Taking a break from dancing.
Rock the pandeiro bro! (But Miles Davis wants his glasses back).
Forrozeiros with my contact Roberto Andrade from the Confraria do Forró Pernambucana.
Arlindo and zabumba palyer.
You gotta dance!
Went again on Sunday evening to the forró at Arlindo´s house after tearing myself reluctantly away from a great maracatu (percussion music from Pernambuco) group playing in the street to a big crowd near my house. Carnaval is still a month away, but here in Olinda the season has already started and every Sunday beginning at four there is a kind of "practice" Carnaval in the streets.

But luckily I made it out to Arlindo´s because I met once again many forró musicians and fans and talked to a few of them who agreed to interviews (although actually getting the interviews is of course another matter!). Once again a great forró. Talked to alot of people, getting recognized because it´s my second time at Arlindo´s, and of course danced a whole lot and had some good Northeastern food (this time goat meat with maize couscous).

I´ll keep this post short, but starting to make some progress with collecting info and informants which is great. Also got some good photos sent to me by my new friends! Obrigado Liliana e galera!

Some new quotes...

I spoke a bit with a guitar player who plays in forró and other bands and he said something that I thought was interesting. He had lived in Germany for a couple years and was quite excited to hear that I was living in Holland. He talked about the differences between Europe and Brazil musically and socially and made this comment: "In Europe it´s accepted to play music in the street. You know those guys the play in front of bars for tips. But not here. Only 'vagabundos' (bums, lower class musicians) do this here, it´s not something a quality musician would do."
I was reading the biography of Luiz Gonzaga (the King of forró) and came across this quote that was in a similar vein: "When I recorded Asa branca (the most famous of all his songs) there was a joke made in bad taste. Canhoto, the guitar player... that accompanied me since the days of Mangue (where he played in the street for tips). So, he grabbed a hat and went around the group passing it among the players for them to put money into it, immitating me."

I interviewed a 29 year old woman who is a great fan of forró and who frequently attends dances and she had a couple interesting things to say. "Luiz Gonzaga, for me, never died. If you go to a forró today you´ll see that 80% of the songs played are from him.
"I dance forró because I like it, because it´s who I am, a Northeasterner. It´s my culture and it´s my people. "
"Forró is definitely increasing, yeah. In the past here in Olinda it was more a thing of São João (June Festivals). It the interior of the state it´s always been popular, doesn´t matter what time of year it is. But now you can find it here (in the city) the year round. It´s something for every soical class. It´s not just something for the poor. The public is really varied. It depends on where you go to see it. There are some places that have only 'matutos' (people from the interior), some for workers, some for university students, and so on."

I also went to the Joaquim Nabuco institute (a famous research institute here in Recife) and was denied entrance to the social science department because I was wearing shorts (where the hell do they think we are, England?) Next time I´ll bring some pants in my backpack, as there is no way I´m taking a sweaty hour bus ride out there in pants! But interestingly enough the people in the Sound Recording department didn´t have a problem with my shorts and were quite helpful. I´m definitely going back this week to talk to the radio announcer who works there who was really helpful, giving me tons of newspaper articles about forró to look through. He had many interesting comments about the trajectory of forró and right now I´ll just include one that he made in reference to how forró has recently gained in popularity among the younger generation: "The old turns itself into the kid again in the conception of the young people. It´s a re-encounter with the past."

Time to eat some lunch, I´ll post again soon!!!

Arlindo dos Oito Baixos, Me, and unidentified woman

Zequinha de Aleixo and his 8 bass accordeon playing some great pé de serra forró.

Forró de Arlindo

So, yesterday I went to the Forró night of Arlindo dos Oito Baixos. I met my contact, Roberto outside a shopping mall in the Boa Vista neighborhood of Recife and he called up his friend who drives a cab and we got picked up within 10 minutes.

So, we made it to the forró which is located in a working class neighborhood called Dois Unidos. As we made our way down the narrow street filled with bars that were croweded with Sunday afternoon drinkers the cab driver commented "the poorer the neighborhood the more parties there are" , something that I had heard before and noticed from my time living in Salvador. We hopped out the cab and I was introduced to the group of people out front. The forró actually takes place in the backyard of Arlindo's house that is quite large, probably 10 meters by 60. The whole yard is topped by a tall, sloping metal roof and at the far end is a concrete stage about a meter off the ground. The area is set up to look like the typical main street of an interior town and is quite charming with its little concrete "buildings" that immitate stores where you can buy drinks, candies, forró cd's, and food. We ordered some carne do sol with farofa and fritas (dried meat, manioc flour with butter, and fried potatos), a common plate in the Northeast. Washed down with a couple cold Antartica beers, it was delicious!
I was introduced to more people than I can remember including Arlindo, the master of ceremonies. Arlindo plays the samfona de oito baixos or the eight bass accordeon, which is the "traditional" lead instrument of forró pé de serra. It is very rare to see it played in Brazil these days as most of the players have switched to the larger accordeon with a much larger number of keys. The oito baixos is unique in Brazil as it is tuned to be chromatic, where in Europe it is normally diatonic. There is a button on one side that allows the samfona to be opened or closed without making a sound. It is also unique in that one note is made when opening it and another is played when closing the instrument. According to Arlindo this fact renders technique of playing the samfona de oito baixos completely different. He also plays the larger accordeon, but normally plays the oito baixos because he feels that it is in danger of dissapearing and he wants to keep the tradition alive. He started playing when he was 10 years old taking after his father who at first resisted his playing prefering his son not to be a musician. He eventually relented and Arlindo took off on his musical career.
There were various forró bands playing from the time we arrived, but when Alindo took the stage later in the night I understood why he was so famous. His playing really stood out as exceptional and you could see the joy on his face as he animated the crowd. The audience consisted of mostly locals who knew each other. Several of the people that I spoke with said they knew just about everyone in attendence by name and it appeared that only myself and a small group from Portugal that knew a local woman were the only people not from Recife or the immediate vicenity. There were alot of children and couples and the whole scene really was a family atmosphere, kids dancing with their aunts, uncles, and parents. There were also a large amount of musicians in attendence as about half the people I was introduced to over the evening also played either accordeon or one of the percussion instruments used in forró.

In my conversation with Arlindo he noted that forró had become more popular in the past few years with alot of younger people becoming interested in the music. He said that for a long time forró seemed to be becoming less popular and that he was very pleased to see a new interest in the music. He couldn't exactly explain why he thought this might be, but attributed a few musicians of the area with helping it happen.

Another interesting comment came from a woman who attends Arlindo's forrós regularly. When I mentioned my experiences with forró in Brasilia and São Paulo she observed that "The Northeast and its culture is not a physical space. It is a state of mind and so it moves freely and doesn't just remain in one fixed place. All of the migration that has happened from the Northeast to the South of Brazil has helped this to happen."

So, I could go on about alot more of my observations from the night but I'll cut it here as I have an appointment to go to a local radio station and interview the host of a forró program.
So far the forró at Arlindo's is the best forró I have heard musically speaking in Brazil and the atmosphere was great. I returned home tired and sweaty after several hours of dancing with some talented partners and some great conversations about music and life here...

Sala de Reboco

Well, starting to make some progress in my second week here. I met Roberto, a forró producer that lives in Recife, through a fellow researcher also studying forró (thanks Megwen!!). He knows many musicians here and should be a great help in making contact with them. Last night I went with him, his girlfriend, and a friend of hers to the Sala de Reboco, a popular forró night spot in Recife. Before we went there though we stopped at the Patio de São Pedro, which had a big (over 20 musicians!) frevo band playing for free to a small but very enthusiastic crowd of fans. Frevo is big, loud, and brassy music that sounds almost like your high school or military marching band mashed together with samba and choro and topped with a rainbow of colors. The dance is frenetic and complicated and the dancers are usually outfitted in flashy outfits and they sometimes wave around these tiny multi-coloured umbrellas; it makes you want to laugh and most Brazilians who are not from Pernambuco do laugh when you mention frevo!
The Patio is a big plaza with the requisite colonial church beautifully lit up in purple and orange hues, and is surrounded by small brightly painted bars that fill the period buildings. We met some musicians there and one of them was very friendly and gave me his cd, covering the front in a big blue autograph (What´s your name again, Kalvin, Kelvin, Kelvis?!? Kelvis has now become my newly adopted name here as no one ever gets Kevin on the first try unless I introduce myself as Kevin Costner. I do like the sound of Kelvis though, kind of makes me want to start a Las Vegas lounge act). The cd actually turned out to be very good, a combo of northeastern sounds, forró, maracatu, coco, etc. I´ve been discovering how popular it has become to mix together a variety of Brazilians sounds and stay away from a limited notion of a "pure" sound, maybe this can be connected to the whole miscegenation ideology which is still very strong here. It´s positive sides can be seen in an embracing of mixture, be it with music or with peoples, the negative is that it functions as a blinder for the racism inherent in society here.

So, after a birthday cake for Roberto´s girlfriend and several more rounds of introductions to various locals we made our way to the forró. Sala de Reboco is located in the Caxangá neighborhood, which could be described as "popular" here, meaning that it´s not quite a favela, but not really middle class either (at least in European or American terms). Upon entering Roberto grabbed my arm and led me to the backstage room where the musicians were hanging out before the show. A new round of introductions, "This is Gilberto Gil´s sanfona player, this guy is the best zabumba player in Pernambuco....." I made the aquantaince of an accordeon player named Camarão (Shrimp), in his late 60´s, with a big belly, friendly face, and huge glasses who played with Luiz Gonzaga (undisputed master of forró). We talked as he ate his caldinho (bean soup) before the show. I asked him a few questions about his music and life, but the room was so full of people coming and going and various conversations and music happening that it wasn´t really a proper interview, but he invited me to come over to his house to talk further which was great. So, after a few other conversations backstage we made our way back to the table. I noticed that the bathrooms were marked as "macho" and "femea" (the terms in Portuguese for male and female animals) which I thought was interesting. A whole lot of "country" going on in there. Cows heads mounted, walls painted with rural themes, wooden fences, plenty of jeans, and a load of cowboy hats, both north-american style stetsons and the leather ones of Northeast Brazil. Not everyone was in "country" style dress though. I danced with Diana for a couple hours who had previously advised me that I should be careful as she didn´t stop dancing once she started (true to her word!) and when I could stand no more, made my way back to our table and had a couple beers as I observed the interactions between the patrons in the by now steaming club. Anthropology can be sweaty work!


More observations to follow as I´ve already spent over an hour in this internet cafe....

Oi Pessoal!

So, slowly but surely making contacts here. Talked to many people about forró, northeastern music in general, and life in Brasil over the weekend. Also had my first formal sitdown interview that I had planned would be about 30 minutes but ended up being about 90 minutes, and I only asked about five questions! I also marked an interview for this Saturday with one of the most popular musicians of the area, Mestre Salustiano, who plays the rabeca fiddle and is a kind of legend here, everyone I talked to so far about forró has mentioned his name.
So, Saturday night I met a local woman whose brothers play in a local samba de roda band (yeah, not forró, but I thought it could be interesting). I went with a French anthropologist to her house at the entrance to a favela to have lunch and see the band practice. It was quite interesting in that we kept getting apologies for everything which was a bit embarrassing. Anyway, the band was supposed to start at 2 PM, but by 5 Pm they cancelled after consuming a large amount of rum and beer. Interestingly enough two of the group were military police and so we got some outrageous and sad stories. One of them went inside after several hours of drinking, put on his uniform and went off to work. The other one was telling stories about how he would get really drunk and pull out his gun and start shooting in the air to scare people. The family pulled out old photos from the 60´s and everyone was laughing at the old fashions. It was kind of sad though because several of the people in the photos had been murdered, raped, or had "disappeared". The unfortunate and sad stories of life here. I was also talking with a woman today at the bakery who after a few minutes of conversation casually mentioned that her husband had been killed by bandits a couple years ago in a robbery. "A vida é assim" "That´s life." was her fatalistic response and I didn´t probe any further.

About the forró... went to a couple of dances this past weekend and had a great interview with a percussionist who is involved in a couple of groups here, one Serra Veía, which I listened to their cd and enjoyed quite a bit. I taped most of the interview, which we had in a plaza in front of one of the old churches here. I´ll have to transcibe it because he gave me some great quotes, but in general he was quite critical of the help of the city government to promote forró, but also very optomistic about the future of the music.

One great quote from someone I met at a forró the other night I have here beside me in my notebook.

"Traditional music in Brazil is not something dead, stopped in time like in Europe. It is something alive that changes and adapts through time, grabbing influences from around itself and re-inventing constantly."


Um Abraço!!

Well, what can I say about yesterday?

I thought I was going to have an interview in the morning and one in the afternoon, but one of the musicians wasn´t home and the other one never showed up (or maybe he did eventually, but I waited for over an hour). So, by the evening I was not feeling the best and reluctantly made my way out to see what was going on in town and see if I could find a forró.
I talked to a guy hanging out in the main plaza of historic Olinda and he told me about a forró happening at a bodega not far away. I made my way up the cobblestoned hills of the city, past rows of colourfully painted colonial houses, stopping along the way to check out a frevo band practice in a hall with its windows open to let out the enormous sound of twenty brass instruments and a scattering of percussion thumps and cracks. I found the little bodega that was spilling over with people drinking and conversing in the streets. I bought a cold bottle of beer and scanned the crowd and saw the familiar face of a French woman also doing anthropological research here that I had met a couple days before. She was talking with a group of people and I got introduced around. One of them was a French music producer who worked with music from Pernambuco so we ended up having a good conversation about music and Brazil.
After a while we decided to walk over to a local place that had live music. Our group had enlarged to include a couple Brazilians and two Italian girls. We arrived at the place and there was a crowd of about 40 people in front, laughing, conversing animatidly, kissing, and drinking in front of the bar. From inside came the sounds of the rabeca fiddle, the steel clank of the triangle, and the thump of the zabumba drum and the crisp rattle of the pandeiro. The forró was mingling with the sounds of the crowd outside and causing people to sway to the beat and make the little side steps typical to forró dancing.
After a beer outside we made our way into the small bar which had a four piece band in full swing and couples dancing close together, everyone sweating in the heat of the room. The band played mostly instrumental forró of the pé de serra variety. Within an hour the little bar was packed with people, watching from the wooden tables on the side and dancing rapidly to the strong upbeat music. One of the Italian girls said to me in a mixture of broken Portuguese and English "Este es musica bem country!"We stayed for a couple hours switching couples and dancing until we had to take beer breaks because of the heat. I wanted to get a chance to talk to the musicians, but they only took one break and were busy talking with a group of people near the far end of the bar and adjusting the sound board behind the amps. After 2 am the crowd began to disperse a bit and we went back outside where a large crowd remained listening to the
music drift into the night air. I stayed for a while talking with some of the local guys about the forró scene and sharing a last drink. I made my way back home with the music still ringing in my ears.....

Me 

Oi Gente!

Well, I arrived in Recife late monday night on a cheap flight from Salvador. Imagine, the flight was only about 10 euros more than the bus! My Italian friend picked me up on his motorbike and we had a high speed ride into Olinda with me holding on with my big backpack trying not to move the weight around too much as we rode on the highway with speeding trucks coming within inches of us and my friend honking every time we passed a car (he later explained that in the past year he had had several near death experiences with cars suddenly swerving across lanes of traffic in front of him).

So, we made it safely to Olinda and had some wine as he told me about his experiences of trying to become a legalized citizen here (involving a questionable marriage that he is presently trying to annul). He left the next morning to travel north for a few weeks so I have his apartment until February. I´ve had some interesting conversations about forró music and the local music scene here with some of the locals. One comment: "The northeast and its people and culture have always been looked down upon by the richer southeast. Only recently have some avenues been opened up, through music, that are recognizing that there is great cultural richness in these so called 'poor and backward' areas of Brazil."
I set up an interview for this morning with a local musician but he wasn´t at home when I called to confirm and instead I spoke with a little kid who asked me my name about 6 times before telling me "não, ele já saiu!" (No, he´s gone already!)
I have another interview marked for this afternoon so I´m crossing my fingers that he will show up. His band makes some very interesting forró with the rabeca (fiddle) in place of accordion. Hopefully I can get the woman who plays fiddle to give me some interviews as I have not seen many women playing forró (except occaisionally singing). There are forró dances held tonite through Sunday in various places around the area so I will be at them all and hopefully get a good jump on some informants.
I went to the Terça Negra (Black Tuesday) event the other night with a fellow researcher that I met here that is held every Tuesday in a plaza in Recife. Great music, heavily African influence, alot of maracatus, cocos, afoxes, and good vibes overall. Some interesting comments made by the performers: "You all don´t have bad blood. You are worth something even if they try to make you feel like you aren´t."
Yesterday was one of those days that you set out with good intentions trying to get something done and end up not really accomplishing much. I did get a list of questions for my interviews today, but didn´t succeed in too much more. Hopefully the next few days will make up for this. It´s so hot here that it makes you really tired being out and about midday.

Leaving Salvador - Heading to Recife

Hi all! Spending my last hours here at the apartment of some very dear friends that I lived with in 1999-2000 when I was a teacher in this city (Salvador). We spent a couple days up the coast relaxing, swimming in the ocean, hanging around in the hammock, and reading. Now, it´s time to get to my fieldwork location and start working! I did happen to get some good info already from talking with some people. I got a great story from my friend Passos about how his mother had to hide from Lampião and his men when they came into their small town in the dry interior of Sergipe raiding. Lampião is an infamous character that has almost become mythlike in Brazil, becoming somewhat of a Robin Hood figure. In reality he was a bloodthirsty bandit that managed to evade the authorities as he and his troop roamed throughout the Northeast of Brazil in search of towns and farms to loot. There is a dance in Brazil called the xaxado that is a sub-genre of forró which is traditionally danced by men only, although in the present day it is danced by women as well taking the part of Maria Bonita, Lampião´s wife. According to Passos, Lampião came to town one day and put on a feast in which he encouraged everyone to dance. In the middle of the party he shouted out that he wanted the men to pair up and dance together. "Imagine! All of these macho northeastern men being told to dance together! So, one guy is so mad that he can´t contain his anger, even though Lampião is known as a killer. The man shouts out, `You´re damned´. Lampião turns around to see who had the nerve to disobey him and he gves the man a look that says the party might turn bloody. The man, realizing his mistake shouts out, `You´re damned good! You´re damned good!´" There is a well known song by forró master Luiz Gonzaga that plays on this story called "Danado de bom".