samba all-star photo session in Lapa

I had another great photo session today in the historic Lapa district. By now I'm sure these cats are starting to look very familiar, no? This was like an all-star group pulled from some of the best groups and pagodes in town! They have all become great friends to me and are the sweetest bunch of ridiculously talented young musicians.



I'm having great fun getting back into photography again. It's especially a treat to have these guys feel at ease and look so natural in front of the lens. They have great energy and the minute they bust out their instruments, even when just posing, they start having fun. There were even some people following us around hoping to hear them play more. I really regret not having my video camera on hand as well...



A little adjustment and post-processing, but as always, absolutely NO CROPPING! Straight out of the camera! (this is where I pat myself on the back...).


(João Martins, bad-ass banjo player)


(The multi-talented Makley Matos. He used to play for the Harlem Globetrotters)


(Jorge "Dedé" André. We're still working on the smoking thing...)


(Marcelo Amaro)


(Jorge Alexandre)


(Lula Matos)




On the famous tiled staircase tourist stop in Lapa. Some gringos sat down thinking the fellas were going to put on a show. I'm sure they were disappointed when we left for the next location.


(At Beco do Rato. I don't usually see this place in the daylight!)


fui...

Samba under the almond tree

Yesterday I went "across the pond" to Niterói for the Samba da Amendoeira. The almond tree (as so many sambas, you might notice, are associated with trees!) sits outside of the Toca da Gambá bar. The light was fading fast so we went outside for a quick shoot. Unfortunately the light inside was almost nonexistent so I don't have any "live" shots.

The group is led by a (young) veteran of samba, Mingo. I posted a bit of an interview with him back in March. Mingo is a talented composer and he has had some of his songs recorded by several of the new generation of samba artists like Batuque na Cozinha and Galocantô.


(Mingo)


(Yuri Portella)


(Phelipe Ornellas)



(Rafael Lagoas)


(Monem)


(André 7 Cordas)


under the almond tree

After the samba, which ended early at around 10pm, I made my way back across the 14km bridge by bus accompanied by Baiaco, another incredible composer and skilled improviser. You can see him dueling with Bananada and João Martins in a past post about partido alto here. We were already in a "slightly" altered state, yet we headed to Lapa and ran into more bohemian friends, and more beer.

I finally made it home a few hours ago...

Simone Lial e Ponto Sem Nó

I wanted to post some photos of late. I've been getting tons of requests by my friends for photos and I've been doing my best to oblige as time is running short. I have a couple more shoots to do this week of some lovely people. This photo session of the group Simone Lial & Ponto Sem Nó was done in a vintage furniture store in the historic downtown district. The building is beautifully restored. Check out the website for Mercado Moderno and see more photos of their furniture and interior.

Simone Lial has gotten quite a bit of press in the last few years as one of the best female singers in the revival of the historic Lapa district. She has an amazing voice and great stage presence. But she's not new to the scene as she's been at it for over a decade with various groups.



I've been having fun just doing photography for the sake of photography. One of these photos will hopefully be getting published in a piece about the group. For the photo geeks: this shoot was done with only a Nikon D70s and a cheap 19-35mm lens, and a not-so-cheap 50mm f1.4 lens! Natural lighting with post-processing done in Adobe Lightroom.

Recording in Rocinha

(Renato Santos at his mother's home)

Last month I finally visited Rocinha for the recording session of my friend Renato Santos' first album. Rocinha is the largest shantytown in Latin America and today boasts banks, markets, cable tv, and bus lines. There is even a McDonald's.

It was fascinating to see the amount of traffic going up and down the main street that leads up through the community. Once we parked the cars we then walked through these winding pathways where people marched along in line going in both directions like an anthill. There were markets and butchers, barbers and bars, people's front doors, all tucked impossibly in between these unfinished brick houses that were stacked several stories high, right on top of each other in chaotic informal architecture.


(Maurício Araújo, helping with the repertoire)

Renato assembled many of his friends for the recording, and everyone pitched in to play a part. Even I did a photo shoot and shot some video to document the session.


(Lula Matos from Galocantô)

On the first day, Renato rounded up some of the fellas from Galocantô to lay down the base percussion tracks with accompanying voice, 7-string guitar and cavaco as guides.


(in the soundroom, which was about 3/4 of the entire space, with Leo Costinha from Galocantô, and Luiz Henrique on cavaco)


(Jorge Alexandre - he's actually a percussionst, though he can play the cavaco as well)


(Marcelo Correia from Galocantô)

I was amazed by the stamina these guys have for the studio. I was there from 10am until around 8pm, and some of them stayed and continued. What is especially warming is to see how they all contribute to each others' recordings, working long hours just for the love of it. I hope to provide you with a track soon. In the meantime...


(the eternal sunshine of Dedé)

...smile!

O Doutor e o Canhoto, Júniors.

Repique de anél - 101

After all this talk about Doutor and the repique de anél, perhaps you'd like to see it being played by one of the best young players of this instrument, Luiz Augusto, 24. Accompanying him is another wicked player, Abel Luiz, 26, a left-handed and upside-down mandolin/cavaco player who was inspired by the legendary Canhoto. This is just a little demo they did, with no smoke and mirrors.

These fellas are regulars at the Samba Luzia and Samba do Trabalhador and you can see a post with photos of them here. Please keep in mind that for some reason Luiz didn't tune the repique so it's quite flat. But the basic technique is there.

The handshake of Wilson Moreira

I Finally met mestre Wilson Moreira! As you can probably tell by now, my dear readers, I am quite fond of the man also known as Alicate ("pliers"). I learned how he got that nickname as soon as he shook my hand! You can see a video of Mestre Wilson in performance in a previous post here. You can also see him doing some fine miudinho dance steps in the classic Leon Hirszman film Partido Alto from 1978 here.

Mestre Wilson was one of the heavy cats on one of my favorite samba albums Partido em 5, which I have talked about extensively in this blog. In case you arrived late, that album from 1975 is a revolutionary recording featuring luminaries such as Candeia, Casquinha and Doutor in a live studio setting. I have already featured a track from this album elsewhere, but would like to feature one of Mestre Wilson's songs. Songwriting credits are also given to Doutor (they wrote "Doutô" on the album) for this track, though Moreira is the actual composer. As is often the case in many sambas, giving credit in a parceria, or partnership, was often more a symbol of mutual respect between sambistas than an actual co-authorship.

"Roda de partideiro" (Wilson Moreira / Doutô)
from the album Partido em 5 (1975)

I would also like to feature a song from his 1986 album Peso na Balança. This album, fortunately, was only recently released on CD by a Japanese label (Tanaka is the producer, according to Seu Wilson) who is a huge fan of traditional samba and has done more to recover old recordings than any Brazilian label ever has...


"Luanda Luandê" (Wilson Moreira)
from the album Peso na Balança (1986)

I was really thrilled to be able to ask Seu Wilson directly about not only that great album recording, but also the percussionist Doutor, that I have been trying to dig up information about. Unfortunately, Seu Wilson was not able to tell me that much, except that Doutor was discovered tapping on a bucket as he stood in line waiting for water in the community. He eventually transfered what he did on the bucket to a surdo de repique. For those of you into Brazilian percussion, the tenor drum repinique is part of the surdo family, just a smaller and much higher pitched version. So Doutor would tap on the shell with rings while playing the heads with both hands. The sound was so grooving and contagious that Doutor ended up recording on almost every samba album produced in the 1970s until he died. It's funny to imagine that such an instrument, that became such a standard in those recordings, was a relatively new invention.

Abraço Mestre Wilson!