the entire movement & style surrounding it. The members of the program were singers who had been influenced by the American rock n' roll of the late 1950s & British Invasion bands of the 1960s, though the music often became softer, more naïve versions with light, romantic lyrics aimed at teenagers. For a long time, the program was the leader of the audience ‘youth Sunday afternoons’.

Both MPB & Jovem Guarda borrowed elements from other styles of music, of the bossa nova & samba for MPB, of rock’n’roll for Jovem Guarda, & both relied on thinly-veiled criticism of social injustice & governmental repression, often based on progressive opposition to the political scene characterized by military dictatorship, concentration of land ownership, & imperialism.

 Silvinha Araujo – Silvinha 1971, Odeon MOFB 3693, 1971.

Lado A –

Você já Morreu e se Esqueceu de Deitar..
O que Fazer pra te Esquecer ..
Estou Pedindo Baby..,
Deixa o Cinza deste Inverno Passar..
Pra Toda Geração ..
Paraiba….

Lado B –

Risque ..
Seu Amor Ainda é Tudo pra Mim…
Leve a Vida..
Nossos Filhos Serão pais ..
É Minha Opinião

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Let me say right from the outset, Satanique Samba Trio is not a trio. The are a quintet or occasionally a sextet, but they are definitely Satanique. The Trio are: RC Ballerini – guitar; Munha – bass; Hideki – cavaquinho; Flávio Rubens – clarinet; & Lupa – drums. The quintet is tentatively a sextet with the presence of guest musician George Lacerda – percussion. They are all classical musicians from the University of Brasilia (UNB).

Iconoclasts in their native Brazil, Satanique Samba Trio play everything from no-wave punk to Tropicalia’s 60s psyche-freak-out (hence why their first album is called Misantropicalia). They take traditional Brazilian music forms & turn them on their head in an avant-garde assault that has ambient filmic qualities one minute but sounds like the theme to an insane Warner Brothers cartoon the next. Definitely one for those who like to wander off the beaten track.

 Satanique Samba Trio – Misantropicalia, National,  2004.

Tracklist –

Teletransputa
Canção para Atrair Má Sorte Ato I (Song for Attracting Bad Luck Act I)
Deus Odeia Samba Rock (God Hates Samba-Rock)
Song for Attracting Bad Luck (Act II)
Gafieira Bad Vibe
Song for Attracting Bad Luck (Act III)
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Tropical Themes for Master Lucifer
Song for Attracting Bad Luck (Act IV)
Dança das Quiumbas (Dance of Quiumbas)

The Satanic reference in the name should not be taken lightly, puny X-tians. The Trio’s sound is very disjointed & aggravated, boiled down to punk-length samba extrapolations with lots of spiky electric guitar & amphetamine quick cuts. From the cut & paste textures, Zorn/Zappa aspirations, & horn arrangements that look back to Ornette Colemanesque freedom jazz of the 60s& 70s emerges a spectacular ensemble sound. Effects, especially on the bass sounds, are essential to what’s happening. Their release Sangrou cuts through any preconceptions of easygoing samba like a chainsaw through flesh.

This is Macumba-oriented, psycho-samba, avant-jazzy music from some truly twisted Mofos.

Satanique Samba Trio – Sangrou, Amplitude, 2007.

Tracklist –

Os Sininhos Dizem Morte
Kit de Amputação Asasulista)
Estilo Ricky Ramirez
Auto-Retrato em Tripas de Cachorro face 1
Chuva de Sangue em Exu, PE
Salsa em Carne Viva

Comendo Faca

Todos os Santos na Grelha
A Alma Boca Afora 
Morre, Brasília!
Cancerbol
Auto-Retrato em Tripas de Cachorro (face 2) 
Salve Satã e Ponto Final
Diabolyn
Canção para Atrair Ma Sorte (ato VI)
Peça para Pó, pele e osso em Dez por Oito

Enjoy,

NØ